Did you suddenly lose the ability to track hashtags due to Instagram changes this month?  Here’s why:

Back in November 2015, Instagram announced they would be changing their application policy in an effort to curtail malicious apps. On June 1, 2016 ALL apps or programs that had not gone through the new approval process and approved by Instagram were rendered unworkable.

Here is the announcement and link:

https://www.instagram.com/developer/review/

What this meant for contests and sweepstakes companies was that any company that relied on the public Instagram data feeds to pull hashtag entries through an unapproved app could not do so as of June 1, 2016.

If your app did go through the approval process, and was approved, entries could still be pulled.

If not, you were pretty much unable to pull hashtag data for contests and sweepstakes.

We heard from a few companies that experienced the latter. For some of them the solution was to cancel the promotion. Some tried to pull data manually, but since the feeds are no longer public they found this was not a viable option, especially for promotions with a large volume of entries. Others turned to other companies, like Marden-Kane, for answers.

Marden-Kane has a Social Tool for Contests that IS an approved Instagram app. It can still pull real-time hashtag data for contests. With it, we can find hashtag entries, pull that data into a database, provide moderation and judging services, and select and contact winners for our client campaigns. With the data we can provide you with accurate reports and winner info.

Marden-Kane can also help you steer through other Instagram promotion guidelines, write official rules and use best practices to ensure promotion success.

If you would like to discuss using the Marden-Kane Social Tool for your next Instagram promo contact us today.

To read more posts by Marden-Kane, please visit our main blog page or subscribe to our email list.