Instagram extends Reels API Access to Third-Party Platforms

Brands will soon have more options for posting Instagram Reels to their accounts, and managing related activity, with Meta announcing that it’s launching its Reels API for external use and soon, Instagram Reels will also be available as an option in these tools.

As explained by Meta, “Beginning tomorrow, June 28th, 2022, we will begin introducing Reels to several endpoints on the Instagram Platform. We are always looking to improve our content publishing and consumption experiences, whether people use Instagram natively, or via a third party. After consistently hearing from our developer community that Reels is a top priority, we are excited to introduce Reels to a number of the endpoints that you may already be familiar with.”

Instagram support for Reels

Instagram will expand the scope of support of reels to:

• Content Publishing
• Insights
• Comment Moderation
• Hashtag Search
• Business Discovery
• Mentions
• Promote API
• Instagram Basic Display API

This API enhancement will be available for the current version, and all previous versions of the Graph API. Reels will become automatically available for developers who already have access to the applicable APIs. You will not need to put your app through additional App Review, as long as your app has already been approved for the appropriate permission access levels.

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Starting tomorrow, around 25% of Instagram user accounts will have access to all Reels APIs. The APIs will gradually roll out to 100% of users by July 6. The launch of the Reels APIs comes as Meta has been betting big on the short-form video feature.

API access enables platforms like Hootsuite and Sprout Social to provide cross-platform posting and analytics capacity within a single dashboard, which can make it much easier to keep track of your various social posts and schedules in one place. That also makes it a key priority for brands, and the added capacity to manage your Reels content within your broader social media management tool will make it much easier to add Reels into your social content mix.

While some users may have access to all Reels APIs as early as June 28, this rollout will occur gradually at the account level through July 6. We will be unable to indicate which users have access between June 28 and July 6.