App Limitations - A Complete Guide

Social media analytics can sometimes feel confusing: some numbers are missing, some are estimated, and some look different from what you see in native apps.

That’s not because we don’t want to show them — it’s because each platform decides what data to share through their APIs.

Our platform connects directly to the official APIs of each social media platform, allowing us to collect accurate and secure data about your profiles and competitors.

This guide explains why some metrics aren’t available, how we handle missing data, and what you can do to get the most out of your Socialinsider projects.

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter/X decide what data they make available to third-party tools.

We use their official APIs — secure “bridges” between our app and the platforms — to collect data.

These rules apply to all third-party analytics tools, not just ours.

Here's why social platforms don't share all their data:

→ Privacy First

Platforms must protect user privacy. They cannot allow third-party tools to access personal information, private messages, or detailed viewer data.

This is both a legal requirement and a trust issue with users.

→ Competitive Advantage

Your detailed audience insights, reach data, and performance metrics are valuable business intelligence.

Platforms maintain exclusivity for account owners to preserve their competitive edge and encourage direct platform use.

→ Business Strategy

Platforms want you to use their native analytics tools and advertising platforms.

Limiting third-party access encourages you to spend more time (and money) directly on their platform.

→ Technical Resources

Sharing data costs money and server resources. Platforms limit how much and how often third-party tools can request data to manage their infrastructure costs.

Think of an API (Application Programming Interface) as a bridge between two systems:

If Instagram’s API doesn’t “send” Instagram Stories data for competitors, no tool can show those insights.

If Facebook shares audience demographics only for connected accounts, we can’t access them for competitors.

This section breaks down current limitations by platform and profile type.

❗️Followers are people who follow a Facebook page, while fans are those who have liked a page. These are distinct metrics. Due to API limitations, follower numbers are only available for connected pages.

❗️To connect an Instagram account, it must be linked to a Facebook Business page.

❗️Data Volume Limits for X(Twitter):

The Challenge: Platforms limit the amount of historical content we can access, even with proper permissions.

Example: If a profile posted hundreds of tweets in the past month, we can only access a limited number of posts that fit within the platform's restrictions — similar to what you'd see when scrolling through their profile.

Historical follower data is restricted across all social platforms due to API limitations.

Follower counts for past dates are not available. We only begin collecting follower counts from the day a profile is first added to the platform.

This limitation applies to both connected accounts and competitor profiles.

Sometimes, data from APIs comes with hidden rules or extra context.

Here are a few important scenarios to know:

We collect post-level reach directly from the API whenever possible.

However, total page reach is not provided by platforms:

💡 Example: If John sees 3 of your posts, APIs count him 3 times in post reach, but in total page reach, he should count once.

Instagram lets creators hide the number of likes on their posts.

Here’s how we handle it:

💡 Example: A post gets 10 likes while it’s public → we display those 10.

If the creator hides likes afterward and gains 5 more likes, those 5 won’t appear in our reports.

We cannot gather information for private or unlisted YouTube videos, meaning we cannot access analytics for this content.

We work around missing data wherever possible by:

For competitor profiles, metrics such as post views, impressions, and reach are not available via the API.

We provide estimated data for these metrics in the dashboard.

Estimated data appears in your dashboard with a dashed line.

For example, below you can see that data for January and February 2025 isn't available because the profile was added to the dashboard later.

However, our estimation fills those gaps by providing estimated historical follower counts, giving you a more complete view of your account's growth trajectory over time.

When viewing the chart for later timeframes, the real data is clearly visible.

This occurs because the profile was added to our platform on February 24, 2025 — we only begin collecting insights from that point forward.

❗️Note: As you continue using our tool, the proportion of actual data will increase, gradually replacing estimates with real data.

For example, the Total Reach metric on Facebook is clearly labeled as estimated in the dashboard — Meta itself also estimates this metric.

Recently, Instagram implemented significant changes to its metrics system, and we've updated our platform accordingly to reflect these changes.

Instagram replaced Impressions with Views for all content types and removed profile action metrics from connected accounts (including website clicks, email contacts, phone call clicks, text message clicks, and get directions clicks).

Some data is unavailable to any third-party analytics tool because APIs don’t provide it — this means that there are boundaries we simply cannot cross, no matter how advanced our technology becomes:

Here’s how you can get the most accurate insights:

Despite these limitations, using a third-party tool offers significant advantages. Even when certain metrics aren't available, Socialinsider helps you focus on strategic insights by clearly showing what we can measure:

These limitations aren't unique to our tool — they affect every social media analytics platform on the market. Our competitors operate within the same constraints.

What differentiates analytics tools:

Successful social media management increasingly requires understanding these constraints and adapting strategies accordingly.

Social media analytics requires working strategically within data constraints rather than expecting unlimited access. The most successful marketers recognize these limitations and prioritize actionable insights over perfect metrics.

We're committed to transparency about our capabilities, continuously refining our estimation methods, and helping you make informed decisions with the available data.

Remember: Perfect data doesn't exist in social media analytics. Success comes from understanding the landscape, identifying reliable trends and patterns, and making strategic decisions based on the best available information.