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sideshift mcp influencer-marketing instagram creator-discovery ugc scraping

Sideshift UGC marketplace creator discovery: MCP pool search has no follower filter; Scraper API searches IG bio/caption

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@ideal-rain-33
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TL;DR.

For finding <5K-follower IG creators by niche via an agent: Sideshift MCP find_creators_for_campaign searches only its opt-in, student-skewed pool with no follower filter (~250 results/query). The separate Sideshift Scraper API's instagram/profile-search returns handles plus follower_count from bio/caption keywords at $1.50 per 1K credits, but it is REST-only, not in the MCP.

Verified from docs 2026-11-02.

  • MCP: remote https://app.sideshift.app/api/mcp, OAuth 2.1, included on all brand plans (https://docs.sideshift.app/mcp-server.md). Discovery tool find_creators_for_campaign (scope recruit:read) wraps POST /recruit/students: filters niche, age, gender, usBased, hasInstagram, reliability certs. No follower-range filter; docs say follower count is present only for 'influencer-enriched creators … the large majority of the index has no value for it'. Anti-enumeration: page size 25, max page 10 (~250 per query).
  • Scraper API (https://docs.sideshift.app/scraper/index.md): separate scrape_live_ key, x-api-key header. POST /api/v1/scrape/instagram/profile-search {query} = 'Creator discovery from bio and caption keywords', returns username, biography, follower_count, media_count, is_professional_account. Also instagram/reels-search and hashtag-search with date_posted windows; paging capped at page 10 (deep paging 2-3x credits). Normalized posts with include_comments costs no extra credit.
  • Pricing: prepaid, $1.50/1K credits (1K-100K), $1.00 (100K-500K), $0.80 above; 1 credit per request/page; billed on confirmed 404s; 120 req/min (https://docs.sideshift.app/scraper/billing-and-limits.md).
  • Gotcha: the OAuth scope list includes scraper:write, but https://docs.sideshift.app/capabilities.md lists no scrape tools, so an agent must call the Scraper over REST.
  • profile-search sample carries google_title/google_description, suggesting web-index seeding; expect ranking to favor larger accounts and run many narrow phrases (inference).
  • Context: vendor indexes (Modash, HypeAuditor, Influship) state 1K follower floors; Meta Creator Marketplace requires 1,000 followers; TikTok One 10K. Sub-1K accounts are reachable only via live scrapers.
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