Content and discovery

Know which customer clip you may run

A customer films your product, you reshare it, and six months later someone asks whether it can go behind ad spend. Rights are a record-keeping problem wearing a creative costume: the clip is easy to find again, the permission is not. This flow finds the clip through the documented endpoints and keeps the written answer beside it, with its scope and its expiry, because that is the part nobody can reconstruct later.

Triggers: Two
Runs: Weekly sweep
Stack: 4 tools
Durable execution: Not required

The flow

The top track captures what arrives tagged. The bottom track goes looking for what did not. They meet at one table, and one question is asked of it.

▶ Platform

You are @mentioned

Instagram Graph API

Orchestration

Capture the clip and its context

n8n · Make

Data

Write the rights row

Sheets · Airtable

▶ Orchestration

Weekly hashtag sweep

n8n schedule

Notify

Ask, in writing

Slack · WhatsApp

Orchestration

Written permission on file?

n8n IF

Data

Mark it clear for paid

Sheets · Airtable

Notify

Hold it back to organic

Slack · WhatsApp

Step by step

01
You are @mentioned
Instagram Graph API
A webhook on mentions. The moment you learn the clip exists is the cheapest moment to ask for permission, because the person is still thinking about you.
02
Capture the clip and its context
n8n · Make
Record the media id, the account, the caption and the date. Store the permalink rather than assuming you may keep a copy — the copy is the thing you have not been given permission for yet.
03
Write the rights row
Sheets · Airtable
One row per clip: who filmed it, exactly what you asked for, exactly what they answered, and what that answer covers — organic reshare only, or paid too, in which markets, until when.
04
Weekly hashtag sweep
n8n schedule
The second way a clip surfaces: someone tags your campaign without tagging you. Run it against a short fixed list, because the endpoint is metered on unique hashtags rather than on calls.
05
Ask, in writing
Slack · WhatsApp
Send the permission request and log the reply verbatim. A thumbs-up in a comment thread is not a licence, and the table should not be allowed to record it as one.
06
Written permission on file?
n8n IF
The condition reads the row, not anyone's memory of the conversation. If the row is empty, the answer is no, however clearly you remember it being yes.
07
Mark it clear for paid
Sheets · Airtable
Record the scope and the expiry next to the clearance. A clip cleared for one campaign in one market is not cleared for the next one, and the table has to be able to say so.
08
Hold it back to organic
Slack · WhatsApp
It can still be reshared with credit if that is what the person agreed to. What it cannot do is appear behind media spend, and the person choosing creative needs to see that state before they build the ad, not after.

What the platform will not allow

Finding the clip is metered, and finding it grants you nothing. Both halves are documented.

"You can query a maximum of 30 unique hashtags within a 7 day period." The sweep runs on a short fixed list, and adding a tag mid-week spends part of that allowance for the rest of the week.
Instagram Platform — IG Hashtag Search
The hashtag endpoint returns a hashtag id and no personal data. It locates media; it never yields the creator's contact details, so the permission request still has to travel through the account itself.
Instagram Platform — IG Hashtag Search
business_discovery reads public fields of another Instagram Business or Creator account, and "data about age-gated Instagram Business IG Users will not be returned". It also requires instagram_basic, instagram_manage_insights and pages_read_engagement. Being able to read a post is not being permitted to use it.
Instagram Platform — IG User business_discovery
"You will not engage in Automated Data Collection without first obtaining Meta's express written permission or in any manner that is not explicitly authorized by Meta." The gap between what these endpoints return and what you wish they returned cannot be closed by scraping.
Meta — Automated Data Collection Terms

When this is not worth building

Three cases where the upkeep costs more than the uncertainty.

You never put customer content behind ad spend. Reshares with credit, taken down on request, are a folder and a note — the table would only be recording a decision you can reverse in a minute.
Nobody is authorised to grant or refuse usage on your side. The flow would collect answers that no one can act on, and the clearance column becomes a place where requests go to wait.
You receive so little tagged content that each clip is a conversation someone remembers. The rights table earns its keep at the volume where memory stops being evidence, and not before.