The question comes up in every demo: is it legitimate to pull the people who engaged with my post? The answer depends entirely on three criteria, and not at all on the technique used.
Criterion 1: who owns the data
The people who comment on your post engaged publicly with content you created. Looking at that list is exactly what the platform already offers you in its interface.
Scraping a competitor's followers, on the other hand, has nothing to do with you. You produced nothing that justifies that access.
Criterion 2: the pace
Browsing at a human pace is no problem. Thousands of requests a minute is automated behavior that every platform bans, and it will cost you your account.
That's why we deliberately cap the rate, even when the infrastructure could go faster.
Criterion 3: the use
Noticing that someone took an interest in your topic so you can write them a relevant message is normal business. Dropping them into an automated seven-email sequence unrelated to their engagement is spam.
The technique is the same. The use is what differs, and the use is what puts you at risk. That's also why content beats outbound sequences on this kind of offer.
The right question isn't "can I technically do this." It's "would I be comfortable explaining it to the person involved."
What we refuse to do
- No access to data from any account that isn't yours.
- No password login: only official authorizations, revocable at any time.
- No getting around the platforms' rate limits.
- No reselling or pooling of data across customer accounts.
What replaces volume
Instead of piling up contacts, look at which of your posts start conversations. Engagement relative to reach is the only metric that lets you compare two posts: calculate yours. The rest of the reasoning is in turning your posts into clients.