Reply to Instagram comments with an automatic DM

In short: open Automations, tap Create automation and pick Comment a word, get a DM. Choose the account, the post and the word, write the message and tap Activate. You need a Professional Instagram account connected.

What you need

• A Professional Instagram account connected. A personal account won't work. See connecting your social accounts.
• To be the workspace admin. Members can see automations, but only whoever runs the workspace can create and change them.
• Room in your plan. Your plan sets how many automations you can have. Paused automations count too. If there's no room, the screen itself offers the plan that allows more.

Sending direct messages doesn't use credits.

How to set it up

1. Open Automations and tap Create automation.
2. In Start from a template, pick Comment a word, get a DM.
3. Follow the four steps. Next to them, a preview shows what the person will see on Instagram.
4. Tap Activate.

No Instagram connected? Tap Connect Instagram right there and come back to finish.

1. When someone comments

• Choose the Account and the post: Any post or A specific post.
• In Reply when someone comments, pick A specific word or emoji or Anything.
• In Trigger words, type the words. Capitals and accents don't matter. Emoji work too, like 🔥.

The account's posts show up a few minutes after you connect it.

2. Reply on the post

Turn on Reply to the comment publicly so the account answers under the comment. With it off, the person only gets the DM and nobody sees a reply on the post.

3. Direct message

Write the message that lands in the commenter's DMs. You can include the person's name and up to 3 link buttons.

Turn on Start with an opening DM to send a message with a button first. The link only goes out after the person taps it. That tap opens the conversation, and it's what unlocks the extras in the next step.

4. Extras

• Ask for a follow before the link: people who already follow get the link right away. People who don't get asked to follow.
• Ask for email: the email the person sends goes to the Contacts tab, with Download CSV.
• Follow up if they don't click: a second message, with the same buttons, for whoever didn't open the link.
• Reply to each person once every 7 days: whoever comments again in that period doesn't get everything again.

Instagram's rules

These rules come from Instagram. No tool gets around them:

• One private message per comment.
• A comment that's too old can no longer get a private message.
• 24-hour window: after the person's last message, you can only write to them for 24 hours. That's why whoever doesn't follow or reply within that window doesn't get the rest.

Each comment is answered by one automation only. If two automations match the same comment, the older one wins.

Test and keep track

A paused automation doesn't fire anything. Test it to see what happens at each step, and activate it when it's ready.

In the Runs tab, you see every time the automation ran and what happened at each step. If something wasn't sent, the reason shows there. For example, the person didn't tap the opening DM's button.

Other comment and message templates

Under Comments and messages, there are more ready-made templates:

• DM link only for followers.
• Sent a keyword in private, gets the reply.
• Hide comments with links.