The Instagram comments reply trigger in Manychat is a game-changer for increasing engagement and expanding your audience. By automatically responding to comments on your posts, it keeps interactions with your followers active and meaningful. You can capture leads directly from comments and integrate them into your Manychat automations for ongoing engagement.
This not only saves time but also strengthens relationships and helps convert followers into loyal customers, all while maintaining a vibrant and interactive Instagram presence. Using this trigger, you can automatically post a public reply to a comment under a post or reel and also send a private reply via direct messages to the users who commented.
How to set up the Instagram comments reply trigger
In your Manychat account, navigate to Automations > New automation or choose one of the existing automations:
In the flow builder, click New trigger and select the User comments on your post or reel option from the list:
In the settings, you can configure this trigger to work with a specific post or reel, all posts or reels, or your next post or reel.
You can specify keywords that comments must include to trigger the automation and also exclude keywords for comments that should not trigger the automation. Additionally, you can set the trigger to activate with any comment:
⚠️ Currently, the Instagram comments reply trigger is only available for regular and boosted posts or reels. Due to current API limitations, it does not work for IGTV.
Order of automations
Please note that if you have multiple active Instagram comments reply triggers in your account, certain priorities will apply:
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If multiple triggers work with all posts or reels without any keywords, the oldest trigger (the one created first) will always activate.
- If all triggers have specific keywords, each keyword will activate its respective flow.
How to configure public auto-replies for comments on your posts or reels
On the third step of the Instagram comments reply trigger setup, you can configure it to automatically leave the public reply you want to comment under a post or reel. You can also choose not to leave any comment replies:
To avoid having your replies flagged as spam by Instagram's automated systems:
- Change the wording of your auto-replies periodically
- Use different auto-replies for various comments
- Avoid using very short replies or ones consisting only of emojis.
✅ If your Instagram account receives a high volume of comments, we automatically enable a special mechanism on the backend to prevent continuous auto-responses from triggering any spam detection mechanisms.
How to automate private responses in Instagram direct messages
When someone comments on your post, you can send them an automated direct message through an automation.
Please note that sending a private response in direct messages doesn’t automatically opt users into your Instagram channel or open the 24-hour messaging window. This will only happen if the user interacts with the message by sending a response as well as clicking a regular or quick reply button.
To set up a private response, open the automation in the flow builder and add an Instagram message node to it:
If you add the Instagram comments reply trigger first, followed by the message node, or if there's only one message node without anything else attached, and then add the trigger after this message node, the message will automatically be marked as a comment reply.
In all other cases, such as adding the trigger to an already created automation or adding the trigger as the last step in building the automation, you will need to manually mark the first message node as a comment reply. Otherwise, you will receive the following error message when trying to publish the automation: "Mark the message as a "Comment Reply" if you want to send it as a reply to a post or reel comment":
In the above example, once users click the "Get the discount!" button, the 24-hour window opens, and they successfully receive the second message. They are also added to your contact list in Manychat as they opt into your Instagram channel by clicking this button.
Additionally, if the following pop-up window appears when trying to mark the first message node in your automation as a comment reply, it means your message contains some content that is not allowed. You need to remove all content except the text block with buttons or quick replies, or create a new message node without the extra content.
Please note that if you choose the Open website option when specifying what happens when the button is pressed, it won't be considered an opt-in to your Instagram channel. As a result, users will not appear in your contact list, the 24-hour messaging window will not open for them, and you won't be able to communicate with them further.
Once your automation is ready, click the Preview button to test it before publishing:
If you click the arrow pointing down next to the Preview button, you can choose to preview the automation either in Manychat or directly on Instagram. The last option lets you see everything exactly as your audience will experience it:
To publish the automation, click the Update button in the upper right corner of the flow builder:
Once you publish the automation, be sure to turn on the Instagram comments reply trigger to ensure it works correctly:
In addition to the Instagram message node, you can use action, condition, randomizer, and smart delay blocks as the first node in your automation, as demonstrated in the examples below:
Please note that you must include at least one message node in your automation attached to the Instagram comments reply trigger. Without this, you won’t be able to publish the automation because it doesn't work only for comment replies; the private response in the direct messages is mandatory.
Instagram comments reply trigger and collaborative posts
The Instagram comments reply trigger works with collaborative posts only if you are the original poster. It will not work if you are added as a collaborator:
The automation triggered by a keyword operates within the scope of the original poster’s account. Hence, the automation should work as intended if you're the original poster. However, the automation may not function as expected if you're a collaborator.
For example, suppose you are the original poster and invite an influencer as a collaborator. In that case, any automatic comment responses set up from your Manychat account will be active on the post. People who comment with keywords will receive the public and private auto-replies configured from your Manychat account.
However, as a collaborator and not the original poster, the influencer won’t have these automatic responses set up for their account. They will only be active for the original poster, which is you in this scenario.
The collaborative post will be visible on the influencer's account. However, the automation will not function for any users who view and comment on the post there. Since you are the person who connected your account to Manychat and configured automation for your post, it will only work for the individuals who view the post in your feed. However, it will not operate for those who view it in the influencer's feed and leave a comment.
In short, the automation will work for the original poster but not the collaborator.
Instagram comments reply trigger and boosted posts
Starting June 11th, 2024, the Instagram comments reply trigger works with boosted posts.
Please note that the post picker will only display posts that exist in the Instagram account's feed. Therefore, purely advertising posts created in Ads Manager that are not visible in the account feed will not be available for selection and automation for the Instagram comments reply trigger.