TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Creating a new Facebook Comment Trigger
- Selecting a Post
- Configuring a reply
- Configuring Auto-response
- IMPORTANT NOTES:
- Posts with multiple pictures.
- Connecting a post created in the Facebook Ads Manager
Creating a new Facebook Comment Trigger
Facebook Comments Triggers (or Comments Growth Tool 2.0) unlock the power of the Flow Builder for campaigns starting with a comment to a post from your Facebook Business Page.
Quite similar to the Comments Growth Tool, it fires when someone comments on a post, but allows you to add various blocks before a reply.
From a Growth Tools Tab
To start, please go to Growth Tools -> New Growth Tool and select Facebook Comments 2.0
Once you click on it, a new Opt-In Flow will be created for this new Comments Growth Tool 2.0 (we'll call it CGT 2.0 for simplicity).
From a Flow
Alternatively, you can create a new blank Flow, click on the Add Trigger button inside Starting Step and choose a new "Comments Trigger" from the modal.
After adding the trigger to your Flow, please make sure to select 'Comment Reply' content type for the first message of your CGT 2.0 Opt-In Flow. This will allow the CGT 2.0 to properly trigger for any user commenting under your posts.
After the trigger is created, you can set some of its settings
As you see, you'll have to:
1. Select a specific post from the Page you'd like to connect the widget to or choose the trigger to work on all posts (Pro plan feature).
2. Enable "Track first-level comments only" option - it will disable the growth tool for second-level comments (i.e. replies).
3. Set keywords, if you want the tool to be triggered only for comments containing certain words. Or set certain words to be ignored by the tool. You can also just leave these two fields empty so any comment under the post can trigger the Auto-response message.
Please note that the Comments Trigger works for Published posts on your FB Page, in-progress FB Live posts and Scheduled posts and Boosted posts, but it might not work correctly with Ad posts created in the Ads Manager (for more details, read the 'Selecting a Post' section below, paragraphs 3 and 4).
NOTES:
- The tool works with new and old posts, but the bot won't recognize already existing comments left in the old posts' comment sections.
- The widget doesn't work with posts in Groups or on Personal Profiles on FB.
- If you have 'All posts' Comments Trigger and another one connected to a specific post, be aware that the specific post Comments Trigger will have a priority over the 'All posts' one and will be the only one to fire
Selecting a Post
Let's talk a bit more about the posts that you can connect.
To choose a post, click 'Select A Post' button in the 'Settings' tab of the trigger - you will see 4 tabs where posts can be chosen:
1. Published Posts.
'Published Posts' tab includes all posts on your business page - it could be text, photo, video or live video types of posts. Keep in mind that photos and videos should be uploaded to the post from your device - if you add items from the 'Photos' or 'Videos' section of your Fan Page to the post, it might not work as expected with the Comments widget. Only post entities are supported to collect comments and send private Auto-responses to the users eventually.
Manychat doesn't support Event, Offer and Job types of posts, as well as any reposted posts from other pages.
So, the safest way to connect Comments widget to a certain post on your Fan Page is to choose it from the 'Published Posts' tab.
2. Scheduled Posts.
Manychat also supports Facebook's scheduled posts - you can choose one from the 'Scheduled Posts' tab and the widget will start collecting comments and sending Auto-response messages to users as soon as the post becomes public.
3. Promotable Posts.
'Promotable Posts' tab includes Ad posts, Dark Posts, Boosted posts and any other posts that can be promoted on Facebook.
Ad posts created in Facebook Ads Manager can be found in this tab. We recommend selecting Ad posts from this list to prevent issues with the invalid post ID.
4. Custom
'Custom' tab allows you to find and connect the post by entering the Facebook post's URL or ID. If, for any reason, your post is not visible in any of the other tabs, you can then connect it this way. However, we do not usually recommend connecting posts to the widget like this (especially Ad posts created in the Ads manager) - Manychat is not responsible for any errors and issues caused by this method of picking posts.
Please note, that you can find your Post ID in the Publishing Tools section of your Facebook Page. Find your post there, click on it, and copy the Post ID displayed under 'Post Details'
5. All posts
If you want to set the trigger for every post, you just need to choose 'All posts' from the list, after that, any comment will trigger the response.
Please note:
1. If you have a Comments Trigger for a specific post, it will trigger, but the 'All Posts' tool will not.
2. If you have two Comments Triggers for All Post on one page, the one created the latest will trigger.
3. If you comment on two or more posts on the page with All Posts Comments Trigger, the response will be triggered every time.
Configuring a reply
The main perk of the Comments Trigger is the ability to build different automation based on the contact status.
Sending a Comment Reply to a Guest
When a person comments on a post with the Comments Trigger bound, they become a Guest.
A Guest is a special status of your Contact. Guests are not counted in Pro Subscription limits and by default aren't visible in the Contacts tab. Read more about different Contact statuses here.
If you want to send a message to Guests after they comment on a post, you'll have to use a special 'Comment Reply' Content type. Please note that a person needs to interact with buttons inside a Comment Reply to become a Contact.
Sending a regular Message to a Contact
You can use the Condition block to build different logic for Contacts and Guests.
To do that just use the Existing Contact field:
Configuring Auto-response
Reply in Comments & Like the user comment
You can set up to 20 automatic replies for customer comments by using the ‘Add Comment Reply’ button to add multiple replies.
You can also include First Name, Last Name, and Full Name variables in your replies to make them more personalized. When a customer comments on your Facebook post, an automatic reply will be posted randomly to each comment:
For more engagement, you can also automatically Like users' comments. Just activate the toggle in the Side menu. Both these responses allow you to reply and to like only to the first user's comment on a post.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
- Facebook Comments widget processes 20 comments per minute - this limitation is implemented intentionally so Facebook cannot ban your Page for spamming users.
- For now, the widget can only be tested once by the same user due to FB's API restrictions - if you've received the Auto-response, that means the tool is working as expected and there's no need for further testing.
- The widget only works with comments from Personal Facebook profiles - leaving a comment on behalf of your FB Page will not trigger the Auto-response.
- You won't be able to connect posts from your FB Page to the widget if there are any country/age restrictions set up on your Page. Please remove the restrictions to let the tool work as intended.
- Please keep in mind that due to technical limitations Manychat can't track exactly 100% of new contacts who opt-in via Facebook Comments. All unmatched ones will become contacts but won’t get an Opt-In Message.
- Facebook Comments widget only works with comments left under the original post on your Fan Page - shared posts are not supported for now, unfortunately. Hopefully, FB allows more options in the foreseeable future!
- Comment Reply content type will work for both Guests and Existing Contacts.
- Facebook Comments Growth Tool (both 1.0 and 2.0) do not re-open the 24-hour messaging window. This means that if an existing subscribed contact's comments under a post which is connected to CGT 2.0 and the first message of this Opt-In Flow is tagged with 'other', then this message will not be sent to this contact due to them being outside the 24-hour messaging window. That's why it is recommended to use 'Comment Reply' as a content type for the first message of the CGT 2.0 Opt-in Flow.
- If you have multiple activated Comments Growth Tools on your account, certain priorities will be applied:
- If there are several CGTs that work with all posts without any keywords, the oldest one (that you created first) will always trigger.
- If a keywordless CGT is created before a keyword CGT, it will take priority and trigger each time, regardless of whether a keyword was used.
- If a keywordless CGT is created after a keyword CGT, it will only trigger if the comment does not match any of the keywords of a keyword CGT.
- If all CGTs have a specific keyword, each keyword will trigger the respective flow.
Posts with multiple pictures.
There are two ways such posts (a gallery) can be created:
1. Manually by the user in the page's feed: user creates a post, adding all the pics via 'Upload photos/video' or 'Create Photo Album' sections and publishes it.
2. Auto-generated by Facebook when the user creates/updates an album in the Photos section of the Fan Page.
Comments widget will treat these two types of posts differently:
[1]-type of post will work with the Comments widget when users leave a comment under the post or in the comment section of the 1st picture in its gallery, but not the other pictures.
[2]-type of a post will only work with the Comments widget when users leave a comment in the comment section of the 1st picture in the gallery, but not the other pictures.
Connecting a post created in the Facebook Ads Manager
In order to be able to connect a post to the Comments Growth tool using the 'Custom' tab you need to either have a full direct link to the Facebook Post or a post ID.
Here is an example of a direct link to the post: https://www.facebook.com/103787717844759/posts/192557862301077
Please make sure to insert the whole link:
You can get a direct link to the Ad post created in the Ads Manager by previewing it as "See Post":
This should in turn open a direct link to the post.
If this preview option is not available to you, please try clicking the "..." button -> more options -> Manage Facebook comments:
If the 'more options' menu is not available to you, please make sure the Ad is Published.
Also, please note, that Ad ID and Post ID are two different IDs and in order to connect the post to the CGT you need Post ID, the Ad ID won't work in this case.
It might be a better idea just to use the full link to the post to avoid any confusion.
Hopefully, this information helps. Go and get the most out of Facebook Comments Growth Tool!