How to automatically respond to Instagram comments

Missing comments in activity feed

On Instagram, you get a notification every time somebody posts a comment. And if you are running a business, you can’t afford losing a single lead. But notifications about new comments are in the same feed as your likes, new subscriptions, recommendations, etc. This is by design.

A unified activity feed helps Instagram engage users, but it makes comments harder to track. So business has to work around it. You can track comments yourself or hire somebody to do it for you. But, there is a more elegant solution. Automation.

What you can do with automation

Automation lets you send your customers a message and engage them right away. Instagram has the highest engagement level compared to Facebook or Twitter. Around 1.16% per post, compared to 0.27% and 0.07% respectively. This means that users post more, but also expect you to reply quickly. That’s key.

Automation easily solves two things. How fast your business replies and what engagement level your profile has. It also helps your business save money on staff.

Automation can help you:

• increase conversion;

• retain customers;

• increase online sales.

You can do all that with Chatfuel. It’s a no-code automation app for small and medium business owners. It lets you create a conversation logic between your users and a bot. Kind of like a chain of messages. In our case, we need to track and reply to Instagram comments. Let’s start with a conversation example.

A user leaves a comment asking if the item is in stock. Our system replies and gives them a link to a website to check availability. A customer then goes to the website. After several minutes, your bot offers them a promo code for a future purchase. All they need to do is leave their email.

You can set up responses to FAQs, run promo campaigns or send people a link to your website. In this tutorial, we will focus on replying to Instagram comments.

How to automate Instagram comments in Chatfuel

Sign up with Chatfuel

To start, you need to create an account at Chatfuel.

Go to chatfuel.com and sign up using your Facebook account. We recommend using a Facebook account for registration. This is because you will need to connect your Facebook Page before turning on automation. After creating an account, you will get first 50 conversations for free.

Preparation

Next, open Flow Builder. It’s a tool that lets you create automation in Chatfuel. Go to Flows tab in the left sidebar menu and create a new Instagram Flow. Then, click on the plus sign button on the right to open a menu.

Add Comments Autoreply Entry Point. This will be the place where user starts conversation. Now, it’s time to configure comments reply settings.

Decide which comments to respond to

First, decide if you want to respond to all comments or to comments from specific posts. Then, think about keywords. Do you need them for your business? They are useful in case you want automation to react with a different message to a particular keyword.

For example, you decide to run a promo campaign. Set up a separate message that responds to a keyword #iwantdiscount.

Now, when your clients leave a particular comment, automation responds with this specific message. After that, choose the response to be private, public or set up both. Add more content if needed.

Look at the example below. In this Flow, our system sends a DM to a user after they post a comment. The message contains a link to the online store. After 5 minutes, a bot sends a second message offering a user to leave their email to stay tuned for new promo campaigns.

Connect your Facebook and Instagram

Finally, you need to connect your Facebook Page. Click on Grow tab in the sidebar menu and find Connect button next to Facebook Page and Instagram Account. Connect your Facebook Page first, then connect your Instagram Account. Your Instagram Account is linked to a Facebook Page, that’s why we need both connected.

Turn on auto replies to comments

After connecting your pages, go to your Flow and activate Comments Autoreply Entry Point. Your bot status will change to Live. It means that automation is on and your bot is now responding to comments.

Find this article helpful? We appreciate it. We believe that automation can take your business to the next level.

Sign up for Chatfuel and never lose a new lead again. If you want to read some more, check out our latest customer story.