How To Automatically Reply to Instagram Story Replies

By Joren Wouters Updated on

How To Automatically Reply to Instagram Story Replies

In this tutorial, I will explain how you can automatically reply to Instagram Story replies. Basically, we are going to create our own Instagram Story Bot.

I will show you how to:

  • Connect your Instagram account to ManyChat (the chatbot builder we use)
  • Automatically reply when somebody messages you after seeing your Instagram story
  • Set up the reply for specific Instagram stories or for all stories

Let’s dive in!

 

Link your Instagram account to your Facebook account

Before we can set up the automatic reply for Instagram Stories, we first need to link our Instagram account to our Facebook account.

By the way, also make sure that your Instagram account is a Business account (and not a personal account)!

Now, go to one of your pages on Facebook and click on Settings –> Instagram.

Here, you can click on Connect account and connect the two accounts to each other:

connect-instagram-facebook-business

 

Connect Instagram account to ManyChat

The next step we need to do is connect our Instagram account to ManyChat.

ManyChat is the chatbot builder I am going to use for this tutorial and is one of the best chatbot builders out there.

If you don’t have a ManyChat account yet, click on the button below and create it:

Create ManyChat Account

NOTE: If you use the promo code “3DINSTAGROW”, you can upgrade to a Pro account for free for 60 days! 

When you’ve created your ManyChat account, go to Settings –> Instagram, and click on Connect:

connect-manychat-instagram

Now, you can select one of your Facebook Pages that is connected with your Instagram account. In my case, it is ‘Chatimize Test’, so I will click on that one:

select-instagram-account

And that’s it! We’ve successfully connected your Instagram account to ManyChat.

 

Set up Instagram Stories Trigger in ManyChat

Now that we’ve successfully connected our Instagram account to ManyChat, we can start by creating our auto reply to Instagram stories.

In ManyChat, go to Automation and click on New Flow:

manychat-new-flow

Then, select Start from scratch at the right bottom:

manychat-start-from-scratch

And here we can type in the name of the flow, we will call it “Instagram Stories Reply”:

manychat-instagram-flow-name

Now, ManyChat automatically creates a flow for us that consists of a starting step and an Instagram message.

First, we will change the starting step. The starting step is a trigger that starts the flow in ManyChat. And in this case, this will be when someone replies to your Instagram story.

So, just click on Add Trigger under the Starting Step:

manychat-add-instagram-comments

And then you can select “Instagram” and choose the Instagram Story Reply:

manychat-instagram-story-trigger

This will automatically open up the trigger where you can determine the settings of the Instagram Story Reply.

If you want to only reply to specific stories, you need to set it to Specific Story and then click on Select Story:

manychat-select-instagram-story

This will open up a pop-up where you can select the stories that are currently running on your Instagram account:

manychat-select-from-stories

However, for this tutorial, I am going to set it to All Stories.

Next, we need to determine to what words we want to reply. For example, users can get a free ebook when they message “ebook1”, we can set message is ebook1 and click on Save:

manychat-ig-stories-words

And that’s it! Now you automatically reply when somebody messages you “ebook1” after seeing your Instagram Story.

 

Send automatic message after Instagram Story Reply

Next, we need to determine the message we want to send to the user.

To do that, you can just click on the first message in the ManyChat flow, which opens a screen on the left:

manychat-instgram-edit-message

Then, we can type in the message we want to send. And this message can consist of text and quick replies (buttons in ManyChat).

Let’s say we want to give away a free ebook to the people that messaged us, then we can type “Thank you for requesting the ebook! Click the button below to get it”:

manychat-instagram-text

Also, we need to add a quick reply. Because before we give away the free checklist, we want to get the email of the user.

So just click on Add Quick Reply, type in “Get the ebook”, setting the “When This Button is Pressed” to Instagram and click on Done:

manychat-instagram-quick-reply

Now when somebody clicks on the quick reply, another message will be sent to the user.

And in this message, we will ask for the email of the user. So click on the Message, delete the default text and select the User Input element:

manychat-instagram-user-input

Now, you can type in “Allright, to what email can I send the ebook?” and set the Reply Type to Email:

manychat-instagram-email-ask

Because we set the Reply Type to Email, ManyChat automatically checks if the user filled in a valid email.

Also, you need to scroll down and remove the text under “Skip button text”:

manychat-remove-skip-button

This will make sure users cannot skip the question 🙂

The last step we need to do is give the ebook to the user. So we can just drag an arrow from Next step, letting it go and click on Instagram:

manychat-add-ig-message

And thank them for requesting the ebook + provide a button that will go to the checklist once they click on it:

manychat-instagram-button

And that’s it, now you should have a flow that looks like this:

manychat-instagram-stories-flow

The last step. is to click on Publish in the top-right corner and you’re all set!

NOTE: After clicking on Publish, don’t forget to Activate your Instagram Comments trigger at the beginning of the flow:

manychat-activate-ig-story-reply

 

 

What if it’s not working?

Although you set up everything correctly, sometimes the automatic reply for Instagram Stories is not sending anything.

And if that’s happening to you, just go to Settings in ManyChat, select Instagram and click on Refresh permissions:

manychat-instagram-refresh-permissions

This will solve your problem almost anytime.

 

Now It’s Your Turn

And that’s how you automatically reply to Instagram Stories.

Now I would like to ask you a question:

How much time are you currently spending on replying to Instagram Stories?

Let me know by leaving a comment below.

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Comments (2)

  1. Leslie

    Great tutorial on automatically replying to Instagram Story replies, Joren! It’s amazing how we can leverage chatbot builders like ManyChat to streamline our Instagram engagement. Your step-by-step instructions make it easy to follow along and set up the automation.

    Linking the Instagram account to the Facebook account and connecting it to ManyChat are crucial initial steps, and you explained them well. I appreciate the bonus tip on upgrading to a Pro account with the promo code.

    Creating an Instagram Stories Trigger in ManyChat is where the real magic happens. The ability to reply to specific stories or all stories gives flexibility, and setting up triggers based on specific words is a smart approach. The inclusion of quick replies and user input for capturing email addresses shows the power of personalized interactions.

    The visual representations of the ManyChat flow are helpful, and your explanation ensures that readers can replicate the process easily. Your troubleshooting tip on refreshing permissions in ManyChat is valuable for those facing issues with the automatic replies.

    Overall, your tutorial is well-written, organized, and easy to understand. It’s a fantastic resource for anyone looking to automate their Instagram Story replies. Thank you for sharing your expertise!

    1. Joren Wouters

      Thank you, Leslie! Really appreciate it!

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