How to Automate Your Comments with Manychat

Creators are always short on time. There are never enough hours in the day when it comes to dreaming up content ideas, then filming it, then editing it, then posting it at the right time, either daily or weekly. And then there’s promoting said content — the whole process is a lot. 

But as they say in those 1980’s infomercials, “But, wait! There’s more!” 

We forgot to mention that a content creator has to respond to DMs and reply to comments. Because, really, do you trust people to go to the link in bio if you’re promoting a partnership, or an affiliate link? If you just spent seven hours on a new Reel, you want to see people convert. 

If you’re lucky enough to make content that gets killer engagement, then guess what? You’ve got a new can of worms: responding to all the DMs and comments that you get.

Manychat has that power. 

Automate comments on your posts, Reels, and IG Live. You can reply both privately and publicly. This way, you’ll increase conversion by sending DMs and the response time is that much faster. 

This is also awesome because you’ll be increasing engagement with your followers, which signals to Instagram to show the post more because people are commenting. See, everyone wins. 

There are three huge perks when you use Manychat for comment automation: 

• Capture that customer data with a lead magnet (like a freebie)
• Launch a giveaway in the comment section 
• Convert comments into sales 

So here’s how you do it: 

By automatically responding to comments on your posts, it keeps interactions with your followers ongoing, because everyone loves an engaging creator. And because of your higher engagement, you’ll capture leads from comments and automate entire conversations.

Your followers don’t have to wait for an answer and you don’t have to spend hours every day sending messages. Pretty awesome, huh?

How to Set Up the Instagram Comments Reply Trigger

In your Manychat account go to: Automations > New automation or choose one of these automations:

In the flow builder: click New trigger > User comments on the Post or Reel option: 

In settings, you can adjust this trigger to work with:

• A specific post or Reel
• All posts or Reels
• Your next post or Reel

PRO TIP: Use specific keywords that comments must include to trigger automation. Just the same, you can exclude keywords that won’t trigger the automation. But, if you want to go rogue, you can set the trigger to activate with any comment.

Order of Automations

If you’ve got multiple active Instagram comments reply triggers in your account, certain rules will apply: If you set triggers on all posts or Reels without keywords, the oldest trigger (the one created first) will always activate. 

Configuring Public Auto-Replies for Comments on Posts or Reels

You can set your Manychat account to automatically leave the public reply you want to comment under a post or Reel. You can also set it so you don’t comment. It’s your world, we’re just livin’ in it. 

PRO TIP: To avoid getting replies flagged as spam by Instagram’s automated systems:

• Change up the wording of your auto-replies (Have some fun with it.)
• Include more than 5 different auto-replies
• Stay away from short replies or just dropping an emoji

If your Instagram gets hella comments, we automatically enable a special mechanism on the backend, preventing auto-responses from triggering. Spam is a no-no, we know. 

Automating Private Responses in Instagram Direct Messages

If someone comments on your post, you can send them an automated DM. But: sending a private response in your DMs doesn’t automatically opt users into your channel or open the 24-hour messaging window. This’ll only happen if the user interacts with the message by sending a response.

To do this: open the automation in the flow builder > add Instagram message node

Ok, so we’re about to go deep on the technical stuff, so if you’re looking for the nitty-gritty, here we go.

If you add the Instagram comments reply trigger, followed by the message node, or if there’s only one message node without anything attached, and then add the trigger, the message will be marked as a comment reply. If you add the trigger to automation or add the trigger as the last step in building the automation, you’ll need to mark the first message node as a comment reply. If you do, you’ll get this message: “Mark the message as a ‘Comment Reply’ if you want to send it as a reply to a post or Reel comment” — so yeah, you’ve been warned. 

See that “Get the discount!” If a user clicks it, the 24-hour window opens, and they get the second message and are added to the contact list.

If this pop-up window appears when marking the first message node in your automation as a reply, your message contains content that’s not allowed. You must remove everything except the text block with buttons or quick replies, or craft a new message.

Comment Replies have specific limitations based on Meta’s guidelines. If you run into issues, make sure you’re following these rules!

If you pick the “Open website” option when specifying what happens when the button is pressed, it won’t be considered an opt-in to your Instagram. Users won’t appear in your contact list, the 24-hour messaging window won’t open for them, and you won’t be able to communicate with them. So, think before you do that. 

Once that automation is ready, hit that Preview button to test it:

If you click that arrow pointing down next to the Preview button, you’ll see the automation either in Manychat or on IG. The last option lets you see everything exactly as your followers would:

To publish the automation, click the Update button in the upper right corner of the flow builder:

Once the automation is a go, turn on the Instagram comments reply trigger to make sure it’s working:

Along with the Instagram message node, you can use action, condition, randomizer, and smart delay blocks as the first node in your automation:

You must include at least one message node attached to the Instagram comments reply trigger in your automation. If you don’t do this, you can’t publish the automation because it won’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 triggers collaborative posts only if you’re the original poster. It won’t if you’re added as a collaborator:

If you’re the original poster and invite an influencer as a collaborator, any comments or responses you set up on your Manychat will be active. People who comment with keywords will receive auto-replies configured from your Manychat account. The influencer won’t have these automatic responses for their account as a collaborator and not the original poster.

A lot of the biggest creators on Instagram use Manychat to level up, join the party here. The sign up is free.