Connect Instagram and Messenger
What you need to connect your Instagram or your Facebook page, how it's done, and what to check if it stops receiving.
Instagram and Messenger are connected from Channels, each on its own tab. It takes a couple of minutes. Only the Owner and Admins see Channels.
What to have ready
- Instagram: a professional account, business or creator. A personal account can't be connected: it's a Meta rule. You switch it for free from the Instagram app, in Settings → Account type and tools → Switch to professional account.
- Messenger: your business's Facebook page, and an account that administers it.
- The username and password for that account. The connection is done in the browser, not in the app: if you only use Instagram from your phone and don't remember the password, recover it before you start.
Step by step
Open Channels and pick the tab
Instagram or Messenger, and hit “Connect”. If connecting the channel takes you over what your plan includes, Trama shows you how much it adds per month before going on.
Sign in to Meta
The page takes you to the connection. Sign in with the account that administers that Instagram or that page, and accept the permissions. Trama doesn't post anything: it uses them to read and reply to messages.
Back to Trama
When you finish you're back in Channels with the account connected. Do it in one sitting: the connection expires if it takes more than an hour.
If you connected your Instagram when you created the account, it's done: it shows up in Channels and there's no need to repeat it.
What happens to the messages you already had
Recent direct messages come into Messages. In those conversations the agent doesn't step in: they already existed when you connected the account, so they stay with your team. The agent handles new inquiries.
Instagram's own settings
They're edited from the channel's panel, in Channels:
- When it replies. You can have the agent wait a few seconds or minutes before replying. Answering in the same second reads like a bot.
- Automatic comment replies. When someone comments a keyword, they get a private message. It's the way for a comment to open a conversation: Instagram only lets you write to someone who interacted.
- Starter questions. The suggestions Instagram shows in an empty private message.
If you're going to promote a post, have the automatic reply listen to comments on the whole account. Meta builds the ad a separate copy, with its own comments, and an automation tied to the original post doesn't see them.