Instagram setup
Connect your Instagram business account so DMs land in your inbox — and so comments on your posts can reply to themselves.
Connecting Instagram does two things: DMs stop living on your phone and start landing in your shared inbox, and comments on your posts can trigger automatic replies.
That second one is the reason most stores connect Instagram. Someone comments "price?" on a product post, and Enscale replies publicly and sends them the details in a DM — within seconds, at 2am, without you.
Takes about five minutes.
Before you start
You need:
- An Instagram professional account — Business or Creator. Personal accounts can't be connected; switching is free and takes a minute in the Instagram app.
- That account linked to a Facebook Page.
- Admin access to that Page.
- Third-party messaging turned on in the Instagram app: Settings → Messages and story replies → Message controls.
That last one is the single most common cause of "I connected Instagram but no messages arrive." The connection succeeds, everything looks green, and DMs silently never appear. Check it before you start, not after.
Connect it
Open Integrations in Enscale
Go to Integrations and choose Instagram.
Sign in to Meta
Sign in with the Facebook account that manages your Page, and approve the permissions. Enscale asks for messaging and comment access — it needs both to read DMs and to reply to comments.
Pick your account
Choose the Instagram account to connect.
If yours isn't in the list, it's almost always because it isn't linked to a Facebook Page you administer. Fix that in Instagram first, then come back.
Test it
DM your account from a different Instagram profile. It should reach your inbox in seconds. Reply from Enscale and check it arrives.
Then comment on one of your own posts from that other profile, to confirm comment access was granted too — these are separate permissions and one can fail without the other.
Worked example: turning comments into sales
You post a new kurta set. Someone comments "price?"
Without automation, you see it tomorrow, reply, and they've already bought elsewhere.
With a comment automation:
- Within seconds, Enscale replies publicly: "Sent you the details in DM! 💛"
- At the same time, it DMs them the price, the sizes in stock, and a direct link to the product.
- If they reply to that DM, it lands in your inbox as a normal conversation — with everything the automation already sent visible above it.
The public reply matters as much as the DM. Everyone else scrolling the comments sees that you respond, and it pushes the post's engagement up.
Build it: Instagram comment automation.
What you can do with Instagram
Things that can start an automation:
| When this happens | You can react to it |
|---|---|
| Someone comments on your post | Reply publicly, DM them, hide it, or like it |
| Someone sends you a DM | Answer it, route it, hand it to AI |
| Someone mentions you in their story | Thank them, or send a discount |
| Someone DMs you after tapping your ad | Greet them differently from organic traffic |
Things an automation can do:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Reply to Comment | Posts a public reply under the comment |
| Send Instagram DM | Sends them a private message |
| Hide Comment | Hides it from public view |
| Like Comment | Likes it |
Hide Comment is worth knowing about. Paired with a condition, it quietly hides comments containing spam or competitor links, without you moderating manually.
Limits worth knowing about
- The 24-hour rule applies. You can reply freely within 24 hours of their last message. After that, Instagram restricts what you can send.
- You can't message someone out of the blue. They must have DMed or commented first — there's no Instagram equivalent of a WhatsApp campaign.
- Story mentions expire with the story, so you have 24 hours to react.
- Meta rate-limits comment replies. If a post goes viral, Enscale paces the replies rather than firing hundreds at once — Meta would block them otherwise. Replies still go out, just spread over time.
Common questions
Next steps
- Instagram comment automation — the comment-to-DM flow.
- Channels overview — how Instagram compares to the others.
- Inbox — where the DMs land.