How do I interact with Instagram DMs in Sprout?

Instagram engagement is imperative for your brand and/or business. With Instagram DMs integrated in Sprout’s Smart Inbox, you’ll never miss an engagement opportunity with your audience. You can get a holistic view of your incoming messages, while creating a stronger and more organized 1-1 connection.

You can access DMs from your Instagram Business Profiles in your Smart Inbox. 

You’ll see everything in real-time in Sprout where you can continue to use your team’s workflows to respond to and interact with your Instagram audience.

This article contains the following sections:

• Required prerequisites
• Reauthorizing profiles
• Replying to an Instagram DM
• Message type availability

Required prerequisites

In order to receive DMs in the Smart Inbox, you need to ensure that privacy settings are configured correctly in the native app. For more details, see this how-to. 

Reauthorizing profiles

Once Instagram DMs are enabled in your Sprout account, you need to re-authorize each Instagram Business Profile you want messages to appear for in the Smart Inbox. To do this:

1. Click to expand the notifications drawer.
2. Toggle to the Issues tab.
3. Click Learn More next to the notification regarding your Instagram Business Profile.
   
   
4. Click Reauthorize. A popup appears sending you to Facebook for reauthorization.
5. Click Ok.

After you’re redirected, complete the authorization process and then you can access your Instagram DMs in the Smart Inbox.

Note: After you re-authorize your Instagram Business Profile in Sprout, you might notice there’s a delay in some of your DMs appearing in Sprout. This is a part of an initial backfill. Once this is complete, your messages will update in real-time. Sprout backfills from the previous 30 days of your DMs..

Replying to an Instagram DM

After you re-authorize the Instagram Business Profiles you want to receive messages from in Sprout, you can start interacting with those DMs and Story Mentions.

Note: In the Smart Inbox an Instagram DM is made up of both Direct Messages and Story Replies. You can’t separate these message types from one another.

To reply to an Instagram DM:

1. Navigate to the Smart Inbox.
2. (Optional) Update your filters in the Filter Menu to select the Instagram profiles and Message Types you want to see. 
3. Click to reply to a DM. The reply screen appears.
4. Enter your response to the DM.
5. Click Send or Submit for Approval based on your team’s workflow.
   
   

It’s important to call out that if you read, complete or respond to a DM in Sprout, that message still shows as unread in the native Instagram app. This is because third-party integrations, like Sprout, can’t sync read status with the native Instagram app.

Filtering the Smart Inbox

If you want to focus on responding, creating cases, tagging and interacting with just your DMs, use the Message Type filters Direct Messages (DMs + Story Replies) or Story Mentions in addition to the Instagram Business Profile filters to remove the clutter from your Smart Inbox.

You can also create a custom Inbox View that only contains Direct Messages or Story Mentions from Instagram. To learn more about creating Inbox Views, see this article.

Message/Reactions Availability

The following tables outline the types of messages that can appear as Instagram DMs in the Smart Inbox and/or Chat View as well as the actions you can take on those messages.

Incoming (received) Messages

This table outlines the actions you can take in the Smart Inbox and Chat screen when receiving Instagram DMs. Note that you can’t send emoji reactions from Sprout due to an API limitation.

Message Type	Message Type Supported (will show in the Smart Inbox)?	Actions supported in Sprout
Text	Yes	You can like, reply, create a case or tag the messages.
Links	Yes	You can open the link, like, reply, create a case or tag the message.
Image	Yes, when sent using  or Keep in Chat.	You can like, reply, create a case or tag the messages. Any image sent with View Once or Allow Replay don't appear in the Inbox and show an unsupported attachment message instead.
Multi-Image DM	Not currently supported. An “unsupported attachment” message appears due to an API limitation.	N/A
Video	Yes, when sent using  or Keep in Chat.	You can like, reply, create a case or tag the messages. Any video sent with View Once or Allow Replay don't appear in the Inbox and show an unsupported attachment message instead.
Sticker, GIF & Audio	Not currently supported. An “unsupported attachment” message appears due to an API limitation.	N/A
Story Mention	Yes, but take a few minutes to load.	You can like, reply, create a case or tag the messages.
Story Reply - Quick Reaction	Yes	You can like, reply, create a case or tag the messages.
Story Reply - Text	Yes	You can like, reply, create a case or tag the messages.
Story Reply - GIF	Not currently supported. An “unsupported attachment” message appears due to an API limitation.	N/A

 

Outgoing (sent) Messages

This table outlines the types of message responses a Sprout user can send in a DM conversation:

Message Type	Can I send this message type?	Instagram reactions supported in Sprout
Text	Yes	Like
Image, GIF	Yes	Like
Video	No	N/A
Sticker & Audio	No	N/A