See related

Integrate with Instagram

Last Update: Sep 2024 • Est. Read Time: 5 MIN
To check plan availability, see the pricing page.

Connect your Instagram business account pages with Kustomer to send and receive messages with your Instagram contacts directly in Kustomer.

The integration adds the following features to your Kustomer organization:

  • Receive inbound direct messages (DMs), Story Mentions, and Story Replies from Instagram in Kustomer.
  • Send outbound messages to Instagram with your replies from Kustomer. 

You can also connect multiple Instagram business account pages to Kustomer. When you connect multiple Instagram pages to your Kustomer account, Kustomer separates messages based on the Instagram page to help you manage support for your different brands. 

Who can access this feature?
User typesAdmins can set up this integration.


In this article

The Instagram integration

When a customer sends a message to your company using Instagram, Kustomer can create new customers and conversations from those messages. If an existing customer with an Instagram account on file sends you a DM, Kustomer will create a conversation on the customer’s timeline.

On an Instagram conversation, the customer Name attribute in the customer profile will be populated with the Instagram username. The Social Media Customer attribute is not currently populated or linked to any functionality, but agents are able to update this field manually in the customer profile.

When communicating with customers via Instagram, keep in mind the following:

  • You have to respond to a new conversation within 7 days of receiving it. Additional replies will be rejected.
  • Messages that end customers send within a 24-hour period are threaded into the same conversation. Messages sent after 24 hours will result in a new conversation being created.
  • Instagram Direct Messages are matched through a user's unique ID using the Facebook Messenger API and are threaded in the timeline.
  • Instagram Comments (which are not assigned a unique ID through the Facebook API) are not threaded in the timeline.
  • Nested comments are not ingested into Kustomer. For example, if Customer A comments on your post, and Customer B replies to Customer A's comment, then Customer B's comment won't be imported.

Note: This integration is available for:

  • Any Instagram Professional account for a business.
  • Any Instagram Professional account for a Creator with less than 500k followers. 
For more information, see Instagram Messaging with the Messenger Platform.

Connect Instagram

To integrate Instagram with Kustomer, install the Instagram app from within the Kustomer App Directory.

  1. Go to Apps  and select Explore Directory.
  2. Search for Instagram in the App Directory, and then select Install.
  3. After the installation completes, go to Apps  and select Instagram in the sidebar.
  4. From the Instagram page, select Sign in to Facebook. Login to Facebook with the credentials linked to your Instagram business account pages.

    Note: You use your Facebook login and password to authenticate to Facebook and receive an authorization token. Kustomer cannot access your Instagram messages and uses your token to send and receive requests from the Facebook business pages. This requires Facebook page permissions above Moderator.

  5. Once connected, use the drop-down menu to select the pages you want to connect to Kustomer. You can connect up to 50 Instagram handles.

Allow access to send and receive Instagram messages

After you connect Kustomer to Instagram, you will need to allow Kustomer to access your Instagram messages to be able to receive Instagram DMs and send outbound messages from Kustomer.

To allow access, open your Instagram business account through the mobile app, and go to Settings > Privacy > Messages to open your Message Controls. In Message Controls, go to Connected Tools and turn on the Allow Access to Messages setting.

Allow access to Instagram messages for connected tools in your Instagram Business Account settings.

View Instagram conversations in Kustomer

Once you have your Instagram handles connected to Kustomer, you can reply to direct messages, story mentions and replies, or comments left on your posts directly within Kustomer. 

Note: Instagram TV and Reel posts do not support comments.

To turn on this feature:

  1. Go to Apps  and select Instagram in the sidebar.
  2. You can turn on the ability to reply to public comments, direct messages, or both.

Reply to public comments

When a customer publicly comments on one of your company posts, their comment appears within a conversation that you can reply to directly within Kustomer. The conversation also includes the original post where the comment was left.

To reply to the comment, send a response as you usually would. (There is a 300 character limit to outbound replies to Instagram comments.) Within Instagram, it will appear under the original comment in the post.

Notes:

  • Comments made by your organization on your post are filtered and won't be visible in Kustomer. Only comments on your posts by other users will create a conversation within Kustomer.
  • Only comments made directly on your post will be visible within Kustomer. If a user @ mentions your organization in their post or on someone else's post, it will not be visible within Kustomer.
  • On a user's comment reply, additional nested replies from other users are not ingested into Kustomer.

Delete public comments

You can delete offensive or inappropriate comments left on your Instagram posts from directly within Kustomer. To do so, hover over the comment and select Delete. You can also select More Options and delete the comment from that menu.

Select Delete to confirm the action. Deleting a comment is a permanent action and cannot be undone. Deleting a comment removes it from both Instagram and the customer's timeline.

Notes: This feature can be accessed by only users with permission to delete comments on the Conversation object. For more information, see Define user access.

Reply to direct messages

Direct messages sent to your Instagram account will also appear as a conversation within Kustomer.

To reply, reply to the customer as you normally would. Outbound replies to Instagram direct messages have a 2000-character limit.

Your response will appear as a response in the user's direct messages, where they can reply back if they wish.

Any replies will get threaded into the existing conversation in Kustomer. 

Reauthorize your Instagram account

You need to reauthorize your Instagram token every 60 days so that the app can continue to access data and you can continue to receive and reply to inbound messages without disruption. This reauthorization is necessary to ensure the privacy and security of your connected accounts. All admins and org owners will start to be notified 14 days before the token is set to expire. To opt out of receiving these notifications, go to Settings> Personal > Notifications.

To reauthorize your Instagram account:

  1. Go to Apps and select Instagram in the sidebar.
  2. Select Reauthorize for the desired Instagram page.
  3. Enter the credentials for the account and select Log In

Note: If your token expires, all inbound and outbound messages will stop working. If this occurs, delete the Instagram page with the expired token, select Log in to Facebook, and enter the credentials of the page you want to add back.

FAQ

Q: Can Kustomer track messages sent from the Instagram app?

Kustomer can only capture and record outbound messages sent from within the Kustomer platform. If you use the Instagram app to reply to a customer, Kustomer cannot capture that message in the timeline. We recommend allocating enough seats for your agent team to fully work in Kustomer to ensure that all messages are captured in the platform.

Q: Do pending DMs flow into Kustomer?

Yes, all DMs flow into Kustomer. You do not need to mark a message as Accepted in the Instagram app for it to appear in Kustomer.

Q: Can proactive Instagram messages be sent using Kustomer?

Proactive Instagram messages cannot be sent through Kustomer. For more information, see the IG Messaging API Policy Overview