Automation
Story-reply automation
Every story reply is already a DM — which makes stories the friendliest way to start automated conversations.
Why story replies work so well
A story reply lands directly in your DMs — the person has already started the conversation, and Instagram’s messaging window is wide open. That makes stories the lowest-friction trigger in the catalog: no public thread, no window guesswork, just a reply that deserves an instant answer.
The classic play: post a story with a prompt — “reply YES and I’ll send you the checklist” — and let the flow deliver it to everyone who does, whether that’s five people or five hundred.
Set it up
Create the flow you want to run, then wire a Story Reply trigger at it:
- 1Go to Automations → Triggers and create a new trigger with the Story Reply event.
- 2Choose scope: all stories, or specific stories you pick.
- 3Optionally add keywords — the trigger then fires only when the reply contains one of them (matching is case-insensitive).
- 4Set the frequency guards: once per story per person, and once per day per contact.
- 5Pick the flow, review, and create.
Story mentions: the other direction
Story Reply fires when people respond to your stories. Its sibling, Story Mention, fires when someone features you in their story — a share, a shout-out, a tag. There’s nothing to configure: every mention starts the flow you attach.
It’s the easiest gratitude engine you can build: a thank-you DM to everyone who shares you, with a discount code or a freebie if you want the share to compound.
Good to know
A few behaviors worth understanding before you lean on stories:
- Replies appear in your inbox like any DM, and the conversation carries the full flow — buttons, branches, asset delivery, all of it.
- Keyword matching looks anywhere inside the reply text, so “YES please!” matches YES.
- Frequency guards keep it polite: someone replying to three story frames in a row isn’t greeted three times.
- Opt-outs are honored here too — a story reply of “stop” opts that contact out of automation before any flow runs.
- Stories expire after 24 hours, and “specific story” triggers go quiet with them — the “all stories” scope is the set-and-forget option.