Your AI Connector Docs

Comment-to-DM Automation

Turn comments on your Instagram and Facebook posts into private conversations. When someone comments a keyword you choose, the platform replies to their comment publicly and opens a DM (a private direct message) with them, where the AI bot takes over and continues the conversation.

This is the equivalent of the “comment a keyword, get a DM” automations you may know from tools like ManyChat — except after the DM is sent, you get a real AI conversation that can answer questions, qualify the lead, and book or close, not just a fixed flow.

Where this is set up: comment-to-DM runs on an Entry Point of type Instagram Comment or Facebook Comment, added to the AI Agent that should answer.

What You Need

  • An Instagram Business account or a Facebook Page connected to the platform.
  • For Instagram, your Instagram account and Facebook Page must be linked together inside Meta Business Manager (business.facebook.com). Comment-to-DM will not work until both are linked.
  • The Reply to Comments feature. Replying to comments is included on every plan sold directly today. A few legacy and agency-granted plans leave it out; on those, comments are still captured in your inbox but no public reply or DM is sent automatically. Check Settings → Billing for your plan’s feature list.

How to Set It Up

You configure comment-to-DM on an AI Agent, as an Entry Point. The detailed, channel-specific steps live here:

The short version:

  1. In the main sidebar, under AI Studio, click AI Agents.
  2. Open the Agent that should answer these conversations, or create one.
  3. Go to the Agent’s Entry Points tab and click New Entry Point.
  4. Choose Instagram Comment (or Facebook Comment) as the type.
  5. Add one or more Comment keywords (for example: INFO). Keywords are not case sensitive (INFO, info, and Info all trigger), and they match inside a longer comment, so “Please send me the info!” triggers too. Smart matching means you do not need to add typos, plurals, or variations: one clean keyword is enough. For the same reason, avoid very short keywords that appear inside everyday words (for example hi, which is contained in “this” and “which”) — they will trigger on almost every comment. Leave the field empty and every comment on the watched posts gets a DM, which suits a post built around one call to action but gets expensive on a busy post.
  6. Optionally limit it to specific posts: under Which posts choose Specific posts, click Choose posts and tick the posts or reels you want from the list (thumbnail, caption and date are shown, so there is nothing to look up). Leave All posts selected to watch every post. If a post isn’t in the list, you can still paste its Post ID under Or paste post IDs.
  7. Optionally set a delay in minutes before the reply and DM go out, and your own Custom public comment reply.
  8. Toggle the Entry Point Enabled, click Save, and publish the Agent.

When someone comments your keyword on a monitored post, the platform replies to the comment publicly and opens a DM, and the Agent that Entry Point points to handles the rest.

The public reply is a short nudge. The public comment reply (for example “Sent you a DM — check your messages!”) is deliberately brief; the real answer is delivered in the DM that follows. You can set your own wording with the optional Custom public comment reply field that appears once comment monitoring is on — leave it empty to use the default nudge. You can also add a short delay (in minutes) before the reply and DM go out so it looks more natural.

Exact Text Mode: Your Words, 0 Credits

By default the AI writes both the public comment reply and the first DM. If you want full control of the wording — or you’re running a high-volume lead magnet and don’t want each trigger to use a credit — switch the Entry Point’s First Response setting from AI to Exact Text. You’ll find it on the comment Entry Point itself, in the Agent’s Entry Points tab. Two fields appear:

  • Public comment reply — posted under the comment exactly as written. Leave it empty and no public reply is posted at all.
  • First DM message — sent as the DM, exactly as written.

Exact-text responses cost 0 credits, no matter how many people comment. They are sent verbatim, in the one language you wrote them in (the AI’s automatic language matching only applies to AI-written replies). From the customer’s next message onward the conversation behaves exactly as usual — the AI takes over if the Agent allows it. If they never reply, nothing more is sent: Instagram and Facebook allow one DM per comment until the person answers, so the Agent’s follow-ups only start once they reply (see Follow-ups).

One wording per field

Each exact-text field is a single text box: whatever you write there is sent word for word under every matching comment. There are no alternative wordings to rotate between. If you want the public reply and the first DM to read differently each time, leave First Response on AI, which writes them fresh for every comment.

One fixed first message is as far as it goes — by design. There are no reply trees or flow builders here. The fixed message is the doorbell; the moment a real conversation starts, it’s the AI or nothing.

A very common use case is delivering one thing — a PDF, a discount code, or a link — when someone comments a keyword, with no back-and-forth conversation afterward.

The credit-free way:

  1. Set First response to Exact text.
  2. Put your delivery message and link in the First DM message field.
  3. Set the Agent’s max messages to 1.

Every comment gets your exact message instantly, at 0 credits, even if the post goes viral.

The AI way: leave First response on AI, put the message and link (or attach the file) in the Agent’s instructions, and set max messages to 1. The AI writes the delivery message itself — useful when you want it to match the commenter’s language automatically — and each delivery costs a normal AI response credit. Increase the max-messages number whenever you do want the AI to keep the conversation going.

Several lead magnets, one Agent. You do not need a separate Agent per resource. Add one comment rule per post to the same Agent, each with First response set to Exact text and that resource’s link in its First DM message. Someone who already chats with you still gets the new resource when they comment on another post; the only exception is a contact whose chat has the AI paused (for example because you took over the conversation yourself), who gets the public reply but no DM.

Public Reply Only (No DM)

Sometimes you just want the Agent to answer under the post, the way a community manager would, without starting a private conversation. Untick Send a DM on the comment rule:

  • Nobody is messaged privately, neither your Exact Text nor an AI first message, and no follow-ups are scheduled.
  • The public reply still goes out: in AI mode the Agent writes it, and in Exact text mode your own Public comment reply is posted word for word. The AI knows there is no DM in this flow, so it never tells people to check their inbox.
  • In Exact text mode with the DM off, the public reply is the only thing the rule sends, so it cannot be left empty: the app will not save the rule until you write one or tick Send a DM again.
  • When you write your own public reply with the DM off, the app shows a reminder under the field: nobody gets a private message, so make sure the reply does not tell people to check their DMs.
  • The comment is still logged on the person’s contact in Chats, so you can always pick the conversation up by hand.

Untick this only on a plan that includes public comment replies; otherwise the rule would do nothing, and the app tells you so when you save.

Archive After the First DM

Comment-to-DM can fill your inbox with hundreds of openers in an evening. Tick Archive after the first DM and the chat is archived the moment the first DM is sent: your own message in Exact text mode, or the Agent’s first reply in AI mode. Follow-ups start once the person replies. As soon as the person replies, the chat un-archives itself and shows up in Chats like any other new message.

The AI Knows Which Post

When a comment comes in, the Agent reads the caption of the post it was left on and uses it for both the public reply and the DM. “I want this” under a post about your summer menu gets an answer about the summer menu, not a guess. The caption stays with the conversation, so later DMs still know which post started it. If the caption cannot be read, everything works as before, just without that context.

What It Costs

  • Exact text mode: the public comment reply and the first DM cost 0 credits.
  • AI mode: each response uses credits like any other AI response — 1 credit on Pro, 0.25 on Max, 0.15 on Mini, and 0 credits with your own Anthropic key on the Pro tier only. Max and Mini always bill 0.25 and 0.15, even with a key connected. See Billing System for the full credit model.

Good to Know

  • A comment allows exactly one DM, not an open conversation. Meta lets you send one private reply per comment. That DM does not open a normal chat window: until the commenter replies to it, neither you (manual messages) nor the AI can send anything further to that person, and the attempt shows as failed with a “messaging window expired” reason. As soon as they reply, the usual 24-hour window opens and the conversation works like any other. Each new comment from the same person allows one more DM. So put everything you want them to have (link, PDF, offer) in that first DM, and end it with a question so they reply.
  • Comment-to-DM works for incoming engagement — someone has to comment first. There is no cold outreach or auto-DM to new followers on Instagram or Facebook.
  • Only comments posted after you switch the rule on are picked up. Comments that were already on the post before you set it up are not re-processed, and there is no way to go back and DM the people who left them. Meta sends us a comment as it happens; nothing reads a post’s back catalogue. If you have an old post with a lot of comments worth re-engaging, reply to those by hand on Instagram or Facebook.
  • People who already chat with you get the DM too. A matching comment from an existing contact gets the public reply and the DM in both Exact Text and AI mode, however long the chat already is. The only exception is a chat where the AI is paused (for example because you took over), which gets the public reply only.
  • Two rules with the same keyword on the same posts: only one answers. When a comment matches, the first matching rule handles it and no other rule fires for that comment. Keywords are compared without caps, so “WIN” and “win” count as the same. The rule editor warns you when another comment rule (on this Agent or another one) already uses a keyword on the same posts; give each rule its own keyword, or point them at different posts.
  • A comment rule you switch off stays off. While the rule is switched off, comments on its posts get no public reply and no DM, even if older comment settings on the same Agent would have answered them.
  • Telling the Agent not to reply to comments works. If the Agent’s instructions say not to answer comments, the AI posts no public reply under them and nothing is charged for it.
  • The comment rule itself has no “followers only” condition. Everyone who comments a matching keyword gets the same public reply and first DM. On Instagram you can still make the follow part of the offer: ask for the follow in the first DM, and the AI sees whether the person follows you once they reply there, so it only sends the link to followers. See Follow to Get the Link.
  • Several different public replies for one keyword? Use AI mode: the wording is written fresh for every comment, so it varies naturally. Exact Text mode sends the one wording you wrote, every time.
  • Ads work too — including ad-only creatives. The Choose posts list can only show your organic content — your published Page posts and Instagram posts — because that’s what Meta lets us list. An ad that’s a boosted or promoted version of a regular post is still the same post, so comments on the ad trigger the rule you set on that post. Ad-only creatives (“dark posts” that never existed as a regular post) can’t be picked from the list, but comments on them still reach your rules: set Which posts to All posts and use trigger keywords to control which comments fire. Running several ads with different offers? Create one comment Entry Point per offer, each with its own keywords, and have each ad’s caption tell people which word to comment. For a Facebook ad you can also scope to that one ad post: open the ad’s preview in Ads Manager, choose Facebook post with comments, copy the long number at the end of the post’s URL, and paste it under Or paste post IDs. Instagram doesn’t expose an ID for ad-only posts, so use keywords there.
  • Story replies on Instagram come into the inbox as normal DMs and the AI continues them automatically — no comment keyword needed.
  • All of these conversations land in the same unified inbox as your WhatsApp, SMS, and web chat conversations, and you can take over manually at any time.

Next Steps