Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
| Also required | Social Messaging |
| Access | Admin |
Instagram Direct connects through the same Meta account as Facebook, with a professional account and a linked page.
Social Messaging is included from Suite Team upwards; on a standalone Support plan it is bought separately. Worth settling before anybody designs a workflow around it.
What you need first
- An Instagram professional account, not a personal one.
- It linked to a Facebook page you administer.
- Message access enabled in the Instagram settings, which is off by default. It lives under Settings > Messages and story replies > Message requests, where you turn on Allow access to messages under Connected Tools. This step only exists in the mobile app; you cannot do it on Instagram on the web.
That last one is where most connections stall. Everything looks connected and no messages arrive, because Instagram is not passing them on.
Connect it
- In Admin Center, click Channels and select Messaging and social > Messaging.
- Add an Instagram channel.
- Sign in with the Meta account and choose the account.
- Grant the permissions.
- Send yourself a direct message and confirm a ticket appears.
What comes through
Direct messages and story replies become tickets. Comments and replies on posts, reels and other Instagram content do not, whatever they look like in the app.
One trap worth naming before an agent falls into it: a reply typed inside Instagram itself never reaches the ticket. Only a reply sent from the ticket in Support appears in both places, so an agent who answers on their phone leaves a ticket that looks unanswered.
Same fragility as Facebook
The same authorisation, the same expiry, the same failure. If Facebook stops working, check Instagram at the same time: they usually break together, because they share the connection. Zendesk does email every admin when a page is deauthorised, so the warning exists even though nothing shows in the ticket view.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.