Overview
Social channels bring your social media messages into the platform. Direct messages and interactions from Facebook Messenger, Instagram and TikTok arrive as conversations in the same panel, with per-contact history, assignment, internal notes and automations.
Your team replies to everything in one place, without switching between apps and without losing the context of each customer.
Instagram inboxes are created through the Continue with Instagram button, which opens Meta's official authorization and brings you back to the platform with the inbox created. When Meta hits an incident on its own APIs, the platform shows unavailability notices on the affected screens instead of letting you try blindly — see Settings & options.
Prerequisites
- An administrator profile to create social channel inboxes.
- An account/page on the corresponding network with admin permission to connect it.
- Authorization (login) on the social network at connection time, granting the requested permissions.
- Some social channels may depend on being enabled for your account — check with an administrator if the option doesn't appear.
- No active Meta incident blocking inbox creation. When there is one, the connect button is disabled and an amber notice explains the situation.
Step by step
- Under Settings → Inboxes, create a new inbox and choose the desired social channel (Facebook Messenger, Instagram or TikTok).
- Log in to the social network and authorize the connection, granting the requested permissions. On Instagram, the button is Continue with Instagram.
- Select the page/account to connect to the inbox.
- Finish creating the inbox.
- Send a test message through the social network and confirm it reaches the platform.
Settings & options
- Connected account: the network page/account linked to that inbox.
- Assignment and teams: define who handles conversations from that channel.
- Automation and replies: apply automations, canned responses and greetings as in other channels.
- Reconnection: if the authorization expires, log in again to reactivate the channel.
- Instagram mentions: caption or comment mentions appear as an incoming message in a dedicated Instagram inbox conversation. The conversation is read-only because this event does not provide a valid DM recipient; your team can still add private notes.
- Unavailability notice at creation: during an incident on Meta's API, the Instagram and Facebook inbox creation screens disable the connect button and show an amber notice stating that the unavailability is temporary and comes from Meta's API, not from the platform. The notice carries a View status updates link. The same block applies to WhatsApp created through Embedded Signup.
- Unavailability notice while handling conversations: when the incident affects Instagram message sending, the notice appears in two places — on the Instagram inbox settings screen, in amber, and at the top of the Instagram conversation itself. Both say some messages or actions may be delayed or unavailable while full operation is restored, and both carry the status link.
- Public replies blocked during the incident: while that notice is active, the Instagram conversation composer does not accept a public reply. Agents can still write a private note for the team, but nothing goes out to the customer until the platform reopens sending. This is not an agent or inbox failure.
- Where these notices appear: both notices are controlled by installation switches and are shown only on cloud installations. On a self-hosted installation they don't appear and the behavior is defined by the installation configuration; there, whoever runs the platform decides how to communicate the incident.
- Instagram inbox migration: if the same Instagram account was already on another inbox, the platform migrates new messages to the Instagram channel inbox and flags the old one, which stops sending and receiving for that account.
Use cases
- Handle Instagram and Messenger DMs alongside WhatsApp and website, without switching apps.
- Reply to interactions coming from TikTok and turn followers into CRM contacts.
- Standardize marketing and sales support across every network.
- Tell, during a Meta incident, whether the problem is the network or your configuration — without opening a ticket in the dark.
Tips, limits & best practices
- Each network has its own rules and reply windows — answer within the allowed timeframe.
- Keep the account permissions valid; expired authorizations stop messages from arriving.
- Use a profile with page admin access to avoid connection blocks.
- During a Meta incident, avoid recreating the inbox or revoking authorizations: it doesn't speed up recovery and may force a full reconfiguration later. Wait and follow the status link in the notice itself.
- Tell your team when the sending-unavailable notice is active: public replies on Instagram are blocked and only private notes remain available. Agree in advance on what to do with open conversations — reschedule the follow-up, reach the customer on another channel — instead of letting each agent discover on their own that the send button is gone.
Troubleshooting
- Messages don't arrive: check whether the authorization is still valid and log in again if needed.
- Can't select the page/account: confirm your user is an admin of it on the network.
- The channel doesn't appear at creation: it may not be enabled for your account — talk to an administrator.
- The Instagram avatar is missing or outdated: the inbox shows the connected account's profile picture automatically and keeps it up to date; if it still looks old, reconnect the inbox in Inbox settings to force a refresh.
- I cannot reply to the mentions conversation: this is expected. Use the identifiers shown in the message to locate the Instagram post or comment and reply there.
- The Continue with Instagram button is disabled: there's an active Meta incident blocking inbox creation. The amber notice below the button confirms it and carries the status link.
- Error connecting to Instagram: the screen shows "There was an error connecting to Instagram, please try again". Close the authorization, reload the creation page and repeat the sign-in — the error parameters are cleared from the URL automatically so you can try again.
- I can only send private notes on Instagram, not public replies: that's Meta's sending incident. Confirm it through the amber notice on the inbox settings screen or the notice at the top of the conversation. While it is active, public replies are blocked on purpose; recovery does not depend on your configuration and nothing needs to be reconfigured.