Instant DM
Social MediaConnect AI agents to Instant DM, an Instagram and Facebook automation platform. Agents publish and read Instagram content, send and receive DMs, reply to ad and page comments, and read ad account performance.
What This Integration Enables
Instant DM sits on the response side of social, not the publishing side, and that is what makes it worth wiring into a flow. Its surface is overwhelmingly read: Get Instagram Posts, Get Instagram Comments, Get Instagram Conversations, Get Conversation Messages, Get Contact Profile, Get Post Insights, Get Account Insights, Get Ad Accounts, Get Ads, Get Ad Comments, Get Facebook Page Posts, and Get Facebook Page Comments. Against all of that reading there are six writes, and five of them are replies: Send Message, Reply to Comment, Reply to Ad Comment, Send Ad Comment Private Reply, and Reply to Facebook Page Comment. The sixth, Create Post, publishes an image, reel, carousel, or story from public media URLs. That ratio tells you what this connector is for. It is a triage engine for inbound attention across three surfaces that are usually monitored in three separate places, and the interesting work is deciding what deserves a response rather than producing more content.
Be precise about the ads surface, because the object names invite a wrong assumption. This connector reads advertising inventory and answers the comments on it. Get Ad Accounts lists the linked ad accounts, Get Ads lists ads for an ad account with an active-only or all-statuses filter, and Get Ad Comments lists the comments left on a specific ad. There is no action here that creates, pauses, edits, or budgets an ad. Campaign management stays where it lives, and this connector handles the conversations that campaign generates. Two operational facts follow every flow you build. First, every sending operation consumes one message credit while reads are free, and Get Account Details reports the remaining balance, which makes the credit check a real design step rather than a formality. Second, direct messages are subject to Instagram's messaging window policy, so the private path to a person is not permanently open. There are no triggers here either, since Instant DM publishes no event subscription, so inbound is discovered by a scheduled poll across the read actions rather than pushed to the flow.
Without FlowRunner
With FlowRunner
Use Case Scenarios
One queue for three surfaces
Every fifteen minutes a flow calls Get Instagram Comments for recent posts, Get Ad Comments for each currently active ad returned by Get Ads, and Get Facebook Page Comments for the linked page. It classifies each new comment into a question with a known answer, a complaint, a purchase signal, or noise. Questions with known answers get a Send Message private reply. Complaints are opened as tickets in Zendesk with the comment text, the surface it came from, and the contact profile from Get Contact Profile attached. Purchase signals are written to the lead record in HubSpot. Noise is logged and left alone. The community manager starts the day with a queue that has already been sorted rather than an inbox that has not.
Product questions answered from the catalog rather than from memory
A comment under a product reel asks whether an item ships internationally. An agent calls Get Instagram Comments to pick it up, resolves the product from the post caption, and reads the current shipping rules from Shopify. It calls Get Account Details to confirm credits remain, then calls Send Message with a private reply carrying the accurate answer for that specific product. The public comment stays as it is, and the person gets a correct answer rather than a generic one. The value is not speed on its own. It is that the answer came from the system that actually knows the shipping rules today.
A weekly picture of what the audience is actually reacting to
Once a week a flow calls Get Instagram Posts for the trailing period and Get Post Insights for each one, then Get Account Insights for the aggregated reach, impressions, profile views, and follower count over the same window. It joins the comment volume it collected during the week against the per-post metrics and writes the result to Google Sheets. The report shows which posts drew conversation rather than only which drew reach, which are frequently not the same posts. That difference is the one that changes what gets made next month.
Human-in-Loop Highlight
A comment left on a running ad presents the agent with two actions that look adjacent and are not. Reply to Ad Comment posts a public reply that sits under the ad, visible to everyone the ad is still being served to, and paid media keeps buying that audience after the reply is posted, so the reply's reach grows with the remaining budget. Send Ad Comment Private Reply sends the same content as a direct message to one person and nobody else. Choosing between them is a judgment call about exposure, and it is made against a clock, because Instagram's messaging window policy means the private path closes after a period while the public one stays open indefinitely. So the agent handles the routine ad comments and stops on anything that names a price, a defect, a competitor, or a person: it drafts both versions and asks the paid media owner in Slack, "Comment on the live 'Spring Sale' ad disputes the discount. Reply to Ad Comment is public and stays under an ad that is still spending. Send Ad Comment Private Reply reaches only this person, and the messaging window on this contact closes in about 4 hours. Which one, and does the wording change?" Waiting is not free here, and the agent says so, because the cost of hesitating is that one of the two doors closes on its own.
Agent Capabilities
19 actionsAccount
2- Get Account Details Retrieves the connected Instagram account details, plan tier, and remaining message credits. Every sending operation consumes one credit, so this is the guard that decides whether a reply batch runs whole or is deferred.
- Get Account Insights Retrieves aggregated account metrics including reach, impressions, profile views, and follower count over a trailing number of days. Used for the periodic account-level view rather than per-post analysis.
Instagram Content
5- Get Instagram Posts Lists recent posts and reels published by the connected account, with pagination. The starting point for any flow that needs to find the content a conversation is attached to.
- Get Instagram Comments Lists comments on a specific post or reel, with pagination. The core collection action for organic inbound, and free to run as often as a schedule needs.
- Get Post Insights Retrieves performance metrics for a single post or reel. Used to weight which conversations are worth a person's attention, since a comment on a post with real reach carries different consequences.
- Reply to Comment Posts a public reply to a comment on a post or reel. Publicly visible and permanent to everyone who reaches that post afterwards. Consumes 1 credit.
- Create Post Publishes an image, reel, carousel, or story from public media URLs. The only publishing action in this connector, and the one place it does something other than respond. Consumes 1 credit.
Instagram Messaging
4- Get Instagram Conversations Lists direct message conversations in the account inbox, with pagination. Used to find threads needing attention without opening the app.
- Get Conversation Messages Lists the messages within a specific direct conversation, with pagination. This is how a flow reads history before adding to a thread, so a reply does not repeat what was already said.
- Get Contact Profile Retrieves public profile information for a contact who interacted with the account. Used to attach identity to a comment or a thread before it is escalated to a person.
- Send Message Sends a direct message to a user, or a private reply to a comment. Reaches exactly one person, and is subject to Instagram's messaging window policy, so the private path to a contact is not permanently available. Consumes 1 credit.
Ads
5- Get Ad Accounts Lists the advertising accounts linked to the connected account. A read, and the entry point for the ad comment surface.
- Get Ads Lists ads for an ad account, either active only or across all statuses. This reads ad inventory; it does not create, pause, edit, or budget anything.
- Get Ad Comments Lists the comments left on a specific ad. The action that makes paid media conversation visible on a schedule instead of when someone happens to look.
- Reply to Ad Comment Posts a public reply to an ad comment. Visible to the audience the ad is still being served to, and that audience keeps growing while the ad keeps spending. Consumes 1 credit.
- Send Ad Comment Private Reply Sends a private direct message in response to an ad comment. Same content, one recipient, no public footprint, and subject to Instagram's messaging window. Consumes 1 credit.
Facebook Page
3- Get Facebook Page Posts Lists recent posts from the linked Facebook Page, with pagination. Brings the third surface into the same collection pass as the other two.
- Get Facebook Page Comments Lists comments on a specific Facebook Page post, with pagination. Used so page conversation is triaged on the same cycle as Instagram rather than on its own.
- Reply to Facebook Page Comment Posts a public reply to a Facebook Page comment. Publicly visible under the page post. Consumes 1 credit.
Frequently Asked Questions
What can FlowRunner do with Instant DM?
FlowRunner agents can run Get Account Details, Get Account Insights, and Get Instagram Posts in Instant DM, plus 16 more actions.
Does connecting Instant DM to FlowRunner require OAuth?
No. Instant DM connects to FlowRunner with an API key, no OAuth flow required.
Can Instant DM trigger a FlowRunner workflow automatically?
Instant DM doesn't currently expose triggers in FlowRunner. It connects as an action step inside workflows started by another trigger.
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