Instagram and Facebook Messenger

Your assistant can answer direct messages sent to your Facebook Page on Messenger and to your Instagram professional account. These conversations land in Messages and your inbox next to your texts and WhatsApp chats, and your team can reply there too.

Note: Instagram and Messenger are rolling out gradually. When the feature is available for your workspace, an Instagram & Facebook Messenger card appears at the top of the Messages page. If you do not see it yet, it is not switched on for your workspace.

What you need

• A Facebook Page for your business.
• For Instagram: an Instagram professional account linked to that Page. In the Instagram app, go to Settings, then Account type and tools, to switch to a professional account and link it.
• A Facebook account that is an admin of the Page.
• The Owner or Admin role in your Ringhum workspace.

Connect your Page

1. Open Messages.
2. In the Instagram & Facebook Messenger card, click Connect Instagram & Facebook.
3. Sign in with the Facebook account that manages the Page, and allow everything it asks for. Ringhum needs these permissions to read and answer your messages.
4. Back in Ringhum, choose the Assistant that answers.
5. Next to the Page you want, click Connect.

Each Page in the list shows whether it will connect Messenger and Instagram, or Messenger only when no Instagram account is linked to it. New messages are answered from the moment the Page is connected.

To connect more Pages, click Connect another Page. A Page can only be connected to one Ringhum workspace at a time.

Settings for each Page

Each connected Page has its own settings in the card:

How conversations work

Each conversation appears in Messages with an Instagram or Messenger label, and in your inbox as a request for your team. A person whose name is not known yet is shown as an Instagram or Messenger user.

• The assistant answers from your knowledge base and can use its abilities, such as booking appointments, taking orders or reservations, and taking messages for your team.
• The assistant does not know who the person is. Before it books anything, it asks for their name and email address (or phone number) and saves them on the contact.
• When the assistant answers, your team gets a summary once the conversation goes quiet. When nobody answers automatically, every new message notifies your team.
• Photos, documents and voice messages people send are read, so the assistant and your team can respond to them.

Note: The assistant replies to one person at most 30 times an hour. If that limit is reached, it pauses for that person and the conversation is marked high priority in the inbox.

The 24-hour reply rule

Instagram and Messenger only allow a business to reply within 24 hours of the person's last message. This applies to your team and to the assistant.

• While the window is open, reply from Messages.
• After 24 hours, Messages shows a notice instead of the reply box. The person has to write to you first.
• You cannot start a new conversation on Instagram or Messenger from Ringhum.

Billing

Messages on Instagram and Messenger are counted like WhatsApp messages. Each message the assistant or your team sends uses about a tenth of a plan minute, and 1 cent from your credit once your plan minutes are used up. Messages people send you are free. A message that fails to send is refunded. See Chats and AI usage for how longer AI conversations are counted.

Disconnect a Page

Click Disconnect next to the Page and confirm. The assistant stops answering its messages, and new messages to that Page no longer reach Ringhum.

Troubleshooting

"Facebook refused to connect this Page." Make sure you are an admin of the Page and that you allowed messaging when Facebook asked. Then try again.

"This Page is already connected to another workspace." Disconnect it in the other workspace first.

The Page shows "Messenger only". No Instagram professional account is linked to that Page. Link it in the Instagram app, then disconnect the Page in Ringhum and connect it again.

"Not sent: Instagram and Messenger only allow replies within 24 hours of the person's last message." The window has closed. Wait for the person to write again.