Instagram: Open Conversation When Contact Mentions in Their Story
planned
Anna Suk
Business Problem:
As a user, I want Instagram Story mentions — when a contact tags my business account in their own Story — to automatically open a conversation in respond.io, so that my team can respond promptly without switching to the Instagram app.
Desired Outcome:
Capture Instagram Story mentions as conversations in respond.io
Allow agents to reply to Story mentions directly from the platform
Reduce missed mentions and improve response time on high-intent interactions
Current Workaround:
Monitoring Story mentions directly in the Instagram app and manually switching between Instagram and respond.io to respond
S
Shi Hui
marked this post as
planned
A
Alyaa See
Merged in a post:
Hello! I would like to do that stories mentions will open the conversation. because now it is not open even if I have this feature ON. Thanks!
Anna Suk
A
Alyaa See
Merged in a post:
Hello! Could you please enable Story replies to automatically open as active conversations by default, instead of being marked as closed?
Anna Suk
A
Alyaa See
Hi Anna Suk thanks for your inquiry.
To make sure we’re understanding your request correctly — are you referring to Instagram Story replies?
If so, this is already supported on respond.io. You can enable whether Story replies and reactions open a conversation through the Open conversations for Story replies setting in your Instagram channel configuration. Learn more here!
Anna Suk
Alyaa See, hello! The option is enabled, but in reality this is not happening — Story replies are not opening conversations as expected.
Anna Suk
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A
Alyaa See
Hi Anna Suk, just to make sure we’re looking at the right use case — are you referring to Story
Replies
or Story Mentions
?From the screenshot you shared, it looks like this may actually be about Story Mentions instead. Could you confirm if that’s the case? That will help us review your request more accurately.
Anna Suk
Alyaa See, hi! story mentions.
A
Alyaa See
Hi Anna Suk thanks for confirming!
Story Mentions currently show up as a contact event in the inbox but won't open a conversation - that's expected behavior for now.
Could you share a bit about your current workflow and how having Story Mentions to open conversations would help your team?
That'll help us assess the request 🙏
A
Alyaa See
Hi Anna Suk thanks for your inquiry. To better understand the need, could you share how you currently handle Story mentions today and what’s not working well in your existing workflow?
It'd be helpful to understand how having Story mentions supported in respond.io would improve your business workflow — for eg, whether this would help your team respond faster, avoid missed mentions, or manage conversations more efficiently.
Anna Suk
Alyaa See, hello! We currently handle them directly in Instagram, but we would like Story mentions to be captured in respond.io so we can reply to them there.
This would definitely be more efficient for our team, as they wouldn’t need to switch to Instagram and could manage all responses directly within respond.io.
Anna Suk
Hi team, we’d really love to have Instagram Story mentions open a conversation in respond.io
This would help us respond faster to potential leads and avoid missing important mentions. It would be especially useful for our team because Story mentions are one of the main ways customers interact with us on Instagram.
Thanks for considering it!
A
Alyaa See
Hi Anna Suk thank you for the detailed context!
We'll keep tracking demand for this request and will update you here as the request progresses.
Anna Suk
The issue is that when a customer replies to a Story, respond.io does not display the conversation. The conversation only appears if the agent replies directly from Instagram.
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Alyaa See
Hi Anna Suk - just to confirm, is the issue that you’re currently unable to open conversations from Instagram Story replies or Story mentions?
Anna Suk
Alyaa See, hello! The issue is that when a customer replies to a Story, respond.io does not display the conversation. The conversation only appears if the agent replies directly from Instagram.
A
Alyaa See
Hi Anna Suk, thank you for the reply!
Just to clarify - Instagram actually has two different story behaviors.
Your screenshot looks like a
Story Mention
(when someone tags your account in their story), which shows up as a contact event but doesn't open a conversation. That's expected for now! If this is what you're referring to, it'd be great if you could share a bit about your workflow and how enabling this would help your team — that'll help us assess the impact.If you meant
Story Replies
(when someone replies directly to your story), we actually have a toggle for that already - turning it on will open a conversation when someone replies or reacts. You can read more about it here.Could you confirm which one applies to you? 🙏