Story Reply

A story reply happens when a user reacts to a business's Instagram story, with a text message, an emoji or a voice note. That reaction arrives at the business as a direct message and can be handled in the shared inbox alongside every other channel.

What is a story reply?

When a user taps on a business's Instagram story and enters a message, whether a text, an emoji reaction or a short voice note, that reaction lands as a direct message in the business inbox of the company account. Instagram refers to this message type internally as a story reply.

Story replies differ from the public comment beneath a post: they are private, visible only to the business, and usually arise spontaneously out of an emotional reaction to an image or video. That makes them a particularly valuable touchpoint, because the willingness to interact is already there.

How story replies work in practice

The technical process is seamless for the user: they see the story, tap "Reply" and write their message. The business receives it through the Instagram Business API as a regular Instagram DM. The story context (which story triggered the reply) is delivered along with it, so the team member handling it can immediately tell which content the person is referring to.

Typical story-reply scenarios:

  • A user replies to a product story with "Where can I buy this?"
  • An emoji reaction to a discount story, which automatically triggers a flow that sends the code by DM
  • A request for more information on a behind-the-scenes story

With Instagram DM automation, story replies can be filtered by content or emoji type and processed automatically, for example as lead capture or coupon delivery.

Handling story replies with SendSeven

SendSeven routes story replies into the shared inbox, where they appear alongside regular DMs, Messenger messages and other channels. The team sees the story context directly in the conversation view and can reply, forward or assign the enquiry to a colleague, without switching between apps.

More information on the Instagram integration: Instagram for business with SendSeven.