Textline connects with Instagram so those with an Instagram Business account can receive and reply to all their direct messages (DMs), story mentions, and story replies within Textline. To connect your Instagram Business account as a new Textline department, continue reading.

Your Instagram account must be a business account. Personal and Creator accounts will not work. To convert a personal account to a Business account, while logged into Instagram, click on your profile icon and then settings. At the bottom left will be text that says Switch to Professional Account. Click on it and select Business (NOT creator).

To connect an Instagram Business account to Textline, you must have your Instagram account linked to a Facebook Business page. Luckily this business page does NOT need to be public/published. Having a linked Facebook Business page is just a requirement from Meta to give your Instagram account access to the APIs. To confirm if you are linked, linking your Instagram Business account to a Facebook Business page will give you access to the Meta Business Suite portal at https://business.facebook.com.

Once you've confirmed the requirements, proceed to your Departments page in Textline to add a New Department. In the new department page, scroll down to click on Manage an Instagram Page.

Clicking on Manage an Instagram Page will send you to Facebook. It will ask you to log in if you are not logged in. Once you are logged in, it will ask you to continue as the user you are logged in as.

Once confirmed, you will select the Instagram account you want to link:

You will then be asked if you would like to also include the business page messaging. This is required because Instagram Business messages are linked to Facebook Business Messenger.

Finally, you will be asked what permissions you want Textline to have, we have preselected the required permissions.

After clicking done, you will be returned to Textline. Name your department and click save.

Congratulations, you have now connected your Instagram Business account to Textline.

Once connected, you will receive your direct messages, story mentions, and story replies in Textline.

Direct messages show up in Textline like the chat bubbles of a text message. You can receive and reply to direct messages as you please.

Anytime an Instagram user @ mentions you in their story or you @ mention them in your story, you will see a note that states the user mentioned your business or you mentioned them with a link to that story. You can then reply or send them a message in Textline via direct message.

Anytime an Instagram user replies to your business' story, you will see a note that states the user replied to your story with a link to the story they replied to. After that note, you will see a chat bubble that contains what their reply was.

Note: Links to any Instagram story or sent images and attachments content are subject to Instagram's privacy requirements and can be deleted or expire.

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