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Chatbot features on Instagram

This article details the differences and limitations you may notice when implementing and interacting with a chatbot on Instagram. 

These differences - eg in numbers of characters on a button - are because of Instagram's inherent channel limitations. Any application running on that channel would behave in the same way.

In this article

Welcome message

Appears at the very beginning of a conversation (Instagram chat is persistent), on clicking “START CHAT”

You can also click hamburger menu (top right) and click START CHAT to see Welcome message again.

You can also force a new conversation (e.g. for test purposes) by typing GET_STARTED

Buttons

Button text limited to 20 characters or truncated to 17 + ...

Maximum 6 buttons per message (grouped in 2 sets of 3). If there is a video or related article, this will use one of the buttons.

Affected features:

  • Engagements
  • Follow-up questions
  • Forms (if form context is collected)

Example: Follow-up questions

Recommendations

Ensure <20 characters for all button text used in:

  • Follow up questions (all channels)
  • Engagements for this channel (engagements can be set by channel)


Emojis may help convey the button purpose visually.

Troubleshooting: <6 buttons, not seeing them all?

If you have six or fewer buttons, and you're still not seeing them all when the engagement displays on Instagram, this might be because:

  • There are related articles - uses a button
  • There is a video included in the message - uses a button
  • You don't have any text in the "Engagement message" field. Add some text here to see the buttons re-appear:


Images

One image only can be displayed per answer.

The image is displayed above the answer rather than inline.

Recommendations

Add your image before any other links in your Q&A answer in the Helpfruit portal, to ensure that it is displayed on Instagram.

Have answers with more than one image? We recommend you either

  • Combine the images into one image; or
  • Split your Q&A into two or more separate Q&A, each with a maximum of one image

Image links

The image URL – whether the image is uploaded to the Helpfruit portal or added via link - will be displayed in the answer text. You may wish to consider using a link shortening service (eg TinyURL, bit.ly) 

Links

For inline links in answers, the URL is displayed in brackets after the link text. If the URL is long, you may wish to consider using a link shortening service (eg TinyURL, bit.ly).

Link preview is displayed above the answer (with image, if available).

Links open in Instagram

Did you mean / not confident answer

Options displayed in a carousel, as shown below. 
“Ask” button asks the question of the bot.

Answer length

Maximum 1000 characters – text only (note that emoji may be 2 or more characters). 

If answer includes buttons, maximum of 640 characters in answer text.

  • If answer is too long, will be truncated.
  • Beware – links at the end of an answer could be truncated.

Follow up questions

Button limitations detailed above – maximum 6 buttons, maximum 20 characters on button (or 17 + …)

Web search results

Displayed as a carousel

Video

Displays as a button, as shown. YouTube opens inside Instagram app

 

 

Helpful?