Open Settings → Facebook & Instagram in the business app.
Connect the Page
- Click Connect Facebook & Instagram and sign in with a Facebook account that manages the business's Page.
- On Facebook, pick the Page (and the Instagram professional account linked to it) and keep every permission ticked.
- Back in the business app, choose which Page is this business's. If it has an Instagram account linked, leave Instagram … is this business's too ticked to get those messages as well.
- Click Connect this Page.
From then on, new messages to the Page on Messenger, and to the Instagram account, show in Conversations on the contact's conversation, next to their emails, texts and website chats. Someone writing for the first time becomes a new contact, named from their Facebook or Instagram profile.
A Page (and its Instagram account) can answer in one business only. To move it, disconnect it in the other business first.
Replying
Pick Facebook or Instagram in the reply box's channel menu (it's chosen for you when that's how they wrote last).
Facebook and Instagram only let a business reply within 24 hours of the customer's last message. The reply box shows until when you can reply. After that, it explains the time has passed: reply by email or text instead, or wait for them to write again (the 24 hours start over).
Messages are text only, up to 2,000 characters on Facebook and about 1,000 on Instagram.
The Assistant
The Assistant can answer these messages too. On the Assistant's Channels tab, switch on Facebook and Instagram, then pick Off, Suggest or Auto-reply for each on its Settings tab, the same as for email and texts. It only replies inside the 24-hour window; a reply it can't send in time is left as a suggestion for your team.
Disconnect
Disconnect stops new messages coming in, stops the Assistant answering them, and deletes the Page's access key straight away. Conversations already in the inbox stay.
Something's not working?
- Needs reconnect: Facebook stopped accepting the connection (the password changed, or access was removed). Click Connect again or add a Page and pick the same Page.
- You can't answer this Page's messages: ask the Page's admin to give you full control (or messages access) on Facebook, then connect again.
- Not available yet: Facebook and Instagram messages switch on once Facebook approves the app.