Blotato has released DM automations for Instagram and Facebook. Someone comments on your post or sends you a message, and a DM goes back automatically. ManyChat has done that for years. What is new here is how you build it: you set the automation up by talking to Claude or ChatGPT.
How it works
There are two triggers. The first is a comment on a post, optionally tied to keywords so that only “GUIDE” or “LINK” counts. The second is an incoming message in your inbox. Either way, Blotato sends the reply you defined.
The timing follows platform rules. For a comment, the private reply goes out within seven days of that comment. For a message, Blotato responds within 24 hours of the last message in the thread. Those windows come from Instagram and Facebook, not from Blotato, so there is nothing to tune.
Two more limits: 640 characters per message, and up to three link buttons per automation. Enough for an article, a signup page and a profile. Not enough to cram a landing page into a DM.
The feature is on every paid Blotato plan. The dashboard lives at my.blotato.com/dm-automations.
What makes it different
In ManyChat you click a flow together. Drag blocks, draw connections, type keywords into fields. Here you open Claude and describe what you want. The setup prompt Blotato suggests is:
walk me through setup blotato DM automations
Claude walks you through the steps, creates the automation, and edits it when you change your mind. Then Claude is done. The automation runs on Blotato’s side, around the clock, with your laptop shut and no chat window open anywhere.
Compare that to an assistant that answers your DMs for as long as you keep the window open. Here the conversation is the build tool, not the thing doing the work.
Where it does not reach
Instagram and Facebook only. No X, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube. If your funnel leans on TikTok, today changes nothing for you.
And no cold outreach. Blotato only responds to people who contact you first. You cannot work through a list with it. That is a platform rule, not a choice Blotato made.
What I am doing with it
I already use Blotato to schedule my SparkOne posts. DM automations go on top of that. The most concrete use: a keyword under an article post, so anyone who types that word in the comments gets the link to the piece straight in their DMs. That skips the detour through “link in bio”, which loses most readers on Instagram.
For VinoVonk it is a harder call. That side runs on a paid ManyChat account with keyword funnels that work. I am checking whether Blotato can take it over. Questions I want answered first: does 640 characters cover what my current DMs send, do three link buttons hold up, and what do I lose in follow-up when someone writes back. Until I know, ManyChat stays. I am not tearing down a working funnel for something new.
Caveat
Automated DMs get annoying fast. Someone leaves a normal comment on your post and gets a scripted sales pitch back. That reads like an answering machine, and people remember it. Keep it to the one thing they actually asked for, and do not hang a three-step funnel behind it.
There is a risk in the building too. If a three sentence chat is enough to switch on an automation that will message a thousand people, checking what actually goes out has become very easy to skip. Read the message out loud once before you set it live.
One more thing on transparency: nobody is paying me for this. No affiliate link, no partnership, no free bottle. I use Blotato myself and I think highly of Sabrina Ramonov’s work. That is the whole relationship.
Your turn
What would you use DM automations for? I am most curious about the uses that are not about selling. Sending a reading list, say, or the answer to the question you get twenty times a week. Let me know.