“Comment GUIDE and I’ll send it to you” is one of the most effective lines you can put under a post. The hard part is keeping the promise: answering every comment by hand, fast, including the ones at 3 a.m. Here’s how to have it done automatically, on Meta’s official API.
What you need
- An Instagram professional account, Business or Creator. Switching is free.
- Something to send: a link to a guide, a product, a booking page or a discount.
- A comment-to-DM tool on the official API, such as linkpls. You connect through Instagram’s own login, so the tool never has your password.
1. Switch to a professional account
Instagram only lets apps reply to comments and send messages for professional accounts. If yours is personal, follow our guide to switching to a Business or Creator account. It takes about a minute.
2. Decide what you’re sending
Make it specific and worth a comment: “my 8-week training plan”, “the full recipe”, “10% off this week”. A vague offer (“more info”) gets fewer comments than a concrete one.
3. Pick the keyword
One short word that matches the offer: PLAN, RECIPE, GUIDE, CODE. Avoid words people type anyway, like “love” or “wow”. Our guide on choosing a comment keyword has examples by niche.
4. Write the DM
Keep it to a line or two and put the link on a button. An automated Instagram DM can carry up to 1,000 bytes of text, and fewer with buttons (640 characters), so emoji-heavy or non-English messages fill up fast. Check yours with the free DM character counter.
5. Set up the automation
In linkpls, you first pick where it runs: one post, all your posts, or your next post. Then a new automation takes five short steps, and anything optional is a switch:
- Who gets it: your keyword. Switches add earlier comments and people who share the post.
- Comment reply: a public reply under their comment, on by default.
- DM: write the message and add up to three link buttons. Switches add a greeting first, or different versions of the message.
- Before the link: follow to unlock and email capture, both optional.
- Review: read it back in plain English, then go live.
6. Tell people the word
Say it in the first line of the caption, on screen in a Reel, and out loud if you talk to camera: “Comment PLAN and I’ll DM it to you.” People only comment the word if they know it.
7. Test it and watch the numbers
Comment the keyword from a second account to see exactly what arrives. After that, the dashboard shows comments, DMs, link clicks and leads for each automation, so you can tell which posts and words work.
Mistakes to avoid
- Sending people to your bio. The whole point is that the link comes to them.
- A DM that’s too long. One line and a button beats a paragraph.
- A keyword nobody knows. If it isn’t in the caption, people won’t type it.
- Tools that ask for your password. Stick to tools that connect through Instagram’s own login.
