Ask for follow before link sending NOT working!

Question

When setting up a comment style automation with any specific new reel. This has happened several times on many different reel automations that I've tried to set up. People will click on the prompt to follow, and then the same prompt will show up again, and then they'll click the button again, and the same prompt will show up. The link is not sending properly the way that it should be! This has happened now to several new follows that I've gotten from some promotions that I'm running for specific content.

I've tried toggling the prompts on and off. I've tried updating the app for ManyChat and for Instagram, and I have updated iOS as well. None of these fixes are working. It's happened to more than a handful of people at this point, and it's a really bad look for business.

SumGeniusAI · Accepted Answer

A couple things could be causing this, hard to know which without more info:

1. Some users might not actually be following. They tap "Following" hoping to get the link without committing, and the gate correctly catches them. Worth checking your follower list against the people who got stuck in the loop.

2. There's a known lag between when someone hits "Follow" on Instagram and when Meta's API actually reports them as a follower. If the recheck fires too fast, even legit followers can get stuck.

3. ManyChat's webhook layer has been flaky the last couple weeks (multiple posts in this forum about it), so it's possible the click-to-recheck handoff is just dropping.

Stuff worth trying:

- Add a delay node (15 to 30 seconds) before the follow recheck

- Add a fallback after 2 failed checks that either sends the link anyway or DMs them "follow and reply 'link' and I'll send it"

- DM a few of the stuck users after the fact and ask if they actually followed, you'll get a sense of how much is real vs people gaming the button

Not a definitive fix, but those are the angles I'd start at.