Can Manychat detect if someone shares an Instagram reel or Tiktok via DM to me?

This is a limitation with how ManyChat handles shared media. When someone shares a reel or post to your DMs, Instagram's API delivers it as a ig_reel attachment with no text content. ManyChat's automation triggers only fire on text-based messages, which is why you can see the reel in live chat but can't trigger a flow from it.                                                                                                                                   

Workaround: Ask users to send a keyword instead. Pin a comment on your reel saying "DM me REEL to get the guide" — that text message will trigger the automation reliably.

Worth noting that there are other tools out there using AI-driven responses that can actually respond to shared reels automatically since they don't depend on keyword matching. Something to explore if this is a dealbreaker for your workflow.

Hi, thanks for responding!  Would you be able to share the names of some of those other tools that can respond to shared reels?

Hi ​@ahbidabs , no you cannot do it; Manychat can't detect when someone shares an Instagram reel or TikTok video via DM. However if you want to drive traffic to you bot from other accounts, you can just let them know from the reel, to go to your account (@..) and send a DM with a key word. This way you can get traffic from other account´s reels.

Hope this helps!

Cata Rendon