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Question

How does the "Post or Reel Share" Story trigger detect a specific post, and does it require a manual @mention?

  • June 4, 2026
  • 1 comment
  • 16 views

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to understand exactly how the Instagram "Post or Reel Share" trigger ("User shares your post or reel in a Story") works under the hood, because I'm running into two things I can't reconcile.

1) Specific post selection
The trigger lets me pick a specific post/reel. But based on the Instagram Messaging API, when someone shares your post (or mentions you) in their Story, the `story_mention` webhook payload only contains the Story media URL (a CDN link) — it does NOT include the ID of the original post/reel that was shared. I've also seen Manychat staff say in this community that it's not possible to retrieve the post ID.

So how does the "specific post" option actually filter? Does it truly restrict the automation to the chosen post, or does it fire for ANY mention/share regardless of which post was shared?

2) Manual @mention vs. just sharing
In my own testing, simply using "Add to story" to reshare a post/reel does NOT trigger anything — it only fires when the user manually adds the @mention sticker for my profile. Is that the expected behavior? Does this trigger require a manual @mention, or should a plain "Add to story" reshare (without manually tagging) also fire it?

I'd really appreciate a clear, technical explanation of how the trigger identifies the share and the specific post. Thanks!
 

1 reply

rodrigo_silvano
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Hey ​@caio pohlmann 

The “Post or Reel Share as a Story” trigger is used when your audience shares your content with someone through DM.

Manual mentions happen when someone mentions you in their story, regardless of whether they share your content or simply mention you.


Here are some articles about this:
Manual mentions: https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/14281309502108-Instagram-Story-Mention-Reply-trigger
Share as a Story: https://help.manychat.com/hc/en-us/articles/23431135317916-Share-to-DM-trigger