How to Use ManyChat to Automate Instagram & Sell Digital Products
Mark Shiers
Founder, FlippinFunnels.com
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ManyChat is a powerful tool for helping you turn social media engagement into sales of your digital products.
It can automate conversations with your audience, respond to messages and comments, capture leads, and guide potential customers towards your offers - without you having to manually respond to every interaction.
For digital product sellers, this means you can use ManyChat to start conversations, build relationships, grow your audience, and guide interested people towards the right product or offer - helping you turn more of your social media attention into potential customers and sales.
In this beginner-friendly guide, I'll show you how to get started with ManyChat, connect it to your Instagram account, and set up your first automation to help promote your digital products.
What Is ManyChat?
ManyChat is a marketing automation platform that allows you to create automated conversations with people through supported social media and messaging platforms.
Instead of manually replying to every comment or message, you can set up automated responses that do some of the work for you.
For example, someone might comment on one of your Instagram posts asking for more information.
Rather than manually finding that person and sending them a message, you can create an automation that responds to them automatically and delivers the information they're looking for.
That could be a link to:
A free guide
Your website
A blog post
A digital product
A course
An email opt-in
Another resource
This is where ManyChat can become particularly useful for digital marketers and digital product sellers.
How to Get Started With ManyChat
If you've never used ManyChat before, don't worry.
The setup can look a little complicated when you first open the platform, but once you understand the basic process, it becomes much easier.
Step 1: Create Your ManyChat Account
Start by creating your ManyChat account
ManyChat currently offers a Free plan, which is useful if you're just getting started and want to experiment with automation before deciding whether you need more advanced features. The Free plan currently supports up to two channels and up to four live automations.
Follow the on-screen instructions to create your account.
📱 Step 2: Connect Your Instagram Account
Once you've created your ManyChat account, you'll need to connect the Instagram account you want to use.
Important: Your Instagram account needs to be a Professional account — either Business or Creator. Personal Instagram accounts can't be connected to ManyChat.
If you're creating your ManyChat account for the first time:
Choose Instagram when asked which channel you'd like to start with.
Choose whether you'd like to sign up using Facebook or Google.
Follow the on-screen instructions.
Give ManyChat the permissions it requests.
Select the Instagram account you want to connect.
Complete the connection.
If you've already created your ManyChat account, you can connect Instagram by going to Settings → Instagram → Connect.
💬 Step 3: Create Your First Automation
Now for the fun part!
An automation tells ManyChat what to do when someone takes a particular action.
For example, you could create an automation that:
💬 Responds when someone comments on one of your posts
📩 Sends them a message automatically
🔗 Gives them a link to your digital product
🎁 Sends them a link to a free resource
For your first automation, keep it simple.
You don't need to build a complicated sequence with lots of messages. Start with one useful action that solves a problem for your audience.
Step 4: Try a Simple Comment-to-DM Automation
One of the most useful ways to introduce yourself to ManyChat is with a comment-to-DM automation.
The idea is simple:
Someone comments on your post → ManyChat sends them a DM → You provide something useful → You can then direct them to your offer.
For example, imagine you create a post about starting a digital product business and tell people:
Comment "START" and I'll send you the details.
ManyChat can then automatically respond to that comment and start a conversation with the person.
You could send a message such as:
Hey! 👋 Thanks for commenting START. Here's the information I promised you: [LINK]
The exact options available to you may depend on your ManyChat plan and the channel you're using, so follow the options shown in your account.
🔗 Step 5: Add Your Offer
Once you've created your automation, you can include a link to wherever you want your audience to go next.
This could be:
🌱 Your digital product
🎁 A free download
📧 Your email list
🛍️ Your digital store
📖 A sales page
The important thing is to give people a clear next step.
Don't send someone through five different links and expect them to figure it out. Keep the journey simple:
Content → Conversation → Offer
🧪 Step 6: Test Everything
Before sending people into your automation, test it yourself.
Check that:
✅ The automation triggers correctly
✅ The message makes sense
✅ Your links work
✅ The customer reaches the correct page
✅ Everything looks good on mobile
It's much better to discover a broken link yourself than have your first potential customer discover it for you!
🚀 Step 7: Start Using ManyChat
Once you've tested your first automation, start thinking about where automation could genuinely help your business.
You could use ManyChat to:
✔ Answer common questions
✔ Respond to comments
✔ Start conversations with followers
✔ Share useful resources
✔ Direct people towards your digital products
✔ Create simple lead-generation campaigns
Remember, automation shouldn't replace genuine interaction.
Use it to handle the repetitive first step, then step in personally when a conversation needs a human touch.
🚀 Keep It Simple
You don't need dozens of complicated automations to get started with ManyChat.
Start with one useful automation, learn how it works, and build from there.
The goal isn't to automate everything.
It's to use automation to save time, create better conversations and make it easier for the right people to discover what you have to offer.
🚀 Ready to try ManyChat?
Why Use ManyChat for Digital Products?
The real benefit isn't simply being able to automate messages.
It's what you can do with those conversations.
For example, you could create a social media post offering a free resource and tell people:
| Comment "GUIDE" and I'll send it to you. |
ManyChat can then recognise the comment and start the automated conversation.
That person could receive the resource, visit your website and potentially join your email list.
You've effectively turned a simple social media interaction into the beginning of a customer journey.
And that's where automation can become really powerful.
Don't Automate Everything
One thing I'd recommend is not trying to automate every interaction you have with your audience.
Automation is fantastic for repetitive tasks, delivering resources and starting conversations.
But genuine conversations still matter.
If someone asks a specific question about your product or business, you don't necessarily want to throw another automated message at them.
Use automation to save time and create opportunities for conversations, rather than trying to replace the human element completely.
Is ManyChat Worth Using?
If you're using Instagram as part of your digital marketing strategy, I think ManyChat is certainly worth exploring.
The ability to turn comments and other social interactions into automated conversations can be particularly useful when you're promoting digital products, lead magnets or other offers.
And once you've built your first automation, you can start experimenting with different ways of using it in your own business.
Mark Shiers
Founder, FlippinFunnels.com
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