Turn Instagram Followers into Activists

For advocacy organizations, nonprofits, political campaigns, and unions, digital engagement is only valuable when it leads to real participation. 

We are excited to introduce a major upgrade on our messaging platform: Instagram chatbots built specifically for organizing.

This is the first Instagram messaging tool designed expressly for nonprofits, advocacy groups, political campaigns, and unions. It allows organizations to engage supporters in one-to-one conversations at scale, directly through Instagram DMs.

Comment Automations

With this new feature, campaigns and organizations can automatically message supporters when they comment a keyword or keyword synonym on an Instagram post. A comment becomes the entry point to a private, automated conversation in the supporter’s Instagram DMs.

Instead of directing people to click the link in your bio or navigate away from the platform, supporters can simply comment on a post and receive an immediate response. From there, organizations can ask follow-up questions, share important information, invite people to take action, or guide them through a structured conversation designed around your organizing goals.

Designed to Work With the Instagram Algorithm

Instagram prioritizes content that drives engagement and keeps users within their platform. This feature is intentionally designed to align with those incentives.

When supporters comment on a post, engagement increases. When campaigns choose to enable automated comment replies in response to keywords, engagement in the comments section increases even further. When supporters receive messages directly in their DMs instead of being pushed off-platform, they stay inside Instagram longer.

All of this signals to the algorithm that your content is valuable, which increases the likelihood that your posts appear more frequently in supporters’ feeds. The result is a cycle where engagement leads to visibility, and visibility leads to more opportunities for engagement.

Direct Message Dynamic Chatbots

Instagram messaging allows for more than just plain text, and our flow builder takes full advantage of that. Organizations can share links to external webpages using buttons. Quick replies allow people to respond with a single tap, streamlining participation and reducing drop-off.

These features make conversations more accessible, especially for supporters who may not want to type long responses or navigate complex workflows. The goal is to remove barriers so that more people can participate quickly and confidently.

A Powerful New Path to Grow Your SMS List

This feature also creates a natural growth funnel into your SMS program.

Organizations can share SMS opt-in links directly in Instagram DMs. When a supporter clicks the link, their phone’s messaging app opens automatically with your campaign’s phone number and opt-in keyword already filled in. The supporter simply presses send to subscribe.

By removing extra steps, campaigns can grow their SMS lists more efficiently while capturing supporters at a moment when they are motivated.

Built for the Organizing Ecosystem

Many existing social media chatbot tools are designed for influencers and brands, focusing on sales funnels and consumer engagement. Our platform is designed for movement building, fundraising, and activism.

We are also actively building additional features to make this tool even more powerful for nonprofits and campaigns. Upcoming improvements will make it easier to sync Instagram engagement data back into organizing CRMs like ActionKit and EveryAction, ensuring that social interactions connect directly to your broader supporter universe.

Turning Social Engagement Into Activism

Instagram is already one of the most important platforms for reaching supporters, especially younger and mobile-first audiences.

By allowing supporters to comment on a post and immediately receive a message in their DMs, organizations can lower the barrier to participation, increase engagement at scale, and move people from passive support to active involvement.

This is a meaningful step forward for digital organizing, and we are excited to see how advocacy organizations, campaigns, and unions use it to build power and drive change.

Try it for Free 😍

Existing campaigns can access the feature as a part of their subscription.

For nonprofits, political campaigns, and unions not using Ascend’s broadcast tool, you can access the Instagram starter pack for FREE, holding up to 1,000 Instagram conversations at no cost.

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Ready to get started? Learn more about the feature in our help docs or Schedule a demo!

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