Turn comments into conversations.

Work within Instagram’s private reply rules.

Comment tools send their message through Instagram’s private replies. Meta allows one message to each commenter, sent within 7 days of the comment. You can only send more if the person replies, and then within 24 hours of their reply.

The message lands in the person’s inbox if they follow you, and in their message requests if they don’t. Many people who find you through a reel won’t follow you yet, so say in the caption that it will arrive in their messages.

Your account must be a professional account. Meta also limits private replies on posts and reels to 750 calls an hour for each account, which matters only if a post draws a very large number of comments at once.

Offer something people would otherwise have to ask for.

Selling Social, who coach agents on Instagram, tell agents to give away a local guide, a buyer or seller guide or a relocation guide, and to promote it in the bio, in stories or in captions with a comment keyword as the call to action. Your monthly market report, a sheet of your current listings or recent sales in a suburb work the same way.

For a listing, they tell agents to leave the address out. Share the suburb and a few features of the home, and tell people to comment a keyword for the full details. Otherwise people Google the address and go around you. When they comment, you can start a conversation and learn what they are looking for.

Andrew Jevin, a Compass agent in Los Angeles, ends a listing reel with “Comment beast and i’ll send you more info”.

Make the post worth watching even for someone who never comments. The thing you send should add to it, not finish it.

Give every offer its own keyword.

Coaches pick a word that names the thing they send. Selling Social uses HOME for a home tour filming guide, LISTING for 20 home tour hooks and GUIDE for a guide sent from a story, and a general word, INFO, when the offer is help with your account. Coffee & Contracts, who sell content templates to agents, use WEEK for a free week of content.

A general word works when it always leads to one thing. When you have several homes for sale at once, give each its own word so you know which home a lead wants. We use the street name and house number, such as ELM14 for 14 Elm Street, and never reuse one after the home sells. That part is our working rule, not something the coaches teach.

Check how your tool matches a keyword. Zernio, for example, can match a word anywhere in a comment, as a whole word or as the exact comment. Short everyday keywords like HOME or INFO work best on exact matching, so a passing “love this home” doesn’t trigger a message.

Use the same keyword in your stories.

Selling Social tell agents not to drop a link in a story when they give away a guide or listing info. Pick a keyword like GUIDE and set up ManyChat to send the link automatically when people reply with that word. They add that Instagram shows a story to more people the more replies it gets.

A story reply is a message to you, so the follow-up rules below apply from the start.

Ask them to follow you in the same conversation.

Someone who comments for your market report may not follow you yet. If they follow, your later messages land in their inbox instead of their message requests, and your next posts can reach them. Selling Social sometimes ask for both in the caption, “Follow @sellingsocial.co and comment ‘INFO’”.

Your tool can only check whether someone follows you after they have messaged you. Meta gives access to that only once the person sends you a message, so a comment alone is not enough. That shapes the flow.

The first private reply thanks them, asks them to follow, and asks them to reply once they have. When they reply, the tool checks that they follow you and sends what they asked for, inside the 24 hours their reply opens. If they don’t follow yet, it asks again. CreatorFlow calls this a follow gate, and InstantDM a follower gated DM.

Every extra step loses some people, so we save the gate for things worth a follow, like your market report or a suburb guide. When a buyer asks about a home you are selling, send the details straight away and ask for the follow in the same message.

Ask for the comment because the reply is useful.

In 2024 Instagram said it won’t recommend content that explicitly asks for engagement. Its example was asking people to comment with a specific word, number or emoji.

Days later it clarified that this is not engagement bait as long as creators are actually engaging with their audience. It added that creators can still use services like ManyChat.

Mention the keyword once, near the end and in the caption, and make sure it delivers what you promised.

Put everything they need in the message.

Because the first message may be the only one you can send, say who you are and give them the thing itself, or a link that opens it without a sign-up form. Add how to reach you directly.

For a market report or listings sheet, link the current version and keep the link the same each month, so older posts still send something up to date.

For one home, send the address, the price or price guide where you can publish one, the next inspection times, a link to the floor plan and full listing, and your number.

Follow your state’s rules on price. In New South Wales, new laws will require residential sale advertising to include a selling price or price range. NSW Fair Trading says some changes started on 29 June 2026 and the rest are expected towards the end of 2026. Check what applies to you with your agency.

Follow up yourself.

The automated message starts the conversation. Send each lead somewhere you will see it, such as your email or CRM, and reply personally while they are still interested. Someone who asked for your market report may be thinking about selling.

Selling Social say the goal of a giveaway is to get people off Instagram and onto your email list. Ask for the email in the conversation, and only add people who say yes.

Keep the automated message to what the person asked for. Australia’s Spam Act sets rules for commercial electronic messages, including consent, saying who sent the message and offering a way to unsubscribe. Don’t add a commenter to marketing lists without their permission, and ask your agency how the rules apply to your messages.

Count what happens after the comment.

For each keyword, record the comments, the messages sent, the new follows, the replies, and the appraisals or inspections that followed. Comments alone tell you who was curious. Replies and bookings tell you whether the message helped.

If a post draws comments but few replies, rewrite the message. If many people drop out at the follow step, send that offer without the gate. If it draws views but few comments, look at how and when the keyword appears. These are our working review practices, not a promised result.