Find and reply to a conversation

Find a comment, message or mention in your Engage inbox and reply to it from the right social account.

Before you start

• Connect a social account that works with Engage, such as a Facebook Page, Instagram, LinkedIn Page, TikTok, WhatsApp or YouTube account. If none of your accounts are supported, Engage shows None of your connected accounts support Engage yet.
• Check you're in the right workspace. The inbox only shows accounts in the current workspace.
• If multiple accounts connect the same Page, its labels, assignments and read state are shared. Automation rule names are shown only when the rule belongs to the workspace of the account you're viewing. A live update can show the action without a rule name; reopen the conversation to load the current name.

Open the feature

Choose Engage in the left sidebar. The inbox opens with your accounts on the left under Accounts.

Steps

1. Under Accounts, select the accounts whose conversations you want to see.
2. Choose a tab: Open, Closed, Assign or All.
3. To narrow the list, open the type menu (it starts on All Conversations) and choose Comments, Mentions, Conversations (PM), Ad Comments or Reviews.
4. To find a specific conversation, click the search icon and type a keyword. To filter, click the filter icon, choose people or labels under Assigned, Replied By, Labeled, Sentiment or Reply time, then click Done.
5. Click a conversation to open it and read the earlier messages.
6. Write your reply:
   • For a comment or review, type in Write a comment... and click Reply.
   • For a private message, stay on the Chat tab, type in Write your reply and click Send.
7. To reuse text you've saved, click Saved Replies (the bookmark icon) in the reply box and pick a reply. The list shows the replies available in the workspace you're in. Edit it before you send.

Use dates, media and sentiment

Open the date filter to choose a period, apply it, and clear it when you need the full inbox again. The reply composer offers an emoji picker and Attach Media where the network supports attachments. Review the attachment and recipient before sending. See Send files and voice notes.

The sentiment chip summarizes the detected tone where available. Sentiment and sentiment filtering depend on the account's plan and are separate from whether a conversation is open or closed.

Add the sender to your creators

If Creators is on for you and you can change the creator library, the conversation header shows Add to creators beside the sender when they are on a supported network. Click it to add them to your creator library. It reads Already in your library if they are there already. Authors don't see it.

Correct sentiment

1. Read the message or comment in context before changing its sentiment. An automatic classification can be wrong.
2. Click an editable sentiment chip. Its tooltip says Set sentiment or Change sentiment.
3. Choose Positive, Neutral, Negative or Unclassified.
4. Wait for the save to finish and check the chip. The change applies to everyone on the team, and reporting uses the value you selected.

Changing sentiment does not send a reply or close the conversation. A read-only badge in a conversation header does not open the picker; use the editable chip on the item instead.

Expected result

Your reply appears in the conversation under the original message. The conversation stays in Open until you close it.

Example

A customer comments "When will my order arrive?" on your Facebook Page post. Select the Page under Accounts, choose Comments from the type menu and click the comment. Type "Hi! Orders ship within 2 working days. Send us a message with your order number and we'll check it for you." in Write a comment... and click Reply. Then click Mark as close on the conversation card to move it to Closed.

Limits and permissions

• Each network supports different conversation types. If a type is greyed out, it shows This option is not supported for the selected social accounts.
• Some networks limit when or how you can reply. A conversation can be visible even when replying to it isn't allowed.
• To leave a message only your team can see, switch to the Note tab, type in Write your note and click Add. Notes aren't sent to the customer.
• Mentions shows mentions from Facebook Pages, Instagram, LinkedIn Pages, TikTok and Bluesky.
• Sentiment filtering depends on your plan.
• If your workspace has a reply time target, each open item waiting on a first reply shows a countdown next to its name, and Reply time in the filter panel lists overdue and due-soon items first. See Set a reply time target.
• A comment an automation rule liked shows a Liked by automation badge. Hover over it to see which rule liked it. See Like positive comments automatically.
• LINE Official Account chats show text and images. Your replies show Sending, then Accepted by LINE, Failed or Outcome unknown, and a message the customer took back shows Message unsent. See Connect a LINE Official Account.
• WhatsApp replies show Sent, Delivered, Read or Failed to send. Sent means WhatsApp accepted the message. If delivery fails later, hover over Failed to send for the reason and check the conversation before retrying.
• Discord replies go only to channels in the Discord server you connected. A reply aimed at a channel in any other server is refused. An attachment sent from a link must be on a public web address and 25 MB or smaller. Discord's own upload limit can be lower: 10 MB unless the server is boosted.
• If an account needs reconnecting, replying from it is turned off until you reconnect.
• Instagram direct message replies can be up to 1,000 bytes. Most letters count as one, but emoji and accented letters count as more, so the counter can drop faster than the number of characters you type. Over the limit, the counter turns red and you can't send the reply.

Troubleshooting

• A conversation is missing: check you've selected the right accounts and tab, set the type menu back to All Conversations, and click Clear in the filter panel.
• The reply box is greyed out: the account may need reconnecting. See Reconnect a social account.
• Reply or Send is greyed out: type a message first, and check you're under the character limit.
• This message is too long for Instagram: the customer's name filled in for %name% can push a reply over the 1,000-byte limit after you click Send. Shorten the reply, then send it again.
• You're not sure a reply went through: check the conversation before replying again, so you don't post the same reply twice.
• The sentiment chip asks you to upgrade: sentiment is not included in the current plan. Ask the account owner to review availability.
• Sentiment returns to its previous value: the save failed. Read the error and retry once access or connectivity is restored.

Assistant behavior

When you ask the assistant to archive comments or messages, it marks them as read and removes them from every tab of your inbox. They stay visible on the social platform. If someone replies or sends a new message, the item comes back to the Open tab as unread; once it is read again, it goes back to the archive. Ask the assistant to unarchive items to bring them back to your inbox. They stay marked as read. Comments the assistant archived before October 2026 may still show as hidden.

When you ask the assistant what's unread, it counts unread items the way the inbox does: your own replies don't count. It lists up to 50 of the newest first and gives the total unread count; the rest are in Engage. When you ask it to mark items as read, they move from the Open tab to the Closed tab. A sentiment check on your comments covers a fixed number of recent days (7 unless you ask for another window), with each day's positive, neutral and negative counts.

• Moderate comments

WhatsApp quoted replies

A WhatsApp quote preview can only contain a message from the account sending the reply. A missing or inaccessible quote does not include its text or attachments in the sent-message preview. Invalid reply references are rejected before sending. If the same WhatsApp number is connected to more than one Social Champ account, replies are sent without a quote preview.

WhatsApp attachments from a link

An image or video you attach from a link, such as one from your media library or a free image search, must be on a public web address. A link to a private or internal address, or a link that redirects to one, is not sent. Engage shows We couldn't download this attachment from its link. Use a public link, or upload the file instead. Files you upload from your computer are not affected.

X direct message replies

A direct message you send from an X account is added only to that account's own conversation with the person. If the same person also messages another connected X account, that conversation's preview doesn't change. If the same X account is connected to more than one Social Champ account, the message is still sent, but it isn't added to a conversation in your inbox.

A direct message an X account receives is added only to that account's own conversation with the person. If the same person messages two connected X accounts, each account keeps its own conversation, and neither one shows the other's messages.

Facebook automatic replies

When someone starts a conversation from one of your Meta ads, the replies Meta sends for your Facebook Page, such as the ad greeting and frequently asked question answers, appear in the Page's conversation alongside your own replies. They show up about 10 seconds after the person's message. Engage reads them from Facebook, so a reply that Meta sends much later can take up to a minute to appear. These replies don't mark the conversation as read and don't count as your reply, so the conversation stays open until you answer. Conversations that don't come from an ad are unchanged, and replies sent before this change aren't added to older conversations until the person writes again.

Failure handling and current data

Instagram avatar metadata is read as JSON. Only the returned picture is streamed to the browser. A profile picture that cannot be fetched from Instagram shows the default picture instead of failing the request.

Reconnect an account for inbox sync

If Engage shows Reconnect Account beside a social account, open that control and authorize the same account again. A provider can reject inbox access while the account still appears connected for publishing. The reconnect indicator also covers authentication failures found during inbox polling.

After reconnecting, refresh the account list and check for new inbox activity. The indicator clears when the saved reconnect is newer than the polling failure or a later poll succeeds. Reconnecting does not guarantee recovery of older missing messages or reviews. Ask an account owner or a team member with account-management access if you cannot complete authorization.

CRM lookup recovery

Loading another CRM page keeps the search text. Ticket owner loading ends on an empty or failed response, so the editor does not remain on its spinner.

Editing saved rule references

When editing an automation or response rule, wait for its replies and labels to finish loading before saving. If either list cannot load, saving stays disabled. Close and reopen the rule to retry. A deleted saved reply must be selected again before saving an action that requires it.

Open an existing reply

Opening an ad-comment reply or a review reply loads its parent thread where available. After sending a supported reply, the thread refreshes so you can check the result. Reply permissions and network limits still apply. If the parent or post is unavailable, check the conversation on the social network before sending again.

Request and recovery behavior

Inbox comment pages have a server-side ceiling of 100 rows. Invalid page sizes fall back to ten rows.

Recovery and request limits

Private replies to comments support text only. A private reply with a media attachment is refused before any message is sent. Send a text reply or use an existing direct-message conversation for supported media.

Validation and privacy

Real X profiles still require an active X Suite slot when sample mode is requested. Protected inbox images load only from the supported X image hosts; rejected image URLs produce an error.

Recover the current thread

Deleting a different post does not disable the comment thread you have open. Opening another thread resets its deleted and pagination state while keeping reconnect restrictions. Leaving the thread stops its post-delete subscription.

Reply to the selected author

Using Reply in Private on a reply card targets that reply’s author and comment. The main card keeps its own author as the target. If the comment author cannot be identified, reopen the thread before retrying. Provider private-reply restrictions still apply. Sent replies, incoming messages and delivery-status changes refresh the open conversation.

Changing an inbox query

Changing tabs, filters or selected accounts cancels the previous conversation-list request. Its late result cannot refill the new list. Selecting no accounts, or none that support the chosen type, empties the list, including after you switch account or workspace.

Save a contact in Social Champ CRM

If your account has the CRM pilot enabled and you have the required workspace and profile access, choose Save to CRM on a customer comment or message where offered. Then choose View in CRM to add notes, tasks or deals. The contact panel shows its social source and links back to that channel in Engage. This does not send a reply. See Manage contacts and follow-ups in CRM.