Connect Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp

What does connecting do?

Messages sent to your Facebook Page, Instagram professional account or WhatsApp Business number land in your WorkflowHQ Inbox, where your team or a bound AI agent replies from one place. Facebook lead-ad form submissions become contacts automatically, tagged facebook-lead, ready for follow-up workflows.

How do I connect?

You need admin access to the business portfolio that owns the Page or number. Instagram accounts must be professional accounts linked to a Facebook Page.

1. Open Settings, then Integrations, then Channels, and find Messaging apps.
2. Click Connect Facebook Page, Connect Instagram, or Connect WhatsApp.
3. Sign in with the Facebook account that manages the business, and choose which Page, Instagram account or WhatsApp number to share.
4. Back in WorkflowHQ, pick the asset from the list and click Connect. The row shows Verified when it is live.

Can I keep the WhatsApp Business app on my phone?

Yes. Click Connect WhatsApp and choose Number on my phone. In the Meta window type your number, then scan the QR code it shows from the WhatsApp Business app. The app keeps working as before; messages now also land in your Inbox, and replies from either side stay in sync. Your phone contacts and the last 6 months of chats are imported automatically.

Messages sent from the phone, and replies within 24 hours from WorkflowHQ, are free. Only template messages you start from WorkflowHQ are billed by Meta.

Needs WhatsApp Business app 2.24.17 or newer. Disconnecting from the phone app stops the Inbox for that number until you reconnect.

Can an AI agent answer these messages?

Yes. Each connected row has an agent dropdown: pick an agent and it answers new messages automatically, using the same chat credits as web chat; choose No agent and messages wait for a human in the Inbox. The pause toggle inside any conversation silences the agent for that thread.

AI and workflows share the conversation politely: every incoming message gets exactly one responder. If a workflow is waiting on the customer's reply, or a keyword workflow matches the message, the workflow answers and the AI stays silent. Anything no workflow claims goes to the AI. If a customer types something unexpected in the middle of a button flow, the AI handles that message while the flow keeps waiting for the button tap, so your funnels and your assistant never talk over each other.

What can workflows do with these channels?

• Trigger on a new Facebook lead (contact created with the facebook-lead tag) and send a thank-you plus a follow-up.
• Alert your team the moment an Instagram DM arrives.
• Run a WhatsApp drip sequence, started by adding a tag to a contact.
• Ready-made templates for all three are in the Automations template library.

What happens with Facebook lead forms?

Every lead-ad form submission becomes a contact automatically, tagged facebook-lead, and every answer on the form is saved on the contact as its own field, so it shows up in filters, workflows and message variables without any setup.

In a workflow, the Facebook lead form submitted trigger lets you pick the exact form by name from a dropdown, so each form can get its own follow-up sequence.

If you would rather store an answer in a CRM field you already use (say the form's budget question into your budget field), open Settings, then Channels, and click the clipboard icon on your Facebook page row. Pick the form, map its questions to your fields, and save. Unmapped questions keep saving automatically as before.

Can I run an Instagram keyword funnel with a follower check?

Yes. Every Instagram or Messenger DM from a new person creates a contact automatically, and each Instagram DM refreshes the contact's Instagram follower field (yes or no) using Instagram's own follow status. Add the Instagram/Messenger DM funnel step to a keyword workflow (Customer replied, channel Instagram, message is your keyword): it holds the whole funnel in one place. An opening DM with a button, an optional follow-me-first check that repeats each time a non-follower replies until they follow, the DM with your link, and an optional follow-up message a little later (within Meta's 24-hour reply window). On Messenger the follow check is skipped and the link goes straight out.

Pair it with Instagram's own comment-to-message automation: let Instagram send the first DM asking people to reply with the keyword, and the workflow takes over from their reply. The template Instagram keyword to follower-only link has it ready; change the keyword and the link.