Instagram Auto DM tutorial

Follow the video chapters

Choose a chapter to open that point on YouTube. Use the embedded player above to watch here. The transcript below is the narration from the published demonstration.

1. 0:00 — Turn engagement into conversations
2. 0:23 — Open the four campaign shortcuts
3. 0:50 — DM people who comment on your posts
4. 1:26 — DM people who like your posts
5. 1:58 — Welcome people who follow after launch
6. 2:26 — Understand when welcomes are detected
7. 2:56 — Match the welcome to the follower source
8. 3:39 — Review who is included
9. 4:12 — Choose Message or Follow then Message
10. 4:44 — Write and preview the welcome
11. 5:16 — Personalize with an accurate brief
12. 5:47 — Add optional follow-ups
13. 6:13 — Choose automatic sending or approval
14. 6:47 — Review the summary and launch your setup
15. 7:22 — Build your first welcome workflow

Before you begin

This tutorial uses the actual GramFather interface with fictional teaching data and AI-assisted narration. Sample counts and contacts demonstrate the controls; they are not customer results. Check your plan’s feature allowance and keep the Chrome extension connected for browser actions. AI provider usage is separate where applicable.

Review the product capabilities and requirements and current plans before starting. The video was published on October 13, 2026.

Read the walkthrough transcript

Turn engagement into conversations

Welcome new Instagram followers and start conversations with people who engage with your posts. GramFather gives you four campaign shortcuts: Post comments, New followers, Post likes, and Suggested for you. This tutorial shows what each one selects, how to write the message, and the settings that control automatic sending. We're using captured screens from the real builder. These examples remain unlaunched, so the walkthrough sends no messages.

Open the four campaign shortcuts

Use a Growth or Pro plan, install and sign in to the GramFather extension, and keep Instagram open in Chrome while campaigns run. Select the Instagram account you want to use. In the sidebar, open Growth, then Campaigns. At the top, find Who would you like to reach. Click Create campaign under the source you want. Each shortcut opens the same six-step builder with a different starting audience and action sequence. You can inspect and adjust the settings before launch.

DM people who comment on your posts

Choose Post comments to reach people commenting on your recent posts. On Audience, Instagram account whose posts to watch contains your own username. Recent posts to watch starts at Last twelve. Choose Last three or Last six when you want a smaller set of posts. Who counts starts at Commenters. The campaign includes existing eligible commenters on the selected posts, then checks again from fifteen minutes after each completed scan when its queue has room. Each person enters this campaign once. This is an audience-based DM campaign. For comment classification, public replies, and lead-specific direct messages, use Comment AI.

DM people who like your posts

Choose Post likes for people available in your recent posts' likes lists. The account again starts as your own username, Recent posts to watch starts at Last twelve, and Who counts starts at Likers. You can choose Commenters or Both in that control if that better matches your goal. Instagram may expose only part of a likes list, so the number found can be smaller than the post's like count. Watching twelve posts gives the campaign more posts to work with. Like the comments preset, this includes existing eligible engagement, repeats its checks, and keeps running until paused or completed.

Welcome people who follow after launch

Choose New followers to send a welcome to people who start following you after launch. Keep Follower source on All sources for one shared welcome. The first follower check establishes a baseline of people who already follow you. It does not send that welcome to your existing follower list. New eligible followers enter after that baseline. People detected more than seven days ago are not welcomed, which matters after a long pause. This gives the welcome a timely context: someone has just chosen to follow your account.

Understand when welcomes are detected

Read the box below Follower source. Powered by Follower Tracker means the campaign uses the tracker's daily scans. Welcomes can arrive up to a day after the follow. Checking your followers itself means the campaign checks independently, about every twenty minutes. To use the daily tracker, click Set up Follower Tracker, or Turn on daily scans if tracking already exists, and finish the setup on Followers. The welcome campaign switches automatically. This account already has the tracker enabled, so the screen shows Open Follower Tracker with the last and next scan.

Match the welcome to the follower source

For different welcomes, create one New followers campaign per source. Follower source offers All sources, Organic or unattributed, Follow-for-follow, Campaign-attributed, Comment replies, and specific campaigns when available. Select the source, then write a message appropriate to it. A specific campaign source takes priority over Campaign-attributed. A source-specific welcome takes priority over All sources for newly detected followers. People already queued keep their current campaign. Campaign attribution uses a recorded interaction in the fourteen days before the follow was detected. Organic or unattributed means no source was recorded; it is not proof that another touchpoint played no part. If campaign choices fail to load, use Retry campaign choices.

Review who is included

Click Next: Filters. Post comments, Post likes, and New followers start with Skip verified accounts off and Skip accounts without a profile picture off. People you have already messaged and people already in your direct messages are skipped by default. Suggested for you starts with the verified and missing-profile-picture filters on. Review the rest of the filters for your intended audience. The campaign does not send to every visible engager automatically: eligibility, duplicate handling, and your selected filters all affect who enters. Later, the campaign's Left out information helps explain exclusions.

Choose Message or Follow then Message

Click Next: Actions and order. Comments, likes, and welcomes start with Message only. Suggested for you starts with Follow, then Message. That preset works through the suggestions Instagram currently offers your account and completes when they are used up. Its When to send the DM setting starts at Right after following, with a paced wait of thirty seconds to three minutes. You can choose A while after following or After they follow back instead. The action cards let you add or reorder supported actions before launch. Account limits and active hours still apply to the sequence.

Write and preview the welcome

Click Next: Message. New followers includes a thank-you opener you can edit. The other three presets start empty, so write your opener before continuing. The welcome template rotates greetings and thank-you phrases, then asks one question. The first-name field uses there as a fallback when a name is unavailable. Use the Insert chips for first name, full name, username, or category. Add variant gives you another version, and Shuffle lets you inspect the preview. Adapt the wording to your business and what you know about the person. Keep the next step easy to answer.

Personalize with an accurate brief

Personalize each one with AI starts off. When enabled, it uses available profile details and your brand voice, with your template as a fallback. Connect your AI provider and choose a Messaging model in Settings before relying on this option. Provider usage is billed separately. In Brief the AI, write the Goal you want the conversation to achieve and the Offer you actually provide. For example, invite a relevant person to request your free checklist. Review the generated wording before choosing automatic sending, especially when you are trying a new audience or offer.

Add optional follow-ups

Click Next: Follow-ups. These four presets start with no follow-ups. Add follow-up creates a step with a message and delay. You can include up to three follow-ups, and each opener or follow-up supports up to ten variants. Each message can contain up to one thousand characters. Choose a useful reason to follow up and a delay that fits the conversation. When someone replies, their remaining sequence stops. Leaving this step empty gives you a single-message campaign.

Choose automatic sending or approval

Click Next: Limits and launch. Review each person's message starts off in all four shortcuts. That means new eligible messages send automatically, including AI-personalized wording, within timing and account limits. Turn review on if you want to approve each opener and follow-up on the campaign page first. Existing drafts waiting for review still wait for your decision if you later switch to automatic mode. Give the campaign a recognizable name. New people per day starts at twenty and caps people started and messages sent per rolling twenty-four hours. Account-wide limits and active hours apply on top.

Review the summary and launch your setup

In Pipeline, choose where contacts move after the opener and after a reply. The starting opener stage is Contacted; the reply setting starts at Don't move them. Read the Summary, then use Save as draft to preserve an inactive setup, or Launch campaign when your own campaign is ready to run. After launch, its page shows people as they are found and processed. Keep the extension running and Instagram open. If a welcome campaign starts empty, check the baseline and scan schedule. For missing commenters or likers, check Left out, prior messages, and daily pace. If Next asks you to write an opener, return to Message and fill it in.

Build your first welcome workflow

You can now choose the right trigger, write a useful message, and control whether each message needs your approval. Start with the audience that already has a clear connection to your account, then review the conversations and adjust your wording. Open gramfather dot com through the link in the description to start a fourteen-day free trial. Campaigns are included in Growth and Pro. A card is required, and your selected plan renews at its stated price after the trial. Review the current terms on the signup page. The written guide and the complete campaign walkthrough are linked below.

Open the current help guide

For the current click-by-click controls, defaults and troubleshooting, open the in-app Instagram Auto DM help guide. Return to the video chapters when you want to see a particular step demonstrated.

Your questions, answered

Can I watch without signing up?

Yes. This video and its written transcript are publicly available. Sign in to GramFather when you want to follow the steps in your own workspace.

Are the names and results in the demonstration real customer data?

The demonstration uses fictional teaching data in the actual interface. Sample names and counts explain the controls and are not promised results.