Engagement and Community Management
See the Community Management page for general instructions on engaging with posts. Sprinklr enables responding to inbound Instagram messages, posts and content from Engagement dashboards. See below for some platform-specific features with regard to community management.
Engagement Capabilities
The following actions may appear in the engagement menu on a message in the engagement dashboard:
- Direct Message
- Comment
- Like
- Archive
Opening the message in the Third Pane view allows users to access the profile information for the message author. This information includes:
- Message sender’s profile — including photo, profile information, properties and comments
- Conversations — messages between this user and MSU-related accounts connected to Sprinklr
- Recent updates — posts by this account
- Follow/unfollow
- Audit trail — changes made to the profile record in Sprinklr
In 2021, Facebook rolled out its cross-app communication feature, which allows users to chat with customers and other contacts across both Facebook Messenger and Instagram Messages.
If a brand has the cross-app communication feature turned on, those messages will not appear in Sprinklr. If a user notices Facebook or Instagram messages showing up natively, but not in Sprinklr, the unit may have cross-app messaging turned on. University Communications and Marketing recommends that the unit turn this feature off.
How can units disable this feature?
If a user has already updated Messenger to the latest version of the app, they can turn off this feature by going to Instagram settings > privacy > messages, which opens the Message Controls section. Then take the following steps:
- Go to Message Controls
- Scroll down to “Other People”
- Click “People on Facebook”
- Check the button for “Don't Receive Requests”
If a user has not updated their Messenger app yet, please do so, then click “Learn More About this Change” on the introduction message. Follow the above steps. Please note this is all done via the mobile Facebook or Instagram app.
Publishing to Instagram
See the Social Publishing page for general instructions on creating and publishing posts. The information below contains additional details relevant specifically to Instagram content. Users also can see the Sprinklr Knowledge Portal articles indexed at “Publishing to Instagram” for additional information.
Creating Instagram Content
There are a few additional features and details to note when creating a Facebook post using the Create Post panel. Users also can see the Sprinklr Knowledge Portal article “Create and Publish an Instagram Photo Post” for additional information.
Once an image has been added to the Create Post panel, hovering over the thumbnail will reveal a pencil icon in the lower right corner. Click this icon to open the image edit panel.
Enter any hashtags as the first comment. It will go live along with the post. Including hashtags in the first comment keeps the image caption clean and streamlined. Users should use camel case (the first letter of each word is capitalized, as in #SpartansWill) in hashtags to help with readability and accessibility.
The first comment option is available only for direct publish posts (photo and video). To add a first comment to a carousel, users will need to comment natively on the post. See “Publish Via Mobile,” below, for additional information on direct publish posts.
Note: Testing by campus users has indicated that including an emoji in the first comment will break the post and cause issues. Users should avoid emojis in this section.
After uploading a photo into the Create Post panel, users can tag another account in the image by clicking the Tag People icon below the image thumbnail. This feature is only available for photo posts posted with the direct publish functionality. Posts created via “Publish Via Mobile” will need to have locations added manually during the native post publishing process.
After uploading a photo or video into the Create Post panel, users can add a location tag by clicking the Add Location icon below the asset thumbnail. This feature is available for direct publish posts (photo and video). Posts created via “Publish Via Mobile” will need to have locations added manually during the native post publishing process.
Users with a Sprinklr Link in Bio can tag products and links for photo, video and carousel posts (direct publish and publish via mobile). See Sprinklr Link in Bio for more information.
When posting a reel on Instagram, be sure to check the Share to Feed option for the video reel to appear on the unit’s Instagram feed grid.
Users can view scheduled and published Instagram posts as they will appear in the Instagram grid from the Editorial Calendar.
- Open the Editorial Calendar.
- Navigate to a scheduled or published Instagram post.
- Click the three-dot options icon in the lower right corner of the post.
- Click “Preview” on the pop-up menu.
- View the grid. Users can swap scheduled posts around by dragging and dropping the images. Swapping scheduled posts will also swap their scheduled publish times. Click “Apply” in the top of the Preview pop-up window to save changes. Published posts cannot be swapped.
See the Sprinklr Knowledge Portal article “Instagram Feed Preview in Sprinklr” for more information.
Users can view scheduled and published Instagram posts as they will appear in the unit’s Instagram grid from an engagement dashboard.
- Open the engagement dashboard.
- Navigate to a scheduled or published Instagram post. These will most likely be located in an Instagram outbound or schedule column on the Instagram or Outbound dashboard.
- Click the three-dot options icon in the lower right corner of the post.
- Click “Preview” on the pop-up menu.
- View the grid. Users can swap scheduled posts around by dragging and dropping the images. Swapping posts will also swap their scheduled publish times. Click “Apply” in the top of the Preview pop-up window to save changes. Published posts cannot be swapped.
See the Sprinklr Knowledge Portal article “Instagram Feed Preview in Sprinklr” for more information.
Publishing via mobile is an optional workflow for posting to Instagram. Rather than scheduled content automatically going live at the assigned date and time, an assigned user instead gets a mobile notification in the Sprinklr app with the information needed to push the content live.
Follow the instructions below to publish via mobile:
- Draft post — Create a post as normal, following the Proactive Message instructions above.
- Select user to notify — Choose a user to notify when the post is ready to go live. This user must have access to the correct Instagram account in Sprinklr. They also must have the Sprinklr app installed on their phone, notifications turned on and have the login information for the appropriate Instagram account.
- Schedule post — Schedule the post for the date and time it should be published. This scheduled time will dictate when the assigned user gets the notification to post.
- Log in to Instagram — At the designated time, the user will receive an in-app notification in Sprinklr. When the user receives the Sprinklr notification, they should confirm they’re logged in to the appropriate Instagram account in their Instagram app.
- Open Sprinklr Notifications pane — Open Sprinklr, then tap the menu icon and select “Notifications” to view.
- Prepare to publish — Tap the notification to open it, then click “Publish to Instagram.” This downloads the asset(s) to the user’s phone, stores them in an album titled Sprinklr and copies the caption.
- Publish the post — Click “Next” to open the asset in Instagram. Make adjustments, if needed, then click “Next” in Instagram. Paste the caption into the caption box and click “OK.” Publish.
- Copy post link — Once published, click the menu icon on the Instagram post and click “Share.” Click “Copy Link.”
- Mark as published — Return to the Sprinklr app and open the Instagram post’s notification (if it closed). Click “Mark as Published.” Paste the link in the box and click “Mark as Published.”
Quick tip: University Communications staff has found that, when uploading several Instagram story slides at once, this Publish Via Mobile process is cumbersome. If users schedule each slide for the same time or just a few minutes apart, they have to work very quickly and carefully to ensure the slide order is correct when published. For this reason, University Communications and Marketing staff typically schedule Instagram stories to Direct Publish or upload Instagram stories natively at the time they should be published and then go into the Editorial Calendar to edit the custom fields on the posts after the story posts have automatically imported into Sprinklr. If users find the Publish Via Mobile process does not work well in the unit story workflow, try one of these alternative approaches.
At this time, application programming interface (API) limitations prevent adding alternative text to Instagram content as part of the publishing process. Account managers should log in to their Instagram account natively and add alt text to images after publishing to ensure the content is accessible to audience members.
Note: To ensure all institutional account content is as accessible as possible, the accounts controlled by University Communications and Marketing will not share (i.e., repost or share via Stories) any content containing images that do not include proper alt text.
Instagram Limitations
For an overview of the latest Instagram functionality in Sprinklr, see the “Instagram Capabilities and Limitations” article in the Sprinklr Knowledge Portal.
Instagram Best Practices
The University Communications and Marketing website offers additional insights on best practices for content and strategy on Instagram.
Documentation updated: Nov. 1, 2024