Facebook and Instagram Automations for Real Estate Agents: The Exact Setup

Why automate if the agent answers personally?

The agent is Rachel Shapiro, a Broker Associate with William Raveis Real Estate in Palm Beach. She works in five languages and replies to people herself, usually the same day. That’s her whole pitch, and I wasn’t going to hand it to a bot.

The problem isn’t her replies. It’s the gap before them. A buyer sends a Messenger message at 9 p.m., or an Instagram DM while Rachel is walking someone through a condo, and hears nothing. They open the next listing. So the rule for every automation below was simple: get the person the right link within seconds, tell them a human is coming, and make sure that human actually follows up. Nothing pretends to be Rachel.

Before you start: two things that quietly block everything

Connect the Instagram inbox. Business Suite showed a small alert: Instagram messages were unavailable in the Inbox until we confirmed that people who manage the Facebook Page can also manage Instagram messages. Until you click Get started on that alert, half of your automations only cover Facebook.

Check your brokerage’s social media rules. Most brokerages have them. The Page name here is “Rachel Shapiro - William Raveis Real Estate,” not something like “Rachel Shapiro Homes,” because a name that reads like a separate company is exactly what brokerage policies tend to forbid. Fix the name before you build anything on top of it.

One practical note: in the current layout, the Inbox may not be in the left menu at all. It’s under All tools, and Automations sits at the top right of the Inbox.

1. Auto reply: the first message anyone sends

This fires once, on the first message someone sends on Messenger or Instagram. Ours reads:

Thanks for reaching out! I’ll reply personally today. To book a showing or a call at a time that suits you: rachelshapirohomes.com/book-a-showing/
¡Hablo español! · Ik spreek Nederlands · Je parle français · Ich spreche Deutsch

Mistake one. Meta pre-fills the box with its own greeting. When we pasted our text in, the default greeting ended up glued to the end of our link, so it read book-a-showing/Hi, thanks for contacting us. The preview looked fine at a glance. The link was broken. Put the link on its own line, then tap it in the preview before you save.

2. Away message: hours she can’t answer

Rachel isn’t available Friday evening or Saturday, and the booking page on her website already blocks those hours. The away message matches them on a schedule and tells people when she’ll be back, with the booking link. While it runs, it replaces the auto reply, so nobody gets two messages. Whatever your hours are, the point is that your website, your Page and your auto-replies should all tell the same story.

3. Frequently asked questions

These are tappable questions that appear when someone opens a new chat. Instagram allows four, so we used four: how do I book a showing, what is my home worth, what homes do you have for sale, and which languages do you speak. Each answer is one or two sentences and one link. Every answer uses facts that are already on her website, nothing new.

4. Custom keywords

Each rule takes up to five keywords and sends a reply, with an optional button, when a message contains one of them. We built three:

• Listings: price, listing, for sale, available, precio. The button opens her homes-for-sale page.
• Home value: worth, value, sell my, selling, appraisal. The button opens her free market analysis form.
• Showings: showing, tour, visit, see the, appointment. The button opens her booking page.

Mistake two, avoided. The obvious keyword for sellers is “sell.” It also matches “is this still for sale?”, which would send a buyer the seller reply. Use phrases like “sell my” instead. And note the small print: a keyword reply only goes out when the chat has been inactive for at least 15 minutes, so it never interrupts a conversation the agent is already having.

5. Comment to message

This is the one I’d set up first if you post listings. When someone comments a keyword on any post, they get a private message and a short public reply. It takes up to ten keywords; ours include info, details, interested, how much, interesada and información. Because it applies to every post, the private message can’t name a property. It links to all current listings and asks which one they mean, which starts a real conversation. It only works if the caption asks for it, so listing posts end with “Comment INFO and I’ll send you the details.”

6. Location, contact information and hours

Three short replies for the three questions every agent gets: where is your office, how do I reach you, and when are you available. Write only what is true. Rachel’s hours reply repeats what her website says, word for word, rather than inventing office hours she doesn’t keep.

7. Identify unanswered messages

This one sends nothing to customers. If a chat goes unanswered for a set time, it marks the chat for follow-up. We chose four hours, because the auto reply promises a reply today. Two catches: it works on Messenger only, not Instagram, and the “Add a label” option failed with an “Enter a label” error until a label existed, and labels only exist for Messenger chats. We kept “Mark as follow up” and moved on.

The action button

The button at the top of the Page is set to Send email, to the same brokerage inbox that already receives every form on her website. One inbox, one place to check. On a phone that button opens the visitor’s email app, which some people won’t bother with, which is exactly why the Messenger automations above still matter.

What automation can’t do

When I open a new client’s inbox for the first time, there are often messages from months ago that nobody answered. No automation saves those. The real cost for most agents isn’t a missing chatbot. It’s an inbox nobody checks. Instagram isn’t covered by the unanswered-message flag, so somebody has to open it once a day.

I also can’t tell you this setup produced leads yet. It went live on October 31, 2026, and I won’t guess at numbers I don’t have. I’ll update this post when there are three months of data.

My advice: set up the auto reply and the away message today, test both from your own account, and tap every link. Then make your website, your Page and your replies say the same thing. Consistency is what people trust, and it’s what search engines and AI models trust too.