Unified social inbox for Instagram, Facebook, and Threads

A unified social inbox puts the comments and direct messages from your social accounts in one list, so your team answers from one place instead of opening each app. In VivaDialog the inbox collects DMs and comments from Facebook Pages, Instagram professional accounts, and Threads, and it also takes Telegram bots, email, a chat widget for your own website, and YouTube comments to read. Automatic replies from your automations appear in the same list, so you see what was sent and can answer by hand whenever you want. This article explains how it works: what arrives from each channel, how you sort and answer, how a team shares it, which limits each channel brings, and what the inbox does not do. The facts come from VivaDialog’s own help pages, its plan data, and the product facts file the site publishes in llms.txt.

What lands in the inbox

Each channel brings its own kind of conversation, and each has its own rules. The table lists what arrives and what you can do with it.

Two things are not here. WhatsApp and SMS are not supported. TikTok is in early access and is used only to schedule video posts from the Schedule page, so it has no inbox, DMs, or comments. Outlook is not supported for email yet.

The channel step is the same for the Meta channels: owners and admins open Settings, go to Channels, and connect each one through the platform’s own login. Connect your Facebook Page, connect your Instagram account, and what works on Threads give the steps. VivaDialog connects through Meta’s official login and APIs only. Threads uses its own login, separate from Facebook and Instagram.

How the list is organized

DMs and comments, including Threads replies, share one list, newest first, and each item is marked DM or Comment. You narrow the list in a few ways:

• A filter for All, Unread, Waiting for reply, or Resolved. Waiting for reply shows DMs where the customer wrote last, and comments that have no public reply yet, are not hidden, and are not resolved or ignored.
• Platform tabs, to look at one platform, and an Accounts picker when you have several.
• Under Show: Everyone’s, Handled by me, Nobody handling yet, or My favourites.
• Under Tag, one tag, and under Type, DMs, comments, or both.
• Search DMs and comments, which finds DMs by the person’s name and comments by name or text.

One behavior is easy to miss. For comments, All still includes comments you already resolved or ignored, while for DMs it hides resolved conversations, and Unread on comments means every comment still Pending. If a comment seems to have vanished, check whether the filter is Waiting for reply. Using the inbox describes every control, and how to sort and triage Facebook Page comments turns the filters into a daily routine.

Answering a DM or a comment

Open a conversation, write the reply, and press Enter to send (Shift+Enter starts a new line). Click Mark resolved when it is done. For a comment you get more choices:

• Reply posts a public reply under the comment.
• Reply by DM sends the person who commented one private DM. Meta allows one per comment, within 7 days of the comment. It is not available on Threads, and on live video comments a DM is the only reply Meta allows.
• Resolve or Ignore clears a comment from the pending list without replying.

Write with AI drafts a reply from the conversation. You read it, fill in anything in brackets that the AI did not know, and send it yourself. Nothing goes out until you do, and each draft uses one AI reply from the monthly quota or your own AI key if you added one.

Replies you write in the inbox never count toward your plan’s conversation quota and always go out, even when the quota is used up. That matters for a unified inbox: the quota limits only what the automations do, not what your team can say.

The limits each channel brings

Putting channels in one list does not erase their rules. The inbox shows them side by side, so it helps to know them.

The 24-hour rule is the one that most often decides whether a customer gets an answer. The 24-hour window explained covers how it opens and why comments are different, and replying to Instagram DMs after 24 hours covers the two exceptions Meta documents and what VivaDialog does once the window has closed. A unified inbox helps most here, because a DM that sits in a channel nobody opened is the one that ages out.

Working as a team

Your team works in the same workspace: the same inbox, contacts, and automations. Owners and admins invite people under Settings, then Users and security. There are three roles:

• Owner: the person who created the workspace. The owner cannot be removed.
• Admin: manages the workspace with the owner, including automations, channels, and Settings, then Developer.
• Team member: works in the inbox, sees automations in the list and can open flows, but cannot change or test them.

Inside a conversation, a few controls keep the work from overlapping:

• Handled by shows who is taking care of it. Pick a team member, or yourself.
• Tags label a conversation, for example lead or wholesale. Automations can add tags too.
• Team notes hold context such as “asked for the wholesale price, call back Monday”. Only your team sees them; the customer never does.
• Add to favourites stars an item for you alone. Teammates do not see your favourites.
• Stage moves the person along on the Contacts page: New, Interested, Customer, or Not interested.

Plans differ in how many people can work the inbox. The owner is not counted: “You + 10” means you plus 10 people you invite.

Each open invitation takes one user seat until it is accepted or cancelled. An extra user is listed at $5 a month, or $48 a year on a yearly plan, but add-ons are not on sale yet. When someone is removed, what they set up with their own access stops: API keys they created are revoked, webhooks they created are paused, their own AI key is removed, and conversations assigned to them are no longer assigned. Invite your team and remove members lists it all.

Contacts: who is behind the messages

The inbox shows conversations. The Contacts page shows people: everyone who commented on or sent a DM to one of your connected channels, each with a stage. You change a stage by hand on the Contacts page or in the inbox. An automation can move a person forward to Interested or Customer, never back.

Above the list, you can filter by platform and account, by how the person reached you (DM, or Comments only), by inbox tag, and by when they were last seen. Save as segment keeps a set of filters under a name, for example “Interested on Instagram”. A segment stores the filters, not a list of people, so it always shows who matches right now, and the whole team uses the same segments. Download CSV saves the contacts that match the current filters, up to the 10,000 most recent.

One caveat applies to unified contacts. The same person can appear twice: Meta gives someone who comments and someone who sends a DM different ids, and VivaDialog does not guess that they are the same person. Contacts, segments, and CSV download has the details.

Automations work inside the inbox

The inbox is also where automations show their work. An automation can reply with fixed text or with AI, send a private DM to someone who commented, send one reminder DM, hide a comment, tag, assign to a team member, move the contact to a later stage, and on DMs mark the message read. It can be limited to chosen posts, skip messages with certain words or contacts who are already customers, and wait 1 to 60 minutes before it runs, cancelled if the team answers first.

In the list you see the result as labels. Sent by an automation and Written by AI mark replies that went out automatically. Hidden means an automation hid the comment on the platform. A label such as Price, Wants to buy, Complaint, or Spam is what the AI understood the customer wanted. Reminder with a time means one more DM is queued, and Cancel stops it.

These safety limits apply on every channel: one automatic public reply per comment or message, nothing older than 24 hours is answered automatically, and the account’s own messages never trigger an automation. How automations work covers triggers and actions, and Instagram comment automation: the complete guide goes deep on the comment side. On Threads specifically, see how to auto-reply to comments on Threads and Threads keyword auto-reply.

Staying on top of it

VivaDialog has no app-store app. The dashboard can be added to the home screen of a phone or computer, and it opens straight to the inbox. It can send browser push notifications for new DMs, or only for conversations and comments assigned to you. A notification names the sender and the workspace and never shows the message text. On iPhone and iPad, add the dashboard to the Home Screen first, then turn notifications on from there.

The Analytics page reports on the inbox: DMs and comments received, how many new conversations started, the median wait before the first reply to a DM and the share answered within 1 hour, DMs still waiting for a reply, and who replied, split between team, automations, and AI. You can look at 7, 30, or 90 days, and one platform at a time. Replies sent from the Facebook or Instagram app count as the team. Analytics and CSV download lists each number.

What the inbox does not do

A fair list of the gaps:

• No WhatsApp or SMS, and no TikTok messages, comments, or videos.
• No Threads DMs, because Threads offers no API for them.
• No YouTube replies. VivaDialog reads comments and you answer on YouTube.
• No Outlook mailboxes yet, no email attachments from VivaDialog, and no signature.
• No Telegram group chats or channels.
• No hide button in the inbox. Hiding happens through an automation on new comments.
• A paused plan is read-only. When a trial or plan ends, you can still read everything, but replies, tags, notes, and other changes are not saved. Data is kept for 30 days.

If your main channel is WhatsApp, pick a tool that supports it. Best Instagram DM automation tools, compared by price and fit lists eight tools and when each is the right pick.

A first-week plan

1. Connect the channels where customers write most. Start with Instagram and your Facebook Page, then Threads if you post there.
2. Invite the people who answer, and decide who handles which kind of conversation.
3. Switch on one or two automations for questions people really ask, such as price or opening hours. Run Test it first before saving.
4. Use Waiting for reply as the daily work queue. Tag what repeats, and assign what needs a person.
5. After a week, open Analytics and read the median first-reply wait. Then decide what to automate next.

Frequently asked questions

Can I answer Instagram, Facebook, and Threads from one place?

Yes. Comments and DMs from all three arrive in the same list, marked as DM or Comment, with platform tabs to look at one at a time. Threads has no DMs, so it brings replies only.

Does the inbox include WhatsApp or TikTok?

No. WhatsApp is not supported. TikTok is used only to schedule video posts, so there are no TikTok messages or comments in the inbox.

Do replies I write by hand count toward my plan?

No. Only automated replies from automations and AI count toward the conversation and AI quotas. Replies written in the inbox are never counted or blocked.

How many people can use the inbox?

It depends on the plan: you plus 1 user on Starter, 10 on Growth, 20 on Pro, and 30 on Premium. The owner is not counted.

Does VivaDialog price by contact?

No. It charges a flat monthly price per workspace, and the plan quotas count conversations that got an automatic reply and AI replies. The pricing page has every number.

VivaDialog is in early access right now, and participants get the Growth plan free for 30 days. The pricing page has the details.