We highly recommend asking for permission before using your users' content by sending Rights Requests. Don't worry, Flowbox makes this easy by letting you send the request through a comment or DM. Please note that the Rights Requests feature is only available for posts collected from Instagram.
Discover the step-by-step guide for Rights Requests by Comment in this article.
Create a template
First, you need to create a ‘Rights Request by DM’ template. If you have done it already, you can skip to the next section.
To prevent Instagram from blocking you, we recommend using different messages in your templates.
In Flowbox, click on the 'Engage' menu, then select 'My Templates'.
Click on 'Create Template'.
Select the template type 'Rights Request by DM (manual)' and give your template a name, then click on 'Next'.
Specify your message/comment: the message is what you will send directly to the creators of the posts you’d like to request (e.g., “Hello! We love your photo! Could we use it in our marketing? Please reply using the link below.”).
Approval page language: in addition to your message, a link will be included in your direct message. This link allows each creator to approve or reject the request. To preview the approval page in different languages:
Select the desired language.
Click on ‘Preview page’. The “post preview” image will display the post you are requesting rights for.
Optional: To automatically approve the post once the Rights Request has been granted, you can toggle ‘on’ the switch 'Auto-Approve'.
When done, click 'Save & Close'.
We recommend matching the approval page language with your message language. For example, if your message is in French, select ‘French’ for the page language.
Send your Rights Requests
The next step is to send the Rights Request
In Flowbox, click on the ‘Visual Marketing’ menu.
Click on ‘Flow’, go to your Masterflow or the specific Flow where the content you wish to request rights for has been collected.
Click on the desired post.
Click on the ‘hammer’ icon in the top-right corner.
Select the ‘Manual DM’ method.
Select your template
(6a.)and personalise it with the post context(6b.).Scroll and click on ‘Copy to clipboard’ to copy the message and the unique link.
Click on 'View Post' to view the original post on Instagram, go to the creator’s profile, and click on ‘Message’.
You can now paste your Rights Request as a DM and send it.
Optional: Back in Flowbox, check the 'Auto-Approve' tick-box if you want the post to be automatically approved when the user approves the request.
Click on 'Request Posted'.
Please note that each link is associated with a specific post and is unique to it. You must click on ‘Copy to clipboard’ for each post you wish to request via Direct Message.
The “Used Time” indication helps you monitor how many times you’ve sent this template in the past 24 hours. To comply with Instagram guidelines, we recommend employing different templates and slight personalizing requests to each post.
Mark as granted/declined
If the creator has requested more information through DM before granting rights by message, you can manually mark a post as Self Granted or Declined.
Click on a post to open the popup box.
Select the ‘Rights Request’ tab.
Click either on ‘Decline’ or ‘Self Grant’.
Understanding Rights Request statuses
Pending: The request has been sent out, awaiting a reply.
Author Replied: The user has answered but they have not replied with the key hashtag.
Granted: The user has replied to the Rights Request with the key hashtag.
Declined: The post has not been replied to with the keyword within 14 days.
Self Granted: You confirmed having the rights granted for this post.
Please note that posts in Flowbox are always displayed in order of 'most recent' unless you have enabled our AI algorithm Flowscore to automatically sort content based on engagement.
As an example - you see 2 posts in your inbox, Post A and Post B.
Post A was originally posted online yesterday.
Post B was shared online in the last hour.
You send Rights Requests to both posts. Assuming both say #Yes, even if Post A replies after Post B, Post B will always show up first in your Flow(s).