Messenger Private Reply Updates for the Developer Community

By Rahul Raina, Elaine Wang and Ashish Khapre

Private Replies allows a business’ Facebook Page to send a single message to a person who published a post, who commented on a post or commented on the Page.

Support for Private Reply for Groups

In September, we extended this support for Facebook Groups, allowing businesses to be able to send private replies to a person who commented on their Page’s post in Facebook Groups.

How it Works

To send a private reply to a post or comment, send a POST request to the /PAGE-ID/messages endpoint with the recipient parameter set to the post_id or comment_id and the message parameter set to the message you wish to send.

The following example shows a reply to a post published on your Page by a customer:

Hi, I want to buy a gift for my nephew. Do you have any suggestions?

  curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
    "recipient": {
        "post_id": "PAGE-POST-ID"
    },
    
    "message": {
      "attachment":{
        "type":"template",
        "payload":{
          "template_type":"button",
          "text":"Of course, what is your budget for the gift?",
          "buttons":[
              {
                  "type": "postback",
                  "title": "LESS THAN $20",
                  "payload": "GIFT_BUDGET_20_PAYLOAD"
              },
              {
                  "type": "postback",
                  "title": "$20 TO $50",
                  "payload": "GIFT_BUDGET_20_TO_50_PAYLOAD"
              },
              {
                  "type": "postback",
                  "title": "MORE THAN $50",
                  "payload": "GIFT_BUDGET_50_PAYLOAD"
              }
          ]
        }
      }
    }
}' "https://graph.facebook.com/<GRAPH-API-VERSION>/PAGE-ID/messages?access_token=<PAGE-ACCESS-TOKEN>"