From Comments to Conversations: How Manychat Became a Creator Essential

From more innovative automations to its new Follow to DM feature, Manychat’s latest wave of innovation is helping creators build genuine relationships that lead to revenue, not just rack up reach.

In a creator economy where engagement rules everything, Manychat has become one of the most essential behind-the-scenes tools helping creators, brands, and small businesses connect directly with their audiences.

The platform simplifies social media engagement by automating conversations through Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. What started as a messenger automation startup has evolved into a global community of over one million users across 170 countries, backed by a team of more than 350 employees. In April 2025, Manychat announced it had raised $140 million in growth capital led by Summit Partners to accelerate AI innovation, global expansion, and product development. This milestone underscores the company’s accelerating momentum and growing influence in the creator economy.

Manychat’s appeal is simple: It helps creators turn comments and DMs into conversations and those conversations into revenue. As creators and entrepreneurs increasingly treat their social presence like a business, the company’s tools enable them to personalize communication at scale without losing authenticity.

“Creators understand that their most valuable asset is the trust and strength of their relationships with their community,” Mike Yan, Manychat co-founder and CEO, told Boardroom. “They’re realizing that shifting from content to conversations is the key to building that trust.”

Manychat CEO Mike Yan on Building Relationships, Not Just Reach

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

BOARDROOM: What’s driving Manychat’s recent growth?

MIKE YAN: Creators understand that their most valuable asset is the trust and strength of their relationships with their community, and they’re realizing that shifting from content to conversations is the key to building that trust. We’re helping over 1 million creators turn passive viewers into engaged followers through direct conversations, which creates a compound effect: deeper relationships lead to higher engagement, broader reach, better conversion, and ultimately more revenue.

How has creator and small-business adoption evolved over the past year?

People have now really seen the power of having conversations directly within DMs. But just sending a link is not the only way to build a business anymore. In addition to Manychat offering ways to get to know their followers, send helpful offers or reminders to join a live or an event, we’ve seen creators using us to grow their followers by offering a freebie, building their email list, or leveraging the 24-hour window to send follow-ups at exactly the right moment. And in the past 12 months, Manychat has powered over 5 billion of these types of conversations.

What inspired the latest product updates?

Every update we’ve launched this year was inspired by one simple insight: creators don’t have time to be everywhere, all the time. We heard that loud and clear, so we built smarter automations and tools that work around the clock, but still sound like you. While it’s been awesome to see more and more folks adopting comment to DM, comments are just one piece of the puzzle. Every day, your audience is interacting with you in even more ways: following you, sharing your posts, replying to your stories, sending you DMs with questions you can’t anticipate. In fact, we analyzed billions of conversations across Instagram and saw that nearly 70% of audience interactions were not being captured. That means about two out of every three people reaching out with interest, intent, or curiosity never turn into leads. And that is a massive opportunity being left on the table.

How do these tools make it easier for creators and brands to engage or convert?

Most creators are now running their socials like a business. With this, we’re seeing that they really just want to be in front of the audiences that matter to share their expertise and build a trusted relationship where a follower feels like they’re part of their world. At the heart of building trust is showing up for your audience in the moments that matter. This might even lead to a follower purchasing from that creator because they trust them and want to support them because of the relationship that has been built.

We believe there are two ways to do that, and that’s what we’re building for. There are consistent interactions that compound over time; this is where automations come in. We’re building smarter automations that help you engage across every touchpoint, and with AI, they become even more adaptive. And then there are the magical moments where your personal touch makes all the difference.

If we look three to five years ahead, what’s the most significant shift you think we’ll see in how creators and businesses communicate with audiences?

Audiences are craving connection, not just content. And creators are starting to see that comments and DMs are just as valuable as the actual posts themselves.

With reports showing that the creator economy is expected to grow from $250B to $500B by 2030, I have two theories about what the next five years could hold. First, while social media has already established itself as a communication tool for brands and creators to reach their audiences, it’s still early in terms of the use cases being adopted.

Second, there is a new wave of emerging creators that are operating like businesses from the very start of their creator journey, which means that technologies need to be ready to help them manage both their income and operations across platforms. This is no small feat, and it will require vendors to build robust and scalable solutions at the same fast pace that the creator economy is evolving at.

And in the long term, what’s the vision for Manychat?

We want to be the platform that powers the next generation of business and creator growth through authentic conversations. If we do our job right, every message that starts in a DM could be the start of a customer relationship, and Manychat will quietly make that happen behind the scenes.

The Future of Creator Engagement

That future is already taking shape through Manychat’s latest features and its biggest creator event yet.

Manychat’s latest updates are designed to make automation feel human, scaling relationships without losing authenticity. The company is expanding its Comment to DM capabilities, introducing smarter follow-up sequences, and leveraging AI to help creators respond in real time while maintaining their own tone and voice.

This rollout comes just ahead of the Instagram Summit by Manychat (which was hosted by yours truly). The 2025 edition brought together more than 17,000 creators for a hybrid experience focused on business growth, automation strategy, and community building.

“Hosting events like this is our way of investing back into the community that’s built us,” he said. “It’s for those who are a part of social every single day. We view this as our chance to celebrate the creativity, curiosity, and collaboration that fuel the entire ecosystem we create our tools for.”

The summit featured creators like Zach King, Colin and Samir, and Brock Johnson, alongside experts from Meta, Manychat’s longtime partner. Programming this year revolved around three core themes: growing the right audience, selling smarter — not harder — and thinking like a business. While Manychat doesn’t profit directly from the summit, the company views it as an essential investment in the ecosystem it serves.

“More than anything, I want attendees to walk away inspired and connected. Yes, they’ll learn strategies and tools, but they’ll also find community and proof that success on social media isn’t about chasing trends — it’s about building relationships,” Yan said. “That’s what drives us at Manychat.”

Manychat also announced Follow to DM at the summit, which takes that vision a step further. The Meta-approved automation automatically sends a direct message to every new Instagram follower, instantly turning what used to be a “silent follow” into a potential conversation. After years of creator demand, the feature gives users a way to build trust and engagement at the exact moment attention is highest. The feature is free for all users and can be activated in seconds with Manychat’s “Say hi to new followers” template, ensuring every new follower gets a genuine, on-brand welcome without creators lifting a finger.

As automation becomes the backbone of creator-to-fan connection, Manychat’s human-first approach is setting the tone for what’s next: a future where engagement feels personal, connection drives growth, and every DM has the potential to become something bigger.