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Most new accounts stall between connecting a channel and building the first automation. The order below exists to get past that gap on day one, not day nine.
Start with the channel your customers already use, and connect only that one. Each has a requirement that stops people at the door: Instagram needs a Business or Creator account linked to a Facebook Page, because Meta grants messaging to the Page; Messenger needs a role on the Page that includes managing messages; WhatsApp needs a number on the WhatsApp Business Platform; Telegram needs a token from @BotFather, which takes about twenty seconds.
If the connection fails, the screen says why and what to change — and the reason is almost always the requirement above, not the product. A second channel is a five-minute job later, once the first one is answering people.
Do not build from scratch. Pick a template — a keyword that replies with your hours, a comment that gets a link by DM — and change the words. Then trigger it yourself: comment on your own post, send the keyword from another phone. An automation that has answered you once is one you trust to answer a customer.
This is the step most accounts stall before, and it is also the step that makes everything after it make sense: the inbox, the leads list and the analytics are all empty until something has replied to somebody.
Every conversation from every channel lands in one list, and your automations and you share it — an automated reply and a typed one sit in the same thread. The label beside each conversation says whether you can still reply freely, and it means something different on each channel; the ⓘ next to it explains which.
Save the replies you type more than twice. Tag the people who ask the same things. Both cost seconds now and are what the broadcast composer will filter by later.
A lead exists the moment somebody writes, so by now there is at least one. The setup checklist on the dashboard shows what is left — a first automation, the AI assistant, a teammate — and it disappears on its own once everything is done. If you closed it, or skipped the tour, both come back from the help menu at the top of every page.
Analytics is per channel and per period, and the whole page follows the two controls at the top. The question worth asking first is not how many messages arrived but which automation replied most and which one nobody triggered — the second is usually a keyword nobody types, and the fix is a different keyword rather than a different automation.
The settings list splits in two. The top half is you and your workspace — account, team, billing, notifications. The bottom half is one page per connected channel, for the things only that channel has: WhatsApp's templates, Telegram's bot menu, the Page's ice breakers. Connections live in the channel pages, which is where to look when a badge turns amber.
The one your customers already use. Each channel has one requirement that stops people at the door — a Professional account linked to a Page for Instagram, a Page role for Messenger, a Business Platform number for WhatsApp, a BotFather token for Telegram — and clearing one is faster than clearing four.
Because nothing has replied to anyone yet. Build one automation from a template, trigger it yourself from another account, and the inbox, the leads list and the analytics all start to fill from that first reply.
From the help menu at the top of every page: Show setup checklist brings it back, and Restart the product tour runs the walkthrough again. Both work on a phone as well as a laptop.
On that channel's own settings page — the bottom half of the settings list is one page per connected channel, and the connection, its health and the reconnect button all live there.