How to Check Questions on Instagram

You perfectly crafted an Instagram Story with a Questions sticker, and now the responses are rolling in - but where do they actually go? Figuring out how to find and manage questions on Instagram can feel like a scavenger hunt, with different features tucked away in different places. This guide will show you exactly where to check for questions from your Stories, Reels, and Live sessions, helping you turn every interaction into an opportunity for engagement.

How to Find and Answer Questions from Instagram Stories

The "Questions" sticker in Instagram Stories is the most popular way to kick off a Q&A with your audience. It’s perfect for everything from fun "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) sessions to gathering feedback on your products or services. Once you've posted the sticker, finding the responses is easy if you know where to look.

Step-by-Step: Checking Your Story Sticker Responses

The responses to your question sticker are attached directly to the Story they were submitted on, which means you have 24 hours to view and answer them before the Story expires.

1. View Your Own Story: Tap your profile picture on the top-left of your feed to open the Story you posted with the sticker.
2. Swipe Up: On the Story slide that contains your sticker, simply swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
3. Find the Responses Section: This brings up the Story viewer's panel. At the top, you'll see a count of viewers. Below that, you'll find a section labeled “Responses,” displaying all the questions your audience has submitted.
4. Choose How to Respond: Tap on any question you want to answer. Instagram gives you a few options:
   • Share Response: This is the most common option. It creates a brand-new Story with the original question displayed as a sticker. You can then add your answer as text, a GIF, another sticker, or a video of you talking. The requester's username is kept anonymous by default, which encourages more submissions.
   • Send Message: This option lets you reply to the person privately through a Direct Message (DM). This is ideal for questions that are too personal to share publicly or for customer service-related inquiries where you might need to ask for their contact information.
   • Delete: If a response is inappropriate or not relevant, you can simply tap the trashcan icon to delete it.

Pro Tips for Managing Story Questions

• Create a "Q&A" Highlight: If you regularly host Q&A sessions, save them to a dedicated Story Highlight on your profile. While you won't be able to access old questions this way, new followers will be able to see the types of questions you answer, building trust and encouraging them to participate next time.
• Batch Your Answers: Don't feel pressured to answer every question the moment it comes in. A good strategy is to post your sticker, wait a few hours to gather responses, and then answer them in a batch. This creates a more cohesive string of Story Q&A slides for viewers to tap through.
• Mix Up Your Response Format: Answer some questions with text overlays and others with short video clips of you talking directly to the camera. This variety keeps your Stories dynamic and more engaging than just a wall of text.

Accessing Questions During an Instagram Live

Instagram Live sessions are fantastic for real-time interaction, but the comment section can scroll by incredibly fast, making it easy to miss viewer questions. To solve this, Instagram has a built-in Q&A feature that corrals questions into an organized queue, so you never lose track of a good one.

How to Enable and View Questions in an IG Live

The secret to a smooth Live Q&A is preparing your audience and familiarizing yourself with the interface before you hit the "Go Live" button.

Before Your Live Session:

Publish an Instagram Story an hour or so before your live stream with the "Questions" sticker. Title it something like: "Going live at 7 PM! Ask me anything you want covered." This populates your Q&A queue ahead of time, ensuring you have questions ready to go from the very first minute.

During Your Live Session:

1. Start Your Broadcast: Go Live as you normally would.
2. Open the Q&A Panel: At the bottom of your screen, next to the comment field, you'll see a small icon with a question mark (?). Tap this icon to open your Q&A panel.
3. View Your Queue: In this panel, you’ll see two tabs. One tab contains questions submitted ahead of time via your Story sticker, and the other shows questions submitted in real-time by viewers during the broadcast. Viewers can submit questions by tapping the same question mark icon on their end.
4. Display a Question on Screen: Simply tap a question from the queue. It will automatically be “pinned” publicly at the bottom of your screen for all viewers to see exactly what you're answering. This provides helpful context for people who join the stream late.
5. Move to the Next Question: Once you've finished your answer, you can either tap the "X" on the pinned question to remove it or just select another question from your queue, which will automatically replace the previous one.

Can You Find "Questions" in Reels? Yes and No

Natively, Instagram Reels doesn't include the interactive "Questions" sticker you find in Stories. However, that doesn't stop savvy creators from turning their Reels into powerful Q&A engines. The strategy here shifts from stickers to direct calls-to-action (CTAs) within the Reel itself.

Managing Questions from Your Reels Comments

The most effective way to source questions through Reels is to ask for them. End your video with a simple text-on-screen overlay and a verbal CTA like, "Have any questions about this topic? Ask me in the comments, and I’ll answer!"

Once the questions start coming in, the challenge is managing them effectively within your comments section.

• Manual Scanning is Key: For now, the most reliable method is to regularly check the comments on your high-performing Reels. Keep an eye on your notifications, specifically filtering for comments, to spot new questions as they appear.
• Pin a Great Question: If a viewer asks a particularly insightful question, you can pin their comment. This keeps it at the top of your comment thread, encouraging other users to chime in and increasing the post's overall engagement.
• Reply with a Reel: This is arguably one of the most powerful engagement tools on Instagram. Instead of typing out a response, you can answer a user's question with a whole new Reel. When you tap to reply to a comment, look for the blue camera icon to the left of the text field. Tapping it opens the Reels camera with the comment displayed as a sticker. Record your video answer, and you've got a new piece of content that directly addresses your audience's needs - all while giving a shout-out to the person who asked.

Your Inbox and Notifications: The Real Hub

Beyond Stories and Reels, your notifications tab and Direct Message inbox are central hubs for interaction. As your account grows or a post goes viral, managing the flood of activity can become a monumental task. Staying on top of your notifications ensures you don't miss important questions or engagement opportunities.

Use Filters to Manage High Volume

To avoid feeling overwhelmed, use Instagram's notification filters. This feature lets you sort through the noise and prioritize high-importance interactions, which is essential for busy community managers, business owners, or creators.

1. Go to your notifications tab (the "heart" icon in the navigation menu).
2. Look for the "Filter" option at the top of the screen. The exact name or location might vary slightly with app updates.
3. Use the filters to sort notifications by type (e.g., comments, mentions) to efficiently manage high volumes and focus on what matters most.

Final Thoughts

Mastering how to check your Instagram questions boils down to knowing where to look: swipe up on your Stories to see sticker responses, use the dedicated Q&A feature in your Lives for organized interaction, and monitor your Reels comments for opportunities to create response videos. Each method helps you connect better with your audience and turn their curiosity into engaging content.

As your account grows, manually tracking questions across every comment section and Story response can become exhausting. All of that back-and-forth between different parts of the app is exactly why we built a unified social media inbox at Postbase. It pulls all your Instagram comments and DMs into one clean feed, so you can stop hunting and start engaging with your community without having anything slip through the cracks.