You are at your desk. A customer just sent you a question on Instagram DM. Another one followed up on Messenger. A lead replied to your WhatsApp broadcast template. Someone mentioned you on Threads. And your Telegram bot got a private message about pricing.
Right now, to answer all five, you need to open five different apps. By the time you get to the Telegram one, the Instagram customer has sent a follow-up: "Hello? Anyone there?"
This is the reality of customer communication in 2026. Your audience picks the platform that is convenient for them. Your job is to be there — on every one of those platforms — without losing your mind in the process.
What Is a Unified Social Inbox?
A unified social inbox is a single dashboard that collects direct messages, comments, mentions and customer conversations from every connected social platform into one organized feed. Instead of checking each app individually, you open one page, see every unread conversation, and reply without leaving.
LigiComms calls its unified inbox Sociobox. It is one page — /dashboard/inbox — with one tab per platform that has a messaging integration. Open it and you see your conversations across:
- Facebook Messenger — real-time conversations with customers who message your Page, delivered by webhook.
- Instagram DMs — direct messages from followers and potential customers, also webhook-driven.
- WhatsApp — customer chats on your own WhatsApp Business number, with 24-hour session window awareness.
- Telegram — private messages to your channel's bot, rebuilt from stored webhook updates.
- Threads mentions — since Threads has no DM API, each mention appears as a one-message conversation you can respond to.
- X / Twitter DMs — direct message threads, reaching back 30 days (the X API's own limit).
How Conversations Actually Work in Sociobox
Each platform tab shows a list of conversations, sorted by most recent activity. Click a conversation and you see the full message thread — your customer's messages and your replies, in order, looking like any messaging app.
Here's what happens under the surface to make this feel seamless:
Messenger and Instagram: Webhook-Driven, Not Polled
When a customer sends you a Facebook or Instagram DM, Meta's webhook delivers it to your connected LigiComms instance in real time. The message is stored, deduped (so a redelivery doesn't create a duplicate), and threaded by participant — not by message. This means your outbound replies and the customer's inbound messages appear in one conversation, not two separate threads.
This real-time delivery only works when your Facebook Page is subscribed to the messages webhook field. LigiComms subscribes it automatically on channel connect. Channels connected before this automation was added get a "Real-time messages" button on the Channels page to subscribe manually — no reconnection needed.
WhatsApp: Session-Aware Replies
WhatsApp has a 24-hour messaging window. If a customer messaged you within the last 24 hours, you can reply freely with any text. If the window has closed, you need to use an approved template. Sociobox knows which state each conversation is in and adjusts the reply interface accordingly — free-form reply when the window is open, template-only when it is closed.
WhatsApp conversations also support document replies — send a PDF, a receipt, or a product brochure directly from the inbox. And if you have auto-reply enabled, the bot's messages appear in the same conversation thread so your team can see what the customer was told before they jump in.
Telegram: Rebuilt From Webhooks
Telegram's Bot API has no "list conversations" endpoint. You can't ask it for all the chats your bot has had. Instead, LigiComms stores every update the Telegram webhook delivers, and reconstructs conversations from those stored messages. This means the inbox grows over time as customers interact. It is not a full chat history from day one — it is a growing record of every conversation since the webhook was activated.
A unified inbox is not a feature. It is the difference between responding to customers in five minutes and responding in five hours. Every hour of delay increases the chance that the customer went somewhere else.
Post Comments Are Not Inbox Messages
LigiComms makes a deliberate architectural choice: comments on your social posts are shown on the post itself, not in the inbox. This is because a comment is a public interaction attached to a specific piece of content, while a DM is a private conversation with a specific person.
On the Social Posts page, each published post shows its comments inline — read, reply, delete (where the platform allows it). Engagement counters (likes, comments, shares, views) are synced every 15 minutes across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Pinterest, Twitter and LinkedIn.
This separation prevents the common problem where an inbox full of comment notifications buries real customer messages. DMs and comments are different workflows and belong in different places.
Saved Replies: Answer Faster Without Repeating Yourself
If you answer the same questions all day — pricing, hours, return policy, shipping time — typing the same response fifty times is not a good use of anyone's energy. Saved replies let you build a library of common responses, grouped by category, and insert them into any conversation with one click.
Click the reply button, pick a saved reply, adjust if needed, send. The response is editable before sending — it is a starting point, not a script. For teams where multiple people handle the inbox, saved replies also ensure consistent answers regardless of who is on shift.
The X DM Tab: Premium and Billed
Unlike the other inbox tabs, X (Twitter) charges for every DM read through its API. The X tab in Sociobox only appears after the platform administrator enables X for the tenant's brand. With the grant active, opening the X inbox charges the wallet once per channel per UTC day. If the X API call fails, the charge is refunded automatically.
This design is intentional. Free channels (Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram) are always available. Paid channels (X) are opt-in, transparent about cost, and never charge without an explicit enable. You are never surprised by a bill for reading your own messages.
One Inbox, One Source of Truth
When your inbox is fragmented, customer context is fragmented too. The Instagram customer who also messaged on WhatsApp exists as two separate conversations in two separate apps. You answer the same question twice, or worse, give contradictory answers because the person handling Instagram didn't know the WhatsApp team already resolved the issue.
A unified inbox — connected to the same CRM that tracks your contacts and deals — means every interaction with a customer is visible in one place. WhatsApp reply, Instagram DM, Messenger query, email follow-up — all threaded under one contact profile, all accessible from one dashboard.
Your customers already treat every channel as "your business." Your inbox should too. Stop switching tabs and start having conversations.