Instagram turned 14 last month. Once a social media platform gets old enough to start begging strangers outside of liquor stores to buy it beer, something sadly predictable tends to occur: people stop caring. Sure, they’re cute as children, and everybody wants a turn holding the baby, but once that peach fuzz starts growing, the voice begins hilariously cracking? The interest fades. The novelty wanes.
You’ve witnessed this phenomenon happen repeatedly with social media, except for when it comes to Instagram, which still — to this day! — remains one of the most powerful free engagement tools available on the internet, thanks largely to its direct messaging capabilities. Instagram DMs are essential for content creators of all sizes, from new creators to established influencers and social media managers.
Concerning DMs, your follower count doesn’t matter. You could have one loyal fan or 100,000. When you use DMs appropriately, you can make every one of them feel unique. Unlike public comments, DMs allow us to make things feel more personal, crucial for growing engagement, streamlining communication, and establishing new collaborations.
Getting Started with Instagram Messaging
If you’re a content creator on Instagram, one of the first things you want to do is set up and optimize DMs. Don’t worry if you’ve never DM’d on Instagram before. Very quickly, you’ll realize the process couldn’t be simpler.
On mobile, you can access DMs by clicking the tiny chat bubble at the top right of your screen. If you’re on a web browser, you’ll find the Messages tab in the menu on the left of your screen. From there, you only need to select your recipient(s) and compose a message. Want to feel extra impressed with yourself? You can skip a step by directly maneuvering to the recipient’s profile and clicking the “Message” button. You can also reply to DMs by first locating them in your inbox.
Additionally, you’ll want to customize your Notifications settings, so don’t forget to take a gander when you’re ready and fool around with your push options.
Push notifications are alerts sent to your device even when the app isn’t open. You know when you’ve had a long night guzzling booze and smashing Doritos in your mouth, and you wake up at noon the next day to a locked phone screen full of alerts demanding your attention? Those are push notifications.
On Instagram, there are many push options to consider, including solo and group message invites, message reminders, collaboration requests, and many others. What sorts of interactions do you consider urgent enough to be notified about while inactive? Consider what you would hate missing out on, and enable that push notification to alert you immediately.
Advanced Messaging Tools and Features
Now that we’ve covered the basics let’s take things to the next level. As a content creator, the last thing you want to do is leave your audience hanging. Engagement is crucial for maintaining strong relationships with fans, clients, and potential collaborators. And, considering what year we’re all rotting alive in, people expect this engagement quickly, if not instantaneously.
Consider the following Instagram DM settings:
- Quick Replies: Once your audience grows to a certain size, it starts feeling impossible to respond to every DM flooding your inbox manually. Nobody has that kind of thumb stamina. Not even those lunatics competing in thumb-wrestling competitions (do you think the world champions are constantly breaking their phone screens while texting?). Locate the Quick Replies in your Settings on your Instagram Business account. Consider what information people might need to know immediately. For example, if you’re a business with hours of operation, you might want to remind the person messaging you when you’ll next be available. People are easily impressed with speed. When they ask how you managed to send them an Instagram message so quickly, you can confidently answer, “I am Mr. Robot from the 2015 USA Network drama Mr. Robot,” and they will respond, “Oh wow, that’s quite impressive.”
- FAQs: If you’re running a business that inspires the same old questions over and over (What are your hours? Are you open for commissions? What do you think happened at the end of The Sopranos?), then you can head over to the Frequently Asked Questions section in your Business account settings and input the questions and desired automated replies. Then, when someone goes to send you an Instagram message, these question prompts appear as suggestions, and — depending on what they choose — they will receive whatever automated reply you’ve already saved in your settings.
- Saved Replies: Slightly similar to both Quick Replies and FAQs, Saved Replies require you to be actively present on your device to initiate. You can save various messages here, which can be triggered in DMs by simply typing in Shortcut keywords. For example, if you want to message someone about a giveaway they’ve won, and you need to find out their address, you could set a Saved Reply with a “Giveaway” shortcut that automatically sends them an entire message congratulating them on winning, in addition to requesting the required personal information for mailing their prize out.
Sometimes, as a creator, you might need to DM with more than one person. Maybe you and several others are trying to collaborate, or maybe you’ve found yourself down a terrifying conspiracy rabbit hole with a group of like-minded caffeine addicts.
Either way, you can’t go wrong with group chats, which couldn’t be easier to set up:
- Go to the Messages tab on Instagram.
- Click on the pencil-on-paper icon at the top of your chatbox.
- Type in the username of each person you wish to add to the group chat.
Viola — now you can brainstorm your latest collaboration or share theories on a decades-old murder mystery or whatever else you wish to discuss in a group setting.
Much of this article focuses on finger activity; lots of typing, whether in real time or programming response presets. But maybe you’re too busy to stop what you’re doing and type out an actual message, or you have so much to say that it would take you half the morning to translate all of the thoughts pinballing around your brain. Fortunately, Instagram DMs allow users to send voice notes.
Disclaimer: this is not the same as voice-to-text. Instead, You are recording your voice, which the recipient will have to listen to once it arrives.
Here’s how you send one:
- Next to the chat bar for composing, click the microphone icon.
- Speak directly into your phone.
- Once finished, either click the trash icon or the SEND icon.
One perk of sending voice notes that nobody ever talks about? The opportunity to feel like a sneaky little spy. There’s nothing cooler than that. Have you not seen the Mission: Impossible movies?
Privacy and Security Tips for Creators
Still feel intimidated? Don’t sweat it. Even before you receive or send an Instagram message, there are privacy precautions you can take to ensure a more comfortable, secure experience. Head over to Settings and customize until your heart’s content.
- Message Controls: Here, you can decide who can send you message requests: everybody or only those who already follow you. These controls are also where you can enable who can opt you into group chats: everybody or only members you already follow.
- Restricted Accounts: If there’s an account you’d rather not block or unfollow but still wish not to interact with for whatever reason (weird, creepy uncle?), Instagram has a clever resource for you. You can instead restrict the account. When an account is restricted, they won’t be able to tag or mention you, they won’t be able to see when you’re online or when you’ve read their messages, and they won’t even know they’re restricted.
- Hidden Words: One arguably revolutionizing feature on most social media platforms nowadays is the ability to add a list of custom muted words or hidden words. You can create a filtered list of words that, if messaged to you, Instagram will automatically flag and hide (the same can be done for comments). This list is a great way to filter out spam and hate speech.
Collaboration and Networking through Instagram Messaging
First, what is an Instagram Collaboration? It’s a post co-authored by more than one user and shared across multiple feeds. When you post something as a solo creator, only your followers will see it unless your followers then share your post via their IG stories, or you pay for extra promotion, or someone specifically searches for a keyword in your post. But when you collaborate with multiple users, the combined follower counts of each user will be shown on the post.
So, let’s say you have 4,000 followers and collaborate on a post with someone with 6,000 and someone with 10,000. When that post goes live, it’s now being seen by 20,000 people instead of the 4,000 if you’d posted it as just yourself. (Math!)
How do you approach other brands and collaborators about teaming up? The most straightforward strategy is to send an Instagram message. Take advantage of those DM tools at your disposal.
- Introduce yourself.
- Tell them what they mean to you.
- Explain your collaboration idea.
- Emphasize why you’d make the perfect team.
When planning a collaboration with multiple accounts, you’ll want to coordinate plans via group chats. This is where some of our previously covered tools, such as Saved Replies, might come in handy again. Don’t be afraid to let others lead the conversation, too. When involved in a group chat, you’ll be surprised how much responsibility gets lifted when others start chipping in.
Strategies for Audience Growth and Engagement
DMs are essential for nurturing relationships and encouraging repeat interactions. Nobody wants to support or collaborate with a flake, right? They want to work with people who feel authentic. DMs are a great opportunity to add a more personal flare to things. It’s a one-on-one interaction (excluding group chats) that lets you address a single person’s needs directly. Handle these interactions responsibly; your audience will only grow as they recommend you to others. You could even offer little giveaways to new or preexisting followers who help convert their friends into following you. Plus, as your audience grows, the likelier other creators will be open to collaborating with you — and, heck, you may even start finding them hitting up your DMs first if you play your cards right.
Conclusion: DMs as a Creator’s Growth Tool
It’s easy to fall into the trap that a creator’s job is posting new content and calling it a day. But, unless you want to produce stuff that nobody’s going to care about, you must prioritize audience engagement — publicly and privately. When sending an Instagram message, you aren’t just “chatting.” You’re sharing a piece of yourself, your company, your values. You’re opening yourself up and inviting someone else to do the same. Could you imagine how quickly a brick-and-mortar business would fail if a customer walked in and couldn’t find someone to help them?
And be consistent, too. The automated tools we’ve discussed will help you not fall entirely behind, but you still need to check your inbox often. Don’t let messages pile up unread. The more energy you dedicate to maintaining a healthy, consistent DMing experience, the faster your audience will grow, and the more your Instagram account will thrive.
