Instagram Direct – Private Messages and Chat Bots

With Instagram Direct, for several years users have had the ability to publish not only postings to Instagram, but also send messages to individuals, or to specific groups, as on other social networks.

Accept and open direct messages

Each user can write to any other user. If you have an inquiry, you can call it up on the start page, via the small house symbol (bottom left). As soon as the symbol is pressed and the news feed appears, you will find the access to the news in the upper right corner.

Direct messages appear in two stages. In the first overview you will see all messages from persons with whom you are already connected or messages from persons whose request for communication you have accepted. All Instagram Direct messages still waiting for confirmation can be opened again in the upper right corner. In this feed you can see all news requests from other users.

Messages can not only be sent from person to person, on Instagram you can also write to groups of 20, 30 or 40 people.

Factor of success for the algorithm?

The interaction rate, i.e. the engagement, determines the positive and negative evaluation of the own Instagram channel by the platform operator. Just as answering comments is a success factor on Instagram, so is answering questions promptly. Particularly for channels that are not marked as private, but run as corporate channels, communication should always be the focus. For postings, but also for answering inquiries.

Of course, this factor is very small, but plays like all success factors in the choir together an important role. Just like a short biography of the profile, the link to the website, a profile picture, regular postings, replying to comments also belong to it. Of course, replying to Instagram Direct messages is also a point in the rating.

Is it worth actively acquiring users who use Instagram Direct Messages? In principle, the Instagram inbox is the same as the inbox of any e-mail, or the mailbox at the house entrance. What lands here is usually read briefly. It is not always reacted to, but it is often read. Of course you can use this as a company to market new products or services. Either manual or automated.

Direct Massage and Social Bots

Anyone who has ever had anything to do with social bots knows that their job is, among other things, to comment on posts made by other users. Why is that? The more frequently other users perceive us, e.g. through comments under photos and videos, the more reach your channel will get. Of course, the principle can also be converted to Direct Messages.

Here is a small example of how something like this could work. As a realistic example, we take the subject of “looking for accommodation”, a huge market, because 10 million people are living in this country every year.

1. Social bot searches specifically for posts with variables you specify
2. Your default, whenever a user posts the hashtag #housing search, the posting is not older than 7 days, your social bot will write a direct message to the user
3. The message then contains a spun text, which could look like this: ” Hey, I just saw your posting, you are looking for a flat? Do you already know the new portal https://immoxy.de”

Thus one could orient the procedure of a social bot outlined above towards addressing people who are currently looking for accommodation and perhaps have not yet found what they are looking for. So you get, quasi free of charge, new reach for your real estate portal.

The link is written directly as a URL so that users can click directly on it and immediately land on the right website.

What is Content Spinning? If you want to read more about the topic, then we have two interesting pages for you here, on the one hand in our blog of the article spinning comments, you will find here a detailed guide to the topic Content Spinning.