Instagram Direct for Business Video Lecture | Instagram for Marketing by Andrew Macarthy

so now that you know our Instagram
direct is and how to use it let's look
how to utilize it for business purposes
on the app and first up its to use
Instagram direct to conduct customer
service one of the first benefits is
that conducting customer service using
Instagram direct moves public's disputes
into a more private setting and this is
better fuel brand image and doesn't clog
the comments feed because there's
nothing worse than somebody rounding off
about a problem they have with your
business and that being seen by all of
your followers it's just not very good
for business or your brand image and so
to combat this you can easily just post
one comment to tell the person that
you've contacted them using Instagram
direct or by p.m. and to check their
inbox in order to continue the
conversation well another benefit is
that photos videos and text can be used
to diagnose and solve problems so if
your business is the type we're showing
people rather than just explaining to
them in text will help solve their
problem more easily then you can do this
over Instagram direct and don't forget
in places where your customers will see
it such as your bio advertise the fact
that any problems can be solved via
Instagram direct and hopefully this will
reduce the amount of people that
complain directly in the comments feed
and encourage more people to message you
directly and you can also actively
monitor mentions of your brand via the
hashtag search on Instagram and do all
these problems quickly using Instagram
direct and if we take a look at this
example here this is one where somebody
is complaining that their subway
sandwich came with the wrong type of
bread and they've hashtagged its subway
fail subway do better and subway and
this is an example
we're subway could just hop in to deal
with this situation that this customer
is experiencing and make them happy
again next up we've got offering coupon
codes and deals so you could send direct
messages including coupon codes to new
or milestone followers such as your 50th
one hundred or thousand or as we saw in
the previous example you could send
coupon codes as an apology for customer
service issue if you're feeling really
generous you could send coupon codes
randomly to surprise and delight your
followers and if you plan for the coupon
code to be used multiple times you can
encourage the recipient to share it or
to screen grab the photo itself and to
repost it don't forget to make them use
a hashtag of your choice so that you can
track it and if you're going to be
sending out lots of coupon codes over a
long period of time you want to make
them unique so that you can track them
in your own system easily and in some
cases you will want to limit the
quantity of coupons that you send out in
order to discourage abuse and encourage
use and earlier on we looked at one of
the content strategies for Instagram was
to show your customers behind the scenes
of your business well Instagram direct
heightens this ability even more as you
can only send out up to 15 messages to
individuals this enhances the
desirability of an event or offer as can
be seen in this example from the
Kardashian Kollection so they say as a
thank you to our amazing followers we're
going to send 15 people and exclusive
behind-the-scenes pic from the
Kardashian collection 2014 campaign
shoot to post on their own channels and
they asked their followers to repost and
hashtag this photo with the hashtag kk
direct and in under 24 hours the post
received four thousand likes and 650
comments and by asking their followers
to repost this post they
get their fans to promote the offer
themselves and drive even more
participants and after the promotion was
finished the Kardashian Kollection
posted a screen grab of the individuals
to whom they sent the exclusive
behind-the-scenes pics too and of course
these people are going to go on to
repost the photos they received and this
is even more promotion for the
Kardashian Kollection brand next up
we've got running contests Instagram
direct allows you a great opportunity to
post ad hoc or exclusive contests with
small prizes that you can run often
examples could be the first to answer a
question or apply with a photo or video
to repost a tweet with a hashtag and
that person will win the prize or you
could do a friend referral scheme where
you say the first person to get five
friends to follow you and mention the
original referee in the DM win surprise
or you could do a scavenger hunt where
you send out one clue at a time to
individuals and when they send you back
the answer to the first clue or the
evidence they found it you can send out
the next clue and at the end of the
scavenger hunt whoever's first to find
them answer the last clue will win the
prize don't forget to announce the
winner of any competitions in your
public feed or on a website for full
transparency and this example from
michael kors we can see that they've
used instagram direct as a way to
promote the business and what they've
done is they've said that the first 50
people to post a photo and tag it with
the hashtag mkay direct will get a
special message from michael kors and in
under 24 hours it received 23,000 legs
and 221 comments and there's an early
experiment for Instagram direct was
extremely successful