5 Reasons Brands Should Avoid Instagram Direct Messages

Gregarious Narain
Jul 27, 2017 · 4 min read
Photo by Hans Vivek on Unsplash

Instagram Direct launched on December 12, 2013. Within 6 months, 25% of its users were sending messages, likely an even greater percentage now. But as a direct communication tool, it’s in service of individuals more than brands.

Lightweight of Instagram Direct make perfect sense, however, large scale “campaign” style actions simply can’t work. Here are 5 important reasons why.

Technical

The easiest problem to spot is that Instagram API has not facility for accessing, creating, or responding to direct messages. This feature, much like posting photos, is exclusively the domain of their native applications — and for good reason.

More importantly, last year, Instagram did a hard reset with their developer community, purging thousands of bad actors and hardening permissions and access for the remaining developers. Although this may feel Twitter-esque, the reality is that they are extremely protective of their platform: both the content and the community.

Brands who have struggled to manage posting to Instagram should expect even more fatigue trying to use direct messaging at scale.

Cultural

Instagram has stood out for its relative purity from Facebook. The team has been focused on delivering a great product and experience for their customers. Ask anyone at Instagram why they exist, and they’ll tell you it is in service of the media and community, first.

To that end, Instagram has demonstrated over and over that their goal is to augment the user experience, not interrupt it. They believe that every piece of content, every interaction, should be authentic and meaningful. Mass messaging has been thwarted stridently in the comments, making it easy to imagine that direct messages would be even more highly regulated.

Brands have had a hard time acknowledging and adapting to the native rules of the community. That has lead to often tone def content and engagements. We cannot succeed as aliens to the ecosystem.

Users

Messaging is the sideline activity to the real value of Instagram, creation. Instagram has one of the largest, most creative users today and their activity is amplified by engaging with their community of followers. That means comments, not messages.

Users of Instagram are active in the comments and discussion around media and moments shared on Instagram. Instagram famously does not even allow links in its comments, to date (though it’s rumored this may change). From a business point of view, with this pathway already closed, why create an even bigger loss leader?

Brands have more to gain by operating in plain daylight. A single comment may be seen by thousands whereas an direct message by one. If maximizing impact, the choice is clear.

Business

Instagram already has more than 1 million advertisers on the platform and likely that will not slow down any time soon. While this growth is impressive, it’s equally impressive when you consider the simplicity of the actual product.

Instagram’s initial ad product was quite simple, essentially promoted posts. As time has passed, we see that they continue to innovate with new formats. It wasn’t until last year that ads could even be directly provisioned via their tools. All said, this means that the current status is nascent and likely the direction that earns the most development effort.

Advancing direct messaging yields minimal fruit, especially in light of how Stories has taken off as yet another channel for consumers to engage and converse.

Brands are wise to get familiar with the ad ecosystem and its newest options.

Ecosystem

Facebook, of course, represents the 800 pound gorilla in the room. As the FB platform continues to evolve, there is significant opportunity to borrow more of its infrastructure for Instagram. Convergence is inevitable.

Pulling that thread, we can see that all communications will likely fall into the security sandbox Facebook insists upon, further walling off brands from unsolicited access to consumers.

Brands are best advised to strategize on the long-term standing and trends, not short term loopholes.

This post is a followup to a previous post on the potential of Instagram DM.


If you enjoyed this article, let me and your friends know with ❤︎ or a share. Follow me for future articles.

Gregarious Narain is a serial entrepreneur and product strategist. A reformed designer and developer, he writes on his experiences as a founder, strategist, and father on the regular. Work with him at Before Alpha, connect on LinkedIn, follow on Facebook, or say hi on Twitter.

Before Alpha

An Innovation Consultancy, Designed for Rapid Iteration

Gregarious Narain

Written by

Perpetual entrepreneur. Advisor to founding teams. Husband to Maria. Father to Solomon. Fan of fashion. Trying to stay fit.

Before Alpha

An Innovation Consultancy, Designed for Rapid Iteration