by Do you use Instagram Direct Messages to engage with customers or followers? Want to save time spent answering the same questions over and over?
In this article, you’ll learn how to use Instagram Quick Replies for business and find out how to turn past direct messages into quick replies.
To learn how to set up Instagram quick replies for direct messages (DMs), read the article below for an easy-to-follow walkthrough or watch this video:
What Are Instagram Quick Replies?
Businesses love Instagram DMs for customer service and engaging with their audience, but many of us have burned out our thumbs with constant replies to the same question. Fortunately, Instagram has quick replies for DMs to make your life a little bit easier.
Instagram quick replies are responses that you set up in advance to answer frequently asked questions you receive via Instagram DMs. Once you’ve set up a quick reply, you can automatically insert it into a DM to quickly respond to a question.
Note: Quick replies are available only to Instagram business profiles. Personal profiles and creator profiles don’t have this functionality.
So what types of responses should you set up as quick replies? Some common ones are your hours of operation, commonly asked questions, directions, rates you offer for different services, contact info, or maybe even a link to a free resource.
One of the reasons I love quick replies is that if you have an agency managing your content or if you’re the agency, quick replies make it easy to have a clear, concise answer that’s the same across the board. That way, there’s no confusion for the message recipient.
Quick replies are also great for the medical and legal fields or in a highly technical environment when you want to give a very precise answer that doesn’t leave any room for confusion or would otherwise require an expert to reply. Quick replies make it easy to be consistent across the board.
Now that you know the benefits of using Instagram Quick Replies for business, here’s how to set them up.
#1: Set Up an Instagram Quick Reply
To create an Instagram quick reply, log into Instagram and head to your business profile. In the top-right corner of the screen, tap on the three-line button and choose Settings from the slide-out menu.
From there, choose the Business option and on the next screen, tap on Quick Replies.
If you haven’t previously uploaded an Instagram quick reply, the next screen will be blank and you’ll see an option to create one. If you already have some saved, you’ll see them here along with a plus sign in the top-right corner that allows you to create one. So to add a new quick reply, just tap on that plus button.
Next, you’ll be taken to a screen to set up the quick reply. First, type in the message that you want to save as a quick reply. You could say something like, “Our normal business hours are Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 6:00.”
Below that, type in a shortcut, which is a single word you want to apply to this quick reply. When you use this shortcut in your DMs, your quick reply will populate your message. So keep it short and sweet and relevant to the message you want to use. Then save it.
#2: Create an Instagram Quick Reply From an Existing Message
Chances are you’ve probably already answered many of the questions you want to set up as quick replies in previous Instagram DMs. There’s a quick and easy way to take advantage of those previously sent messages to create quick replies going forward.
To set up a quick reply from an existing message, go into that DM thread and tap and hold on the message you previously sent as a reply. When you do that, you get a little pop-up screen with a Save Quick Reply option.
Once you select that option, Instagram automatically populates the message into a new quick reply. Do a quick edit if you want and assign a new keyword for the shortcut. Then save it and you’re done.
#3: Respond to a DM With an Instagram Quick Reply
So now that you’ve set up your quick replies, how do you use them?
The Quick Reply feature is only available in Instagram DMs. You can’t use it to reply to comments on your posts or in other capacities like that.
To use a quick reply to respond to a DM, open a message where someone has asked you a question that would typically result in that response. Within that message, where you normally type your response, just type the single word that you’ve created as the shortcut.
In the example below, I typed the word Services, which I’ve set up as a quick reply.
After you type in your shortcut, you’ll see a little comment bubble with three dots pop up within the message box.
Tap on that little three-dot icon, and Instagram will automatically dump your pre-saved message right into the DM.
At this point, the message is fully customizable. You can personalize it, change a little bit of information, or just click Send to send it on its way.
#4: Edit an Instagram Quick Reply
Once you’ve created some Instagram quick replies, it’s easy to go back and edit or delete them.
On the Quick Replies screen in your settings, tap on the message you want to edit. You’ll then see an Edit Quick Reply screen with that message and shortcut.
You can make your edits right from there and then save your changes. If you prefer to remove the quick reply from the list altogether, simply tap the red Delete Quick Reply link.
Conclusion
The Instagram Quick Replies feature lets you respond to common questions from your followers without having to type the same message time and again. To set up quick replies, you can either create them from scratch or save DMs you’ve previously sent as quick replies. Then you simply type in the shortcut for the appropriate reply to insert it in a DM to quickly respond to a question.
What do you think? What types of questions might you save as Instagram quick replies? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
