(Update on November 14, 2021 at 9:00AM PT: This blog post was published in 2019. For up-to-date information about reaching your audience on Instagram, learn more about ads on Instagram.)

Learn tips to effectively communicate with customers on your posts and messages.

Responding to people on Instagram can help you strengthen relationships with existing customers and connect with new ones. It’s why 150M people on Instagram have a conversation with a business every month.¹

Learn more about how you can correspond through comments and Direct Messaging.

Here are 6 tips you can use to communicate effectively with your community:

Like comments to quickly connect.

You may not want to respond with full-length written responses to every comment, like when someone replies with just emoji comments (🔥🔥🔥) or one-word responses (“Amazing!”). Instead of writing a comment, you can like the comment to save time. Learn more about liking comments here.

Show your business’ personality in conversations.

A conversation with your community is another expression of your business’ unique personality, so make sure your responses fit your brand. For instance, if your brand is fun and lighthearted, your responses to people on Instagram should also reflect that.

Mention customers and partners.

If you’re highlighting specific people in your caption or comment, don’t forget to mention them by adding their @username in your text. This way, they can get notified and continue building a connection with you.

Use simple language that your customers can easily understand. Don’t use industry specific jargon or phrases that may confuse customers when responding to them.

If you see a comment you’d like to address privately, such as custom orders or customer support issues, you can move the conversation to Direct. For example, you could respond to the comment with, “Thank you for asking this question — please check your DMs for our response.” Learn more about sending messages on Direct here.

If you sent a message that you didn’t mean to send, you can unsend messages you’ve sent by tapping and holding on the specific message. Keep in mind that the person you sent it may have already seen your message. Learn more about unsending messages here.

Use Quick Replies to save time when responding to frequently asked questions. With Quick Replies, you can select an answer you’ve previously written instead of retyping the answer again.

If you are looking for some ideas, here are some examples you can start with:

You can even draft the answers to these questions so you can easily integrate them into your Quick Replies.

Now you are ready to create your Quick Replies:

1. Tap the Quick Reply (three-dot chat bubble) icon on the bottom of your screen. Tap New Quick Reply to write the response you’d like to save.

2. Add the shortcut that you can enter for the response. For instance, you can add the shortcut ‘hours’ for the response, ‘Our business hours are 9 am - 5 pm on weekdays and 10 am - 6 pm on weekends.’

3. If you have previously answered a frequently asked question, you can also save your response as a Quick Reply. Open the message thread where you’ve previously answered a frequently asked question. Tap and hold the message you want to save — you can edit the response and shortcut before saving it.

4. Once you add a response to your Quick Replies, you can just add it the next time you get a frequently asked question. Tap the Quick Reply (three-dot chat bubble) icon on the bottom of your screen and choose from one of the responses you’ve integrated, or type the shortcut for the Quick Reply you want to use.

Using Quick Replies not only saves you time, but allows you to be consistent when responding to customers.