(Update on November 14, 2021 at 9:00AM PT: This blog post was published in 2018. For up-to-date information, please download our guide on how businesses can make the most of Instagram.)

People come to Instagram to connect and communicate with businesses they love. In fact, more than 200 million daily active Instagrammers visit a business profile each day.¹

More than 150 million have a conversation with businesses through Instagram Direct each month, with a third of those messages beginning with an Instagram Story.² To make messaging easier and more efficient, we're introducing a new set of features for businesses using Instagram Direct.

Starting today, businesses will have a better way to manage their messages. Now you'll see important new customer messages in your main Direct inbox, instead of in the pending folder. You can also star and filter your conversations to come back to messages you want to follow up on. Additionally, in the coming weeks we'll begin testing quick replies so that you can easily respond to common questions.

As more people continue to interact with businesses on Instagram and take action when inspiration strikes, we're making it easier to turn that discovery into action. Through our action buttons, people can now Reserve, Get Tickets, Start Order or Book through popular, third-party partners without having to leave Instagram.³ Take HomeState (@homestate) for example, a popular Texan restaurant, they've partnered with ChowNow to use the 'Start Order' button—letting their customers order their signature tacos right from their Instagram business profile.

We're rolling these buttons out with a range of partners, including:

• Acuity, Atom Tickets, Booksy, ChowNow, Eatstreet, Eventbrite, Fandango, GrubHub, MyTime, OpenTable, Reserve, Restorando, Resy, SevenRooms, StyleSeat, Tock and Yelp Reservations—all available now

• And coming soon: Appointy, Genbook, LaFourchette, MINDBODY, Schedulicity, SetMore, Shedul and Vagaro

Learn more about how to add action buttons to your business profile here.

Some of these partners are also available for an action button on Facebook Pages; we recommend relevant businesses also look to enable there.

As businesses increasingly view Instagram as a place where business gets done, we're committed to making it easier for them to manage their presence on the platform. Whether through the recent expansion of shopping on Instagram,⁴ introduction of action buttons or updates to Instagram Direct, business have more opportunities to connect and communicate with their customers.

To get started using Instagram for your business, create a business profile here. And make sure to keep an eye out for our new series of in-product tutorials, where we'll share tips on how to plan posts, create engaging content and grow your community.⁵ These will be available in the settings of the app, under Tutorials.