Instagram allows you to communicate publicly and privately with followers, mutuals, and other Instagram users. That includes sending private messages to anyone.
You don't need to follow or be followed by that user to use the app's private messaging feature, and no one can see these messages except the recipients.
Not only can you send text and images to someone, but you can send a message to multiple people at once.
Here's how to message someone privately on Instagram.
1. Start the Instagram app on your mobile device and then swipe to the left from the Home screen or tap the paper airplane icon in the top-right corner.
2. Tap the New Message icon at the top right of the screen.
The New Message icon is in the top right next to the Video Chat icon. Dave Johnson/Business Insider3.
Add each person you want to send the message to. You can select one Instagram user or add multiple recipients.
4. Tap "Chat" at the top right of the screen.
5. Enter the message, add an image, audio, video, or Giphy.
Write your message, add media, and then tap "Send." Dave Johnson/Business Insider6.
When you're done, tap "Send."
1. In the Instagram app, find and open the profile page of the person you want to message.
2. Tap "Message."
Use the "Message" button on a user's profile page to communicate with them. Dave Johnson/Business Insider3. Enter the message and add an image, video, audio, or Giphy if you want.
4. When you're ready to send it, tap "Send."
Dave Johnson
Freelance Writer
Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life.
Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. He then spent eight years as a content lead on the Windows team at Microsoft. As a photographer, Dave has photographed wolves in their natural environment; he's also a scuba instructor and co-host of several podcasts. Dave is the author of more than two dozen books and has contributed to many sites and publications including CNET, Forbes, PC World, How To Geek, and Insider.
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Contacting Instagram is easy to do. The problem is that receiving a response back, let alone a resolution to your issue, is very difficult. It’s important to know all of your options for making progress with Instagram support.
This article covers the best strategies for getting the help you need.
Contents
Instagram Contact Number & Instagram Contact EmailInstagram’s contact phone number is 650-543-4800 and their contact email is [email protected], but please note it’s highly likely you won’t receive a response to your inquiry via these channels.
What Are My Options?Unfortunately, if you’re a normal Instagram user, your options are relatively limited to the official channels. I know that’s hard to hear, but it’s the unfortunate economics of a free app. You and your attention are the product. That means if one of Instagram’s 700 million “products” has an issue, it’s not a high priority problem. They won’t spend hundreds of dollars trying to fix it. It’s smarter for Instagram to simply ignore that issue and work on a new money-making product instead.
If you’re an influencer or a content creator with more than tens of thousands of followers, there are unofficial escalation paths with varying degrees of success.
We’ll cover some of those at the end.
Instagram has over 700 million users and the number of support requests they receive is staggering. If only 1 in every 100 users contacts Instagram once per year, that is still over 7 million support requests a year, or 18,000 per day. Now some of you may be thinking, ‘well that’s only 700 support requests per hour’, which should be a possibility for a company with Facebook’s resources.
We’re honestly not sure. We understand it’s not an easy issue; sometimes non-automatable problems simply can’t be fixed at a large scale for consumers of free apps, but at the same time the much smaller slice of influencers and content creators with tens or hundreds of thousands of followers certainly deserve some attention. These Instagram users keep the masses using Instagram and drive Facebook’s stock price up and to the right. They deserve to have a better path for escalating support issues to Instagram.
If you’re a normal Instagram user, it’s still possible to receive help, it’s just less likely. Your best bet is to submit a support request from Instagram.com. Follow the instructions below:
As an influencer, you are likely to be targeted for attack. It will most likely be an attempt to take control of your account for monetization, or to steal your name, probably to sell it. If you hang out in the right Facebook groups, you’ll see posts daily from influencers looking for help reclaiming control of their accounts.
As we covered above, Instagram does not have an official escalation path specifically for influencers. Your escalation attempts through the standard channels are going to get lumped alongside the thousands of users with no profile picture and 0 followers submitting requests.
This means your best bet is through the murky unofficial channels. These consist of finding an individual with a contact at Instagram, most commonly a friend or a person who has had to engage with Instagram on behalf of their business, such as an employee at a large advertising partner.
If you’re reading this article, it’s likely you don’t have a friend who can help, so be prepared to spend some money. The lack of official support has created a gray market of employees providing unofficial Instagram support services for thousands of dollars depending on the task.
Depending on how much revenue the account generates, how important it is to your brand, and the amount of work put into building your audience, it can definitely still make sense to spend a lot to reclaim your account.
On Instagram, users like not only to look at interesting videos and photos. Like any other social network, Instagram is made for communication. However, few people know how to communicate with users on Instagram. And if for a personal account everything is clear, then for a business account - not quite. It is important not only to be able to communicate correctly with subscribers, but also to know what.
If you don't know how to promote Instagram, start with communication. Instagram customers love not only to watch your posts in the feed, but also to chat, ask a question, and so on. Therefore, communication with customers and followers on Instagram is very important. Above all, always communicate politely with customers. Do not allow obscene expressions, insults and rudeness in your vocabulary. nine0004
Be friendly and calm. Always say hello, address the person by name.
It will not be difficult for you to write an extra “please” and “thank you”, but it’s nice for a person.
You can even think over your corporate style of communication. The main thing is that it is understandable to users. And try to be human and not turn into a robot.
If there is any conflict, there is no need to prove the person wrong. It’s better to apologize right away, suggest how you can solve his problem, maybe even try to appease. Such an attitude will be much more pleasant and will instantly reduce the conflict to nothing. nine0004
Plus - your users will understand that you are interested in their peace of mind and in improving the performance of your company. Usually even those who initially complained and tried to quarrel after the correct answers will write to you more often, but in a much more polite way.
Oddly enough, many people still have the question “What is Direct and how to use it”. To access Direct messages, in your feed, swipe left (swipe your finger across the screen from right to left).
And knowing, for example, the price that you told everyone who was interested in the comments, they will most likely write to you when they are going to buy the product. 
Connect opinion leaders and famous people. Make the most of Instagram and stay tuned for new features. And of course, don't forget to connect with your Instagram followers. Now everyone wants special treatment, and the one who gives this attitude wins.
Subscribe to our Telegram channel and stay up to date with new articles and other interesting materials. nine0004
On our Instagram channel you will find a lot of interesting things from the life of the Agency and useful materials on SMM and Digital.
There are many videos about SMM on the YouTube channel.
Instagram Direct, unfortunately, is not the most pleasant messenger you can imagine. It does not have a lot of functions, everything is constantly lost, the search is crooked.
But nevertheless, Direct can be configured to make it easier to parse messages. nine0004
The first thing you need to set up is quick replies. Think about the questions you are most often asked and write down the answers in advance.
For example, cost. You save your answers in advance and assign a certain combination of letters or symbols to each. In the future, you just need to enter these combinations in the input line, and the message will automatically come out. You can send a message without wasting time to go to your notes, copy the message from there, go back to Instagram, paste it on Instagram and reply. nine0004
Another great feature on Instagram is the FAQ. These are a few questions that will automatically appear in a person when they want to write you a message.
Why is it needed at all? To make it easier for a person to start a conversation with you.
You yourself hint to the subscriber what questions you need to ask in order to communicate with you as effectively as possible.
This function can only be configured through the Facebook account.
It can be configured in two ways:
If you do not answer them within a very short time, they will most likely go looking for another specialist. It is for such cases that automatic responses are configured. This is a template message you send to new subscribers. There may be several options:
Welcome messages are not automatically sent to your subscribers. That is, if you want to greet your subscribers, start a dialogue with them, you will have to do it manually.
Reaction to these messages can be different: no reaction, like or "Thank you". But you can meet an interesting person, find a client. nine0004
Sometimes you need to return to those clients with whom you have already corresponded. What is it for? If a person is already interested in your services, most likely something stopped him, and here two points are important for you:
This can only be done by asking. There is nothing like that if you politely ask a person what stopped him, why he did not place an order. Telegram has many more functions, you can pin messages, send links, files, communicate normally. Therefore, be sure to transfer clients to Telegram. If you use another messenger, transfer to another messenger, but take your client's contacts so that he does not get lost in Instagram Direct. nine0004
Make friends with your customers, with the people you are interested in. Send them a reaction to the story, answer in the story if there are any questions.
Why is this being done? When you already have a history of correspondence, even if you really rarely communicate, at the moment when you want to write to a blogger or client, your reactions to his stories will be a plus, because he will see that you are really his subscriber and interested human.
