What to put in the DM: buttons, cards and links

Getting an Instoly flow working takes about ten minutes. Getting the message right is the part that decides whether the people who asked actually tap, and it is where we see the biggest difference between two accounts running an identical setup.

A DM from Instoly can take four shapes, and each one suits a different ask. Here is what they are, the limits that constrain them, and what we would write in each.

What are the four shapes a DM can take?

• Plain text. One message, no buttons. Right for an answer that is the whole point, like a code or a short explanation.
• Text with buttons. Up to three buttons carrying any link you choose: your site, a product page, a booking form.
• A carousel of product cards. Several products in one message, for when the answer is genuinely a choice rather than one link.
• An affiliate link, with its image, link and code together.

We would default to buttons. A bare link in a message asks the reader to decide what it is; a button tells them what happens when they tap, which is the difference between curiosity and intent.

How long can a button title be?

Twenty characters, and our builder will stop you before Instagram does. That sounds tight until you write a few, and then you realise most good button titles are two or three words anyway.

• "Shop the dress" fits. "Click here to shop the dress now" does not.
• Write the verb and the thing: shop, book, read, get.
• Make the three buttons genuinely different. Two buttons going to nearly the same page is a wasted slot.
• Put the one you actually want tapped first.

The same discipline applies to the link itself. We would send people to the exact page they asked about rather than a homepage, because a person who has to search for what they were promised usually stops looking.

When is a product carousel the right answer?

When the honest reply is "which one?". Somebody commenting on a haul reel with four products in it does not want one link, and sending them a page to scroll is asking them to do work they did not volunteer for.

We would keep the card count low even though more are allowed. Three or four cards is a choice, and ten is a catalogue nobody reads on a phone while half-watching something else.

What should the first line say?

Something that proves a person is on the other end, or at least that somebody thought about this reply before today. The opening line that works is the one that references what they asked for, in the words they asked for it in.

We would avoid three things: an introduction nobody needs, enthusiasm the reader has not earned, and three links stacked in a row. That last one is the fastest way to get reported, and reports are what actually put an account at risk. We went through the rest of that in what Instagram allows.

Write it the way you would if you were typing it yourself, one-handed, between shots.

One more thing we would do before going live: read the message out loud. A DM that sounds strange spoken is a DM that reads as written by a machine, and reading it aloud catches that faster than any amount of editing on screen. It is the last check we run on our own flows.

Why write more than one version?

Because a hundred people receiving an identically worded message is the thing that makes automation obvious. Our message variants rotate between the versions you write, so the fiftieth person does not get a copy of the first person's reply.

The same goes for the public comment reply under the post, where everyone can see all of them at once. Six identical replies stacked down a thread reads as a bot even when the DMs behind them are perfect.

One last thing worth knowing: a private reply to a comment is a single message, so everything you want to say has to be in it. There is no follow-up message arriving a minute later to finish the thought.

The automation part of Instoly is settled the moment you switch it on. The message is the part worth going back to, because it is the only thing the person on the other end ever sees.