It’s NOT going down in the DMs
Construction companies desire a presence on Instagram but are unable or unwilling to deal with anything as seedy as engagement.
It’s more than four years since potty-mouthed entrepreneur and the Messiah of the “hustle generation” Gary Vaynerchuk claimed it was “going down in the [Instagram] DMs”. According to the ever-grinding Mr Vee who knows about these things, direct messages on the social media platform were facilitating business relationships, forging business partnerships, and sealing business transactions.
But is that the case? Well, based on my own personal experience within the construction sector, no it isn’t. In fact, the only thing going down in the DMs I have sent recently is the sound of crickets and the quiet rolling of tumbleweed.
Faced with a deafening silence in response to the numerous direct messages I have sent recently, I decided to conduct a test. I handpicked a collection of 31 company accounts on Instagram. I deliberately picked some from companies large enough to have a dedicated marketing department or external agency handling their Instagram accounts, and some from companies small enough to be run by the owner or director.
I also mixed it up a bit. Some of the direct messages I sent were designed to make a connection; some merely praised the Instagram feed of the recipient company; and some were a typical initial connection.
I sent 31 direct messages. 11 days later, I have received just two responses. TWO!
Based upon this deeply disappointing level of response, I dug deeper into some of my older direct messages and found that a lack of response was not even remotely unusual. In fact, it was actually pretty typical.
Now I do accept that the name of my account — @demolition_news — suggests my journalistic bias and this does have a tendency to throw up the shutters. I also run a company that is fuelled by advertising, which is also widely greeted as an unwanted intrusion.
But it was interesting to note that some of the silence actually came from companies that had reached out to me but which had then failed to notice that I had responded.
I shouldn’t be surprised. I have seen this a number of times in the past. I am old enough to have witnessed the transition from Telex to fax, from fax to email, and from email to text and social media. And in each instance, I have seen companies leap on the next communications bandwagon with little or no thought about who might handle any incoming messages.
But this does beg a question. If companies are using Instagram and other social media platforms to showcase their wares and capabilities, surely they expect that showcase to bring in enquiries? And, having gone to the trouble of setting up an account and posted photos and video, surely they expect some kind of feedback and input?
It is easy to dismiss social media as a novelty; a passing fad; an online gallery of pretty young things and photos of their hipster breakfasts. Trust me that is NOT the case.
The term influencer has me cringing with embarrassment and makes me squirm in my seat. But I can tell you that I — or rather my Instagram account — has “influenced” the genuine sale of products and services. If I can do that as a journalist and as a man who couldn’t sell a bucket of water to a man on fire, think what an actual sales force could achieve with that degree of customer interaction.
Sadly, this failure to embrace social media direct messages is only going to grow worse. Instagram continues to grow exponentially. And now, the audio-only social platform Clubhouse uses either Instagram or Twitter as its means of offline communication meaning those inboxes are going to be swelled still further.
The greatest disappointment in all this is that responding to direct messages is so simple, it can even be partially or entirely automated (not that I would recommend the use of automated responses).
If you work for a company with an Instagram account, I would urge you to go take a look in your direct messages. Once you get beyond the horror at all the unanswered messages, you might be pleasantly surprised to find a genuine enquiry in there.
Mark Anthony is the founder and editor of DemolitionNews.com.
