Facebook announced on Thursday that Page owners will soon be able to receive and respond to Instagram Direct messages via their Facebook Page inbox.
Why you should care
The update will be a major time-saver for brands managing both Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts. Accessing inquiries from multiple apps in one unified messaging platform will streamline customer service concerns and help brands respond to direct messages from followers all in one place.
Beta tester Anibal Fuentes Perez, the owner of Pavos Extreme, says the “Unified” messaging feature was a great help for customer service issues. “It speeds up my work and has facilitated communication with my clients, especially during busy periods such as Christmas, when I received a large influx of messages,” says Perez.
Facebook’s “Unified” messaging for Facebook Pages comes less than two weeks after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s plans to integrate its three apps: Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.
Giving advertisers the ability to receive Instagram Direct messages via their Facebook Pages inbox aligns with Facebook’s initiative to integrate the three apps. At the time, Facebook said it was still in the early stages of the integration project, but planned to complete it by the end of 2019 or early next year. The fact that this is happening within days of the company announcing its goal to integrate the three apps illustrates how quickly it is moving to make it happen.
More on the news
- The update is being rolled out in the coming weeks, first in the U.S. and Brazil.
- Page owners will be able to receive and respond to Instagram Direct messages from their Page inbox on both desktop and mobile via the Pages Manager app.
- Facebook made the announcement during its Communities Summit, an annual event that is being hosted at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park with more than 400 community leaders and small businesses in attendance.
About The Author
Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media’s General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs.com, SoftwareCEO.com, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.