What is it?
The ability to DM with your customers from within Khoros Care, Khoros Social Inbox, and legacy Spredfast Care Module..
Why does this matter?
Instagram is one of the fastest-growing digital channels in the world, and the platform’s 1:1 messaging is no exception. Your brands’ followers expect to speak candidly with you, ask questions, share what they love, and have their issues resolved within the channel of their choice — and with Instagram messaging in Khoros, brands in the Early Access program can now do just that through Instagram direct messages.
Undoubtedly, this has been the most highly requested feature across our customer base, and our team has been advocating on your behalf for access for years. Below are details on how access will be granted. Facebook’s blog post announcing this Beta/Early Access program is here, our Khoros statement is here.
How do I request Early Access?
Typically, our Khoros Product teams work with you, our customers, to determine the best fit for an Early Access experience. However, in this case there are two potential limitations:
- Facebook must first pre-approve all brands. Their team is evaluating brands for inclusion based on specific Facebook-defined criteria (see below).
- As an early access partner of Facebook, Khoros has been granted a limited number of early access slots for our customers in 2020. We may have to temporarily waitlist some customers if we receive overwhelming interest. If Facebook changes this in the future, we’ll update this page.
Step 1: Please fill out this Khoros survey / interest form if you haven’t done so
With this information, our team will add your brand and handles for review by Facebook. Your account team will be in touch to let you know if you've been approved, or if you’re on the waitlist. If you've been approved, your account team will reach out to discuss next steps.
If you’re not yet approved, what’s next?
Current approval criteria includes:
- Consistent, high IG message volume.
- A commitment to respond within 24 hours.
- A commitment to avoid channel switching.
If your brand is not approved right away and/or waitlisted, our customer success and partner teams are committed to working with you to help you optimize for any necessary approval criteria and following up on your behalf with our partners at Facebook. We’re excited to be one of the very first partners to be on this journey with Instagram as they systematically open up more early access to this channel for brands.
How do I stay tuned?
We'll be updating you with more information as soon as it is available to us.
Questions in the meantime? Please reach out to your account team or comment below.
Thank you!
Your Khoros Product + Partner Teams
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What Message types are currently unsupported?
A: Facebook does not support certain message types via the API. The unsupported message types as of December 2020 are:
- Customer has sent a Voice message, Sticker, File, Carousel, or GIF image (Note: other images are ok)
- Customer has "shared" a Profile, IGTV, Reel or Story with you via DM (Note: User Story @Mentions and shared media are supported and are not included in the explanation here, but please see EU-specific limitations noted below)
- Group direct messages are not supported
Q: How are Instagram Direct Messages impacted by Facebook’s announcement from early December 2020 of changes to their Messaging platforms as part of their continuing efforts to comply with new privacy rules in Europe?
A: Please see our Care blog post for the full list of impacted conversations and the latest updates. Instagram messaging is impacted in the following ways:
- Impacted conversations will be able to receive only text content in direct messages. As such, story mentions and shared media messages will not be available.
- Impacted conversations will not be able to send rich content (including media, file, like heart, etc.). Also, the ability to like a specific user message will not be possible.
Q: Are Instagram "Message requests" ingested into Khoros as a part of Instagram Direct Early Access?
A: While our platform doesn’t visually distinguish message requests, these messages do get ingested into your Instagram messaging workflows within Khoros so that you can take action on them.
