Kassaundra 0:00
We're keeping with the theme of thankfulness this month, and today, I want to chat to you about being thankful for those DMs in your inbox.
Kassaundra 0:09
So teacher authors, go ahead and reheat that cup of coffee because I'm your host, Kassaundra Foster and we're about to get Schooled in Socials.
Kassaundra 0:19
Welcome back to Schooled in Socials. Today's episode is all about being thankful when your DMs are full. But I can almost bet that your initial reaction to your DMs being full isn't thankfulness. So we're going to work on a little mindset shift here, and I'm going to give you some strategies that will actually make you feel thankful when you open up your inbox to a full house of DMs from your followers.
Kassaundra 0:47
Let's work on that mindset shift a little bit. I want you to take a second, maybe even close your eyes, and think back to when you started your TPT store. Think about the feelings you had that pushed you to start that store. What was your why? I'm guessing somewhere in there is that you started your store to help teachers. You wanted them to have the resources they needed so they didn't have to spend countless hours planning and prepping, maybe like you had to do. So you created meaningful resources, and then you needed a way to share them with teachers and extend your impact. So you took gorgeous photos so teachers could imagine them, and you even shared them with in action videos so they could see exactly how to prep them. And now, because of that, teachers are chatting with you about all the things and asking for links and resources and tips and solutions. It's overwhelming at times, for sure, but remember, there was a day where you wished for this, where you wished for people to want your resources, where you dreamed of extending your impact, and here you are. So let's be thankful. Remember why we started this TPT store and, of course, make a game plan to handle the blessing of all those DMs.
Kassaundra 2:27
So a lot of us out here are one person shows. So let's chat about how you can manage the DM overwhelm solo. The biggest key here is going to be creating a habit around your Instagram inbox. So setting aside about five to 10 minutes a day where you head to your inbox in order to tidy it up. When you get started with this habit, the first thing I would have you do is utilize both the primary and the general inboxes in the Instagram app. So there's actually two inboxes within the app that you can take advantage of. Most of your DMs are going to come into the primary inbox. So if there are messages you have with friends or fellow entrepreneurs or a mastermind, move those messages to your general inbox, so that general inbox can kind of stay a nice, neat, tidy, peaceful place where you go to interact with the people who mean the most to you in this space. And this is going to make sure that those conversations don't get buried with all those new incoming messages from your followers. Then each day, when you go in, just spend those five or 10 minutes answering DMS that need to be answered, where they need some sort of follow up from you, and directly after you answer them, I suggest deleting them so they aren't clogging up your inbox anymore. If the person replies back to your reply, it's still gonna show up and end up in your inbox because you're having that conversation with each other, so you will be able to see it. It's not like you're deleting them forever, and if they reply, you're never going to see it. But delete that conversation so it's just not taking up space and it's not visually cluttering your inbox. Now, if there is something you responded to, and you really want to make sure you see the reply, maybe there was a customer having a problem with one of your resources. Maybe they couldn't download it, print it, something like that, and you followed up with them, and you want to make sure that the solution you gave them was an actual fix, so you can give them some really good customer service. You can always flag messages, okay, so if you go into the message and you click on, I call it the little sales tag up at the top of the message, it will allow you to. Select flag, and what that does is it puts a little orange triangle in the corner of the message when you're looking at your inbox, and this can help you discern important messages or ones that you want to keep your eyes on from the other ones that might be in your inbox. Now it might take a few weeks to work through everything, but once you have a solid habit and a little bit of a system, you will start to feel less overwhelmed and more thankful for all of those DMs.
Kassaundra 5:32
Now, some of us aren't taking on our inboxes completely solo. We've started using some DM automation like many chat which is responding to comments and potentially messages for us. So in this case, just a few tweaks are needed to that previous plan to get you from overwhelmed to thankful. First, many chat or other DM automation tools are great, but sometimes they can be a double edged sword, because when it comes to many chat, it automatically sends that DM, and you're going to end up seeing that DM in your inbox, which means if 500 people commented on a post, all of a sudden, you have 500 messages clogging up your inbox, but you can get to peace. I promise first, make sure you're utilizing both of those inboxes in the Instagram app, like we chatted about, before moving any personal or important conversation threads into that general section. Then, again, make sure you're creating a habit where around the same time of day you pop in and spend five or 10 minutes cleaning out those extra messages and answering any DMs that need your attention. A way to make this a little more manageable, if you're using a DM automation tool, is to actually go in to meta business suite and tackle your Instagram inbox from there, because it gives you an option in a meta business suite to sort your messages by unread messages, so you can click on that and you can immediately see who needs responses from you before you even start dealing with all of the many chat DMs that might be clogging up your inbox. So start with those unread messages. Delete those as soon as you're done, to get rid of them and have your way and then work on deleting those many chat generated DMs to keep your inbox tidy. And of course, don't forget to pop over into the app to your primary tab to make sure you're still staying on top of the conversations that mean the most to you.
Kassaundra 7:38
And finally, you actually might have a team member who can help you with your inbox, or you might consider bringing someone on to your team to specifically focus on engagement, which is something that I do for TPT teachers. I go into their Instagram inboxes every day through meta business suite, and I follow the same systems that I chatted about before I start with the unread messages, make sure those people who are waiting responses are served promptly. Then I clean out the last day's worth of any many chat automated messages. I flag any messages that need follow up or are personal so that they float to the top of the inbox, and I can let my client know that the only ones they need to worry about are those flagged messages. Now, even if you hire someone or decide to add inbox management to one of your team members, tasks, just know there will still probably be times when you need to get into those DMs first, you're still going to want to interact personally with those conversations that are most important to you, right? But also there are going to be times when followers have questions that your team member won't be able to answer, and this tends to get less and less over time as your team member becomes more acquainted with your business and offerings and where they can find certain things that people might be looking for. But inevitably, something's going to come up that they can't answer because they're not you. So just be aware you might have an email in your inbox asking you to check in to a flagged message, but still, that's a lot better than having to go through all of the messages on your own.
Kassaundra 9:17
So if at first those DMs feel stressful, I promise you can get to a place where you're thankful for them, because when it comes down to it, full DMs means you're creating resources that teachers need. You're providing value, and they want more from you. That's a beautiful thing.
Kassaundra 9:36
Now, if you aren't feeling like tackling your inbox alone, I am opening up a wait list for my engagement services where I can help you tame the chaos in your inbox each day and make sure all of your followers are served so you can find more details about that service and the wait list right in the show notes.
Kassaundra 9:56
Alright, cold coffee, friends. Thanks so much for listening. If you're loving getting schooled in socials make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Also, I would love it if you left a review, so that other teacher authors like you can start getting schooled in socials too. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.