Announce something to everyone at once
You have something to say today: a drop, a live, a cohort reopening. This is how to get it to everyone who has been in touch with you, and how to read what happened afterwards.
Before you start
- A connected Instagram account
- Somebody who has messaged you in the last 24 hours, which the count will tell you
- Growth, which is what broadcasts run on
The steps
Open Broadcasts and read the count
It sits in the sidebar under Home. The number you see is everyone your account is allowed to message right now: people who sent you a DM, replied to one of your stories, or tapped a button in one of your automations in the last 24 hours.
It is worked out from your own message history each time you open the page, not from a saved list, so it is a live number rather than a stored one.
See who is in it
Open the audience and you get the actual people, in the same columns as your contacts.
Worth doing once, because it makes the shape of the feature concrete: these are the conversations you already have, not an audience you are buying into.
Write the message
The same editor your automations use, with the same live preview beside it, so you see the DM exactly as Instagram will render it.
Keep it to one thing. A broadcast interrupts people who were talking to you about something else, so it earns its place by being short and by being about the reason you sent it.
Press send, and read the confirm
The button says Send now, and it means now: there is no scheduling, because a broadcast is for the moment the thing you are announcing is actually live.
The confirm names the count one more time. That count is frozen at the press and turned into one row per person, so what you agree to is what goes out.
Watch the results, including the misses
Each person ends up in one of a few states: reached, going out, couldn't reach, window closed first, replied. On Growth you also get clicked, and the country it came from.
Window closed first is the one worth understanding. Each conversation is re-checked at the moment its message goes out, not when you pressed send, so on a long broadcast some people's 24 hours genuinely lapse while it runs. Those are skipped and recorded rather than forced through or quietly dropped.
Answer the replies
Replies arrive in the same inbox as everything else, and each one re-opens that person's 24 hours.
A broadcast that earns replies has done more than deliver a message: it has re-opened a conversation you can carry on.
One announcement delivered to everyone who was in touch with you today, and an honest account of who got it, who replied, and who could not be reached.
Questions, answered plainly
Do I need a list or a segment first?
No. There is nothing to build and nothing to choose. The audience is everyone your account is currently allowed to message, worked out from your own conversation history, and a broadcast goes to all of them.
Why can I not send this to my followers?
Because Instagram does not let a business open a conversation. Messaging is a reply system: somebody has to write to you first, and that gives a 24-hour window in which you can answer. A follower who has never messaged you is outside it, on every tool built on the official API.
Can I send more than one broadcast a day?
Yes, though most reasons to broadcast do not arrive daily. The people reachable will be different each time, because the audience is whoever is inside their 24 hours at that moment rather than a fixed group.
What can I try before paying?
On Free the builder is open, the count is live and the preview works, so you can see exactly what a broadcast would reach on your account before deciding whether Growth is worth it.