Instagram Adds DM Filters to Assist Creators

Instagram has added some new messaging filters for creators accounts, which will make it easier to sort through your message requests, and find the most relevant inquiries in your inbox.

As you can see in these examples, creators will now be able to sort and filter their message requests via various qualifiers, including re-ordering them based on the sender’s follower count, listing DMs from verified accounts only, from brand accounts only, from other creators, and more.

There’s also a new, dedicated “Story replies” folder, which will make it easier to scan through your actual messages, as opposed to Story replies.

That should make it easier for creators to manage their often cluttered inboxes, and get to relevant requests, especially brand collab queries.

Which, evidently, is a major headache for big creators.

As explained by IG chief Adam Mosseri:

“When you go to the requests inbox, sometimes it can be really overwhelming, and I’ve heard this a lot from creators I’ve talked around the world. So what we’ve done is we’ve added ways to filter down those requests to just see the ones that you’re looking for.”

So while regular users likely don’t have a lot of trouble dealing with their DM traffic, this becomes a bigger problem for creators the larger their audience reach gets.

Remember when T-Pain discovered that he had a heap of DM requests for collaborations that he didn’t even realize were coming through IG?

I guess that’s the type of challenge Instagram’s looking to address with these new filters, making it easier for big creators to make sense of their DMs quickly, and ensure that they don’t miss anything important coming in.

And with DMs becoming the primary interaction option across all social apps (with feeds switching to entertainment-focused content), it makes sense for Instagram to lean into DM activity, and ensure that it’s helping creators to maximize their opportunities.

Because Mosseri and Meta also know that they need creators to keep posting to keep IG relevant, while they’ll also need those creators engaged in their apps to lead into the next stage, being the metaverse.

Improving DM connection is another way to increase creator reliance on the platform, and these changes could be valuable in the broader scheme.

Instagram also notes that it’s “continuing to invest in improvements that will simplify DMs and make it easier for creators to navigate their messages.” So there could be further DM improvements coming soon.