So, you've successfully taken the first step by scraping those valuable Instagram usernames using the insights from How to Scrape Instagram Usernames for Strategic Insights. Now, the stage is set for the next act – and it's a game-changer! Imagine being able to directly connect with those users, sending them a personalized message that resonates with your brand's essence. In this tutorial, we're about to unveil a thrilling encore: a step-by-step guide to effortlessly slide into the DMs of your competitors' followers. Picture the potential – you'll be reaching out to an audience that's already interested in your niche. From the initial setup to the final curtain call, we'll walk you through the process, making sure you're spotlight-ready for this engaging performance. Let's dive into the symphony of direct messaging mastery!

For this strategy to succeed, it is essential to have a Google Sheet with Instagram usernames. In this case I have 3 just because I like to keep myself organized. If you want to learn how to scrape Instagram users click on How to Scrape Instagram Usernames for Strategic Insights.

First, we are going to capture these steps.

Go to instagram.com and log into Instagram just like you normal would.

Click on “Turn on” or “Allow” on any pop up you see, I’ll show you how to fix them later.

After we’re done with the set up process, we now want to go to our DM’s. We’re going to be using a URL instead of an icon click, but at times its hard to know where the URL goes, so let’s click on the Messenger icon but just as a placeholder.

Once we’re in out DM’s. Lets click on the “New message” button.

Once we’re inside this pop-up, lets type a message and select a user like we normally would on our day to day basis. It is important that for this to work properly, you click on the div I am choosing in order to send a message. Its the green rectangle where it says “CLICK WHERE I CLICK”, that is the shared div.

Once you have your user selected, click on “Chat” to send a message.

Once you click on chat, you’ll see the DM page. Here is where you’re going to write your message and where we’re going to send this message. Just like you normally would on the browser. Once you are done with the your message, you can click on the red “Stop” button.

When you stop your recording, you’ll see a pop-up that is going to ask you if you want to play steps, or if you want to continue to edit. Lets continue to edit this automation.

Now, we have to go edit the pop-ups. Go to all the first steps (I do step 1-7, in this case 7 is the last pop-up I get) and clock on the 3 dots. That will take you to the edit step menu. In this menu you’ll see a “Allow error” checkbox that will avoid the automation from failing in case the pop-up doesn't show up.

Here is where the placeholder comes in play. On step 8 you can see it doesn't say “Messenger icon” or anything like that. So what we want to do is to put the direct link to our DM’s. In this case the URL we are going to be putting https://www.instagram.com/direct/inbox/. Let’s click on the green + button (that is now a white x button because tis active) and let’s click on URL.

In the URL pop-up, we’re going to put https://www.instagram.com/direct/inbox/.

After we’ve put the URL, we can now erase the “Messenger” icon placeholder.

That is all we need to edit for now. The next step is to put our variables in to play. For this we’re going to need to click on “Setup trigger”.

In the “Setup trigger” menu, you’ll see 4 options, the one we want is the “Loop though data” option.

We now need to connect the google sheet where we scarped all the usernames.

We’re going to do the same thing we did on the first automation. Select your Google sheet page and check if the information is correct. If the headers are looking good, click on the “Looks good” button.

To connect with a Google Sheet URL, here's what you gotta do:

Go to your Google Sheet page and spot that share button at the top right corner.

In the pop-up, there's a link icon at the bottom left—click it to copy the link. Also, don't forget to share the automation with automations@taskmagic.com

Alright, once you've handled those steps, you can come back to TaskMagic. Take a quick peek at your sheet, and if everything's looking good, hit the "Looks good" button.

The next option that will show is the Loop settings. Here you’ll determine on what user you want to start to message and how many message you’ll send on the automation run.

In this example, because the usernames start on row 2 (row 1 are headers) we choose row 2 on the first option. And because we only want to message the first 3 users, on the next option we write 3 (it’s only going to send a message to the next 3 users on the list)

You can set a schedule on this page but in this case I don't want any for the moment but if you want more information you can check: this article snippet here

And that is all we need to make this automation to work. But the last 2 steps are to put those automation into play and we also want to use their name in the message for a more personalized message. Let’s go down to step 11 (step 11 in this example is where I typed in the username to write him a message) and edit the username. Lets click on the username we typed in and you’ll see a pop-up after that.

In the pop-up, you’ll see the headers “Usernames”, “Links” and “Name”.

Because we want to search for a user and send a message, we choose the “Username” variable (the name depends on what you called your header).

Once you’ve set the “Username” variable, we can now edit the message to also use the users actual name. Let’s go to step 14 (step 14 in this example is where I typed in the message I wanted to send) and edit the message. Lets click on the message we typed in and you’ll see a pop-up after that.

You’ll see the same 3 headers “Usernames”, “Links” and “Name”.

And now because we want to send a message with their name, we can use the “Name variable” like we did bellow..

Nets step will be to edit the loop. We go to the step after we placed the URL in this step 9 (step 9 is when I click on the new message button in the DM page).

All the way to the step button. In this example the “Send” button was the last step.

So because we want to loop from the username search all the way to the send message action, we start the loop on step 9 (new message button) all the way to the “Send” button.

Once you’ve set the loop. You can now play your automation and watch the magic happen.

You’ll see the automation search for the users you have in your Google Sheet and watch the app select them.

It’ll start to type the message and to send it to all the users.

And that is all. You don't need more than that to make this repetitive task magical.

Now, if you've got a massive number of messages to send—let's say around 9,999 or more—then you might want to check out our article on What does “Manage loop trigger” do and how to use it? It's a game-changer for handling high volumes of messages like a breeze!

In our mission to make our tool help small businesses, TaskMagic turned the spotlight onto a local gem—a music studio with a cool Instagram following of 398. The lightbulb moment? Hooking them up with an exclusive opening discount! With TaskMagic's groove, we sent out personalized messages that sang with each user's name. The result? A virtual jam session of automation and connection, giving our studio an unforgettable rhythm. So, while we're here mastering the beats, TaskMagic's in the background, making sure the show goes on!