Great Social Media Idea: Instagram Direct for Giveaways

About three weeks ago, Instagram launched direct messaging. It feels like forever ago, right? Amazing the speed things move in social media these days.

An obvious broadside at Snapchat's dominance in the direct photo/video market, Instagram is hoping to (and I think will, though probably just because I'm something of an Instagram fanboy) allow brands to tap into that market without dealing with the skeezy baggage that comes with using Snapchat.

I haven't experimented with Instagram Direct yet, but I'm very interested in it, which is why I was so excited to see this comment from Hillary Frazier from the University of the Michigan (who does AMAZING stuff... seriously, go check UM out on social media) about her experience thus far with Instagram Direct: 

We love Instagram DM :) We've used it twice already, and got 500 new followers the first time we did! http://instagram.com/p/iHMIXwGEpo/ Super fun.

(Also, side note: Hillary, if you're reading this, I'm about... oh... three months behind on responding to an email to you. *Hangs head in shame.*)

Gaining 500 new followers using Instagram Direct? Color me intrigued! Check it out:

I love the early adoption of Instagram Direct, and it's a brilliant way to use Instagram for giveaways. Notifying winners for social media giveaways is surprisingly challenging, and Instagram Direct's ability to send the photo/video to as many specific people as you'd like is a great way around the issue. I have no idea how you would do it otherwise... I guess just typing in a bunch of @ messages in a comment.

In short, this is an extremely "borrowable" idea. Which is what you all come to this blog for, amiright?

The potential of Instagram Direct is pretty exciting, especially for people who have invested a lot of time in developing a robust Instagram presence and were not relishing the prospect of spending an equal amount of time doing the same thing for Snapchat. I'm particularly interested in ways it can be used for connecting with prospective students, for doing "flash offers" for things like tickets to sporting events, for specialized "exclusive" content, etc.

Many thanks to Hillary for passing this along! Know of any other colleges or universities using Instagram Direct? Comment here or message me on twitter @joekuffner. Would love to see some more examples!