Instagram auto-replies for language teachers

Questions about variety come up in most widely taught languages: British or American English, European or Brazilian Portuguese, Spain or Latin America. Say on your TRIAL card which one you teach, so learners choose you for the right reasons.

Learners practise in your comments, and that changes how to choose a keyword. A keyword matches the whole word anywhere in a comment, with capitals ignored. A Spanish teacher who picked HOLA would send the auto-reply to every learner who wrote “hola, gracias por la explicación”.

• Skip greetings and thank-yous in the language you teach, such as HOLA, MERCI, DANKE or GRAZIE. Learners type them all day.
• Accents count. CAFÉ and CAFE are two different words to the matcher, and many learners type without accents on a phone, so add both spellings to the same auto-reply.
• A word from the language can be a tiny lesson, such as LISTA for a Spanish vocabulary list, as long as beginners can spell it. Add the English word as a second keyword.
• LEVEL suits DMs, where people ask “what level am I?”. Under a post it would also fire on “next level” compliments.

Tip: Write the first DM in a language the learner already reads, or in both. The link only follows once they reply, and a beginner who can't understand the message won't know what to answer.

• “Which is correct?” carousels with two sentences that differ by one word, and VERBS on the last slide.
• Reels comparing the textbook phrase with what people actually say, with SLANG for the full list.
• Pronunciation clips filmed close up so learners can see your mouth move, with SOUNDS for the audio pack.
• A Story quiz sticker each morning, and a weekly Story about the club with CLUB in the text.
• A short clip of how you correct mistakes in a lesson, recorded with the student's permission, with TRIAL.
• Countdown posts for IELTS, DELE or JLPT candidates, with the exam's name as the keyword.

1. A learner comments VERBS or SLANG and gets the freebie. Their reply to your first message opens a conversation you can carry on yourself.
2. They wonder about their level. LEVEL sends the quiz, and the result gives you both a starting point.
3. TRIAL sends how a first lesson works and the booking page. In the trial, listen more than you talk: speaking is the one skill the quiz didn't test.
4. Between terms, keep in touch by email. Switch on email capture for CLUB and IELTS, because Instagram lets you message people only in the 24 hours after their last message.

Teaching from India? You can sell lesson packs or recorded courses in the DMFast store, offer the verb chart free to anyone who leaves an email, and take 1-on-1 bookings, free or paid, with Razorpay handling payment. Elsewhere, the card can open whatever booking page you use now.

• Don't promise fluency by a date. Progress depends on the learner's starting point and how much they practise, so describe what lessons cover instead.
• Group-class clips need everyone's OK, not just the speaker's. Get permission before a learner's voice or face goes online, and cut anyone who'd rather not appear.
• Each comment earns one private reply, and only within a week of being posted. An account can send up to 750 an hour; DMFast keeps a margin at 700 and sends the overflow afterwards.
• On a Facebook Page, comments and Messenger work the same way. The CLUB Story set-up and the follower-only VERBS chart don't, because Facebook has no Story replies or follow gate.