I was drowning in my own success
Last September I posted a video showing how I pack orders for my skincare brand. It hit 80k views in two days - the most I'd ever gotten. I should have been celebrating. Instead I spent that entire weekend glued to my phone trying to reply to 600+ DMs asking where to buy, how much, whether I ship internationally.
By Sunday night I'd replied to maybe 200. The rest had gone cold. I probably lost $3,000–4,000 in sales just because I couldn't physically keep up.
That's what made me actually sit down and set up DM automation. Not because I read a blog post about it. Because I was exhausted and angry at myself for missing the window.
What I actually set up (and what flopped)
My first attempt was bad. I set a keyword trigger on "price" and wrote a reply that said "Hi! Thanks for your interest. Here's our pricing page: [link]." It felt like getting a support ticket response from a company you don't care about. A few people replied "lol ok" and that was it.
The version that actually worked was when I stopped writing the automated message like a business and started writing it like I was texting a friend. Now when someone comments "price" on a post, they get: "ok so full size is $38 and the mini is $19 - mini is honestly the better deal to try first 👀 here's the link"
Same information. Completely different feel. Replies went from zero to people saying "omg ok adding to cart."
The one thing I'd tell someone just starting
Don't set up 12 different keyword triggers on day one. Pick the one comment you get most often on your posts - for me it was "where can I buy this" - and automate just that. Get that one flow feeling right before you expand.
I spent way too long trying to build a complex system before the basics were even working. The simple version, done well, is what actually moves the needle.