Beyond Facebook: Chatbots for Various Social Media Platforms

What Are Chatbots?

Chatbots are programs that automatically engage customers and receive messages. You can program your chatbot to respond the same way each time someone interacts with it, or it can respond differently to messages according to specific keywords. Implementing machine learning allows chatbots to tailor their responses to fit different situations. 

Chatbots use different mediums like website chat windows, SMS text, and social messaging services on platforms like Twitter and Facebook to receive and respond to messages. It’s possible to create chatbots in all forms ranging from fun and simple or more complex that learns as it goes. 

Facebook released a lot of data recently that proves how effective chatbots can be for businesses, especially when used across the different social media platforms. From this data, we can learn that: 

• 53% of people make the choice to shop at a business they can interact with via message
• 56% of people would rather send a message than call the customer care line
• Every month, two billion messages pass between businesses and people

Chatbots certainly aren’t new, but in the last few years they have had a surge of popularity with businesses of all sizes. 

Facebook Chatbots

There are hundreds of thousands of people who use Facebook Messenger every month, and Facebook chatbots have revolutionized the way brands and customers interact. These chatbots can collect information, take orders, make product recommendations, and guide the customer through the buying journey. 

They can send and receive images and text, and deliver CTAs. Common Facebook Messenger calls to action and greetings prompt whoever is using it to “Get Started.” Additionally, there are message templates available that let people use visuals and tap buttons to interact with your bot in any way you want them to. 

It’s a very cost-effective way to reach out to your customers and find new customers. This is great news for businesses that are just starting out. These bots help identify leads, handle e-commerce transactions, re-engage customers, or notify your leads about an offer you think they’d like. 

Twitter Chatbots 

Your Twitter chatbot should improve the user experience and add value with each interaction. You want to start simple, with a rules-based conversation that will guide the user to the correct place. Twitter is unique in the fact that it offers you a way to scale personalized engagements. Creating direct messages that complement your socially-driven marketing campaign. 

One example of a company excelling at using Twitter chatbots is Royal Dutch Airlines. When customers interact with this chatbot, it shows helpful messages that outline their gates, departures, and other interesting points that can enrich their customers’ experience. 

Whatever you choose to do with your Twitter chatbot, make sure that your customers know that they’re engaging with a chatbot and not a human agent. You can give you bot a unique personality and identity and pick out a custom avatar. This will all help establish your audience’s expectations early, so you can manage them from the start. 

Also, Twitter recently rolled out a host of new features that help businesses prompt their followers to take action, instead of just Retweet or Fave. You can now add buttons inside of your direct messages. These buttons encourage anyone who interacts to follow your business’ Twitter account, visit your website, or start a quick chat with another account linked to your business. 

Instagram Chatbot 

An Instagram chatbot is slightly different. Basically, this bot will automate several of your Instagram account’s interactions like comments, follows, DMs, and likes so your account appears on more people’s feeds. As you appear in more feeds, your profile views will increase, along with your website clicks and followers. 

This prewritten reply system lets you easily keep up with thousands of messages each day. This is very important for big brands that get dozens and dozens of the same set of questions every day. The people who send DMs will feel like you hear and appreciate them, and it doesn’t take a huge chunk of time out of your day to set the chatbot to reply.

You need to make your Instagram chatbot as authentic as possible and use considered copy that converts. If you don’t, you run the risk of coming off as fake to your followers. Your chatbot should be able to upsell or downsell depending on the set of questions your customer asks. If you have people from around the world DMing you, see if the bot supports different language responses. The goal is to have the chatbot reply to as many people as possible each day, wherever they may be found. 

LinkedIn Chatbot

LinkedIn doesn’t currently allow personalized chatbots, as third third-party applications violate their terms of service. LinkedIn did introduce a native version for users on the platform. However, this is very basic, and only suggests responses and topics rather than fully automating the conversation.

Surprising Benefits of Chatbots on Social Media 

There are several benefits that come with using chatbots across social media platforms. We’ve picked out the biggest ones and outlined them for you below. 

1 - Better Access to Information for Users

Trying to find specific pieces of information can be frustrating for your customers, especially if it’s the first time they’re visiting your website and looking around. If a customer gets frustrated enough, they could go elsewhere for their products or services, and you will miss out on a sale. 

Chatbots can solve this dilemma. Through a series of guided questions, your chatbot can quickly sift through all of the information on your website and find whatever content the user may need. What’s more, chatbots can perform this service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at no additional cost to you. This cuts your expenses while improving your customer satisfaction rate. 

 2 - New Product Interest 

When you prepare to launch new products, you need to pique your customers’ interest long before the product is actually available. Disney did this very well with their Zootopia-themed Facebook chatbot. Before they released the movie, customers could solve a mystery and watch a short trailer of the film based on their answers. This made the interaction both personal and fun. 

You can incorporate this type of information to create a chatbot with a winning personality, that generates interest in your newest products, services, or venues. Done correctly, you’ll draw in new customers to expand your base at the same time. 

 3 - A Seamless Cross-Platform Experience 

Social media marketing is crucial these days, and customers love engaging with businesses across the various social media platforms. Bots interact with your customers or potential customers to enhance their experience. Moving from app to app is time-consuming, but chatbots can work within the app to get many things done at once, creating a seamless experience. 

4 - Streamline the Marketing Process 

Chatbots are a quick and convenient way to help you streamline your buying process and marketing funnel. You can implement chatbots at several key stages ranging from marketing research and data collection to acquisition. 

Your chatbot can help you perform research and marketing surveys by guiding people through a short, personalized questionnaire. This way, the process will feel more human. You could also deploy an in-app bot, just like some restaurants have done to make ordering more streamlined for customers. 

Create a Chatbot with Botsufer and Connect to Your Customers 

At Botsurfer, we make it easy for you to create a customized chatbot and deploy it on social media. Sign up today and explore our software, experiment with different personalities and questions, and so much more.