One Channel to Rule Them All
Getting in the Game of Social Messaging
“The world is changed.”
Yes, that’s the first line of the (movie) Fellowship of the Ring.
Now that we’ve clearly ruled on my nerdiness (although I did not quote the elvish part. That would have been… sorry I have to do it now: “I amar prestar aen”)… Let’s move on.
Yes, the world is changed. Web 3.0, Tesla, Facebook Messenger, Artificial Intelligence, Trump. You know it all, so we’re not going to spend more time on that.
For those that I have already bored, let me give you the key learning from this post:
To get in the game of messaging, you need a purpose, not necessarily a chatbot but definitely the right channels.
Now, let’s develop a bit. As you (should) know, Messaging is crushing it. According to GlobalWebIndex, in late 2015, 75% of internet users used some sort of a messaging app. We don’t have the number of 2017 but there is a good chance it’s above 80%.
But that’s not all, Mobile users spent 394% more time on Messaging & Social apps in 2016 compared to 2015. Messaging apps are very popular among younger smartphone owners and pretty soon they’ll start “aging”.
Acknowledge that fact because if you’re not using messaging in your marketing/customer service/sales strategies yet, you better get to it and fast. Or there are good chances you’ll end up like Nokia when the iPhone was launched.
Messaging = Purpose
It’s important that you identify key objectives in your social messaging strategy. Don’t use it just for the sake of the trend: messaging and chatbots may be “cool” but they remain an interface. You need purpose!
There are really 3 major goals that you could apply to your business:
1. Generate New Business
- Improve conversion by chatting with your leads at the right moment
- Inform better about your product
- Use the power of conversation to push upgrades and cross-sales
Let’s take the example of Roof Ai, a company that builds chatbots for real estate companies. By enabling them to reply instantly to an incoming request, their customers have seen a significant increase in conversion rates!
2. Increase Brand Awareness
- Improve brand recall with new updates or products directly pushed to where your subscribers are already active.
- Opening hours tend to become obsoletes nowadays as consumers are demanding that businesses to be available 24/7
- A personalized conversation is a powerful UX that leads to increased customer satisfaction
3. Deflect Customer Support Costs
- Be available in real time for your customers. Phones & Emails are still strong mediums but it’s messaging that is on the rise, plus it’s cheaper and faster!
- Combine the power of multiple channels to make sure that no questions is left unanswered
[There are tons of Customer Service software that use messaging channels but one of my favorite is Buffer Reply, just because you know: Buffer!]
Messaging ≠ Chatbot
A report of Business Insider, released in late 2016, states that 60% of both US Millenials & Gen Xsers have used a chatbot on a messaging app. Yes, that is massive.
Although, this only a trend and society as a whole may not yet be ready for chatbots to take over. There is a usually a huge difference of perception between the tech/younger world and the rest of Mankind, but we’re getting there.
Just to be clear, I’m not advocating against chatbots. I love ’em and use a bunch on a daily basis. There are also tons of success stories where a chatbot is the product (Sensay, Snaptravel from Hussein Fazal among others) or along a product
But generally, chatbots are “limited” (not to say dumb). We’re still in the beginning of NLP, Deep learning, etc. So we’re not yet quite finished with the good old human interaction. What do you think Data?
Messaging = Channels
I know. This is obvious.
Well then, let me flesh it bit: what channels should you use?
There are some obvious ones, of course. With both more than 1.2 billion active users, Facebook flagships — Messenger and WhatsApp — are no brainers.
[Well, to the extent that WhatsApp does not have an API that allows external integration so we’ll leave that one aside]
Messenger will definitely achieve a global reach in the near future so you want to be there.
But the number of active users should not be the only criteria to choose a messaging channel. Think of your target audience and ask yourself :
- Who are they?
- What do they like?
- How do they behave?
- Where do they live?
Some examples:
- You target people living in Asia: you cannot ignore WeChat for China and Line for Japan.
- You target young US teenagers that love gaming? You should probably be on Kik, Telegram & Discord
- You have a bot that is quite useful in a professional environment? Go for the Team Messaging Apps like Slack, Microsoft Team, Flowdock or even IRC.
App Annie has a great tool to make sure you’re not missing out a channel in a market: Top Apps By country & Store
There is no magical number for the amount of messaging channels that you should consider. “The more the better” does not apply here in my opinion. But since I’m a big fan of data-backed answers, the best way for you to know how many and which channels you should use is to test them.
The issue today is that integrating new messaging channels is a pain. The APIs are all different leading inexorably to the tedious work of doc reading, coding, testing & maintaining. So if you want to test out a new one, you’ll have to dedicate a developer (at least) to that, leaving your product out of focus.
Well, good news for you. There is a solution.
One Channel to Rule Them All
We worked relentlessly on this communication protocol issue because we experienced it first hand. So we decided to make a product out of it. Broid is basically your API for all the major messaging channels.
What does that mean? Well, just integrate Broid’s API and with the flip of a switch on your dashboard you can activate or deactivate any number of messaging channels, using all the best conversational features available for each of them, including our own live chat widget for websites & apps.
Basically, you can A/B tests channels without involving more than 5 minutes of a developer’s time.
Yes, it’s that easy. And to make it even easier, we’re using W3C standards.
You see, I was not being figurative when I wrote
Nerd you very much,
Pepito
You shouldn’t spend time integrating messaging APIs. You should focus on your core product. With Broid API, get instant access to all the major messaging channels as well as our own Interactive Live Chat powered by the best conversational features available.
Broid is open-source based, check out our GitHub Repositories.
Built with ♥︎in Montréal, Canada
