Me and My Bot
I’ve been thinking a long while about how to manage the flow of information and parse all the different types of requests that come to me, as well as how to “push” out my desired messaging. For example, a few years ago, I started a Wordpress blog at “messagestomonica”, which allows a voice message to be posted directly to me.
Lately I’ve been building out my IFTTT on my professional Twitter profile (@monicasflores) to basically augment my social media , in combination with some Buffer posts — I find the Date and Time function to be pretty good for setting automatic messages, and I use the list-building function on Twitter, via anyone using a specific hashtag, to build a general understanding of who is out there.
I like automation. So, I was completely impressed by Sandi MacPherson (@sandimac) and her development of a “assistant” bot where you can text her and receive her whereabouts, details about her latest news, travel, music, updates, and more.
I looked into Twilio and Dexter to do my own version, and am excited to start using these tools as a new interface to help smooth out my interactions around a new community I’m building to support people who are making a positive difference.
My goals for the bot are to have it act as an intermediary for the interactions I have, as well as have it be an easy tool for sharing out information that I want to focus on (such as inspirational quotes, fun images, directions to my latest blog or tweet, and other easy-to-populate interactions).
If you work with community-building in any format (as a community manager or someone who is tasked with engaging, and growing, a network), I would love to connect and/or learn about your knowledge about best practices if you have had interactions building your own bot.
In the meantime, you can reach out to me:
Send this SMS to 213–261–0305: How are you
And you can let me know what you think on Twitter.
Let’s see how it goes!
