How To Master Your Social Media Marketing Strategy With Messenger Bots
Over the past few years, chatbots and conversational marketing have cemented their spot in the digital marketing space like no other. Unless you have been too secluded from the outer world, you are sure to have encountered a chatbot for sure.
Chatbots have found ideal use cases in different business fields and brands want to reach their customers where they are. Consumer behavior and the ways to reach them are continually changing. One such example is the great user demand for quicker and better information access eliminating the need to use external sources like search engines.
Amidst these technological changes, messaging applications have surpassed social media networks in terms of usage. More and more social network platforms are being integrated with conversational bots to deliver what the audience wants.
In this post, we will go through the different ways chatbots can strengthen your social media marketing strategy.
Customer Service Automation
Automated customer service or customer service automation is the biggest use case of chatbots for any kind of business out there. Being a business owner, engaging with the audience and providing them the best assistance possible via bots is all you could ask for.
We live in digital times and consumers are following the pattern. More and more people favor the idea of interacting with a chatbot when they need any kind of help.
When you compare responses from Millennials (age 18–34) and Baby Boomers (age 55+), you will find that Baby Boomers are 24% more likely to expect benefits from chatbots in five of the nine categories.
The takeaway: Chatbots aren’t just for Millennials. This technology has the potential to improve online experiences for all consumers, regardless of age.
Here are some other stats establishing the application of chatbots in offering customer service:
- 95% of consumers believe ‘customer service’ is going to be the major beneficiary of chatbots — Mindbrowser
- 15% of consumers have communicated with a business via a chatbot in the last 12 months — Drift
- By 2020, over 80% of businesses are expected to have some sort of chatbot automation implemented — Business Insider
Being available 24/7 for your customers builds immense trust and rapport. But to be present at every hour of the day, seven days of the week can be a tough ask for any business. In such circumstances, our bot friends save the day for us.
From answering customer queries to providing important resources and content, a chatbot does it all. The best thing being that your human business representative can take over from the bot anytime wherever required. Providing social customer service is a hefty advantage and lets you gain a competitive edge over others.
Quicker Access to Information
Ask any modern-day consumer and they will refer to quicker data access as their top priority. Customers nowadays are a bit impatient and characterized by short attention spans. The same applies to social media.
Even when we scroll through different social media platforms, we are short on time. We rarely spend long hours in a single go on social media. On the contrary, we are in the habit of checking our social profiles again and again.
All in all, our audience wants direct information access without much hassle.
Think of something that can help? Definitely yes!
Chatbots.
When you have a chatbot at your service, users don’t have to visit any webpage or filter search engine results.
As displayed above, getting quick answers to queries and resolving issues are what make chatbot such a useful marketing resource and trend.
Gone are the days when building a chatbot sounded intimidating. Today, we have free chatbot builder platforms that allow you to get started with your own custom chatbot in under 5 minutes. The ease of availability and operation make a chatbot even more coveted.
Better Your Sales Process
Imagine this. You are an online store owner and have a large inventory of products. With a large number of products, your product categories and subcategories have to be up to the mark to make sure the user has a great shopping experience in your store.
Despite your best efforts, you cannot showcase all your products on your main page and highlight the features and deals. If you have implemented a chatbot on your store which can save the users some time and effort to navigate to their desired product, believe me, you are on the right track.
Personalizing the shopping experience and presenting what the user wants is the best practice.
Let’s consider an example from Spring.
Spring uses a conversational sequence in its bot’s flow to provide a personalized shopping experience to customers. To some extent, this acts as a simulation of a personal assistant for every shopper in your store.
You can also checkout and complete your purchase straight from here. Exactly what everyone including us desires when we shop online.
Keeping this in mind, special bots for eCommerce are being designed for closing deals on online stores.
Social media channels a lot of relevant traffic to websites which has the potential of conversions. If you have a bot on your store to steer this traffic efficiently through your sales funnel, the purpose is served.
Chatbots will not only act as a sales assistant but also as a medium for cross-selling and upselling to customers.
Marketing Potential on Other Social Platforms
Though Facebook is the undisputed leader in social media marketing and Facebook Messenger chatbots are the most widely-accepted ones, we cannot overlook the significant potential that other social media platforms carry.
This enables businesses to expand and reach out to their audiences wherever they are and not just on Facebook alone. Depending on the nature of your business, your ideal buyer persona can differ in terms of demographics and behavior. You need to capitalize on every opportunity that comes your way.
Most popular mobile messaging apps worldwide as of July 2019, based on the number of monthly active users (in millions)
If you are a fashion brand or in the food industry, Instagram may act as the appropriate platform for connecting with your audience. Similarly, if you are targeting younger people, Snapchat or Kik might be the right place to drive engagement.
Chatbots integrate with almost all the available social media platforms. Some notable ones are WhatsApp, Twitter, Skype, Slack, Kik, Snapchat, etc.
Sephora, a leading beauty and personal care brand teamed up with Kik to develop a chatbot targeted at teens. From sharing content to tutorials and from product guides to promotional deals, the bot suggested everything to its users.
Spreading to other social platforms will help you reach untapped audiences and explore new opportunities. It’s not necessary for your whole target audience to be present on a single social platform. Further, it’s impossible for you to convert all your social leads into customers.
Thus, it’s imperative to expand and check out all relevant social platforms to extract the maximum from your marketing efforts.
Converse With Your Audience and Analyze Collected Data
Social media is the best way to build customer relationships and manage brand reputation. There is no better way to build rapport and satisfy your audience’s curiosity in an interactive way other than social media.
Be it a human or bot, people exchange a lot of information while having a conversation. Artificial Intelligence(AI) chatbots have the ability to store data and learn about customer behavior over time. This ability of chatbots alone can take you places.
With a mine of such invaluable customer data, you can offer personalized experiences and insight-based product recommendations to your customers when they visit your store the next time.
Moreover, you can also alter your chatbot script or workflow to best suit your customer’s needs and create your own conversion-optimized bot.
Conversational marketing has this trait of learning and using consumer habits to great advantage. In fact, this data can also be used to present the right advertisements to the right people.
Conclusion
Chatbots are the new marketing trend and they are here to stay. Multiple use-cases and applications of our bot friends have made them even more popular amongst marketers around the globe.
Social media and chatbots together form a substantial partnership that can open doors to new possibilities for your business. With chatbot integrations for social media platforms, you can access an audience of over a billion people. Amongst these are potential leads for your business, waiting for the initiation of thoughts and consequently a relationship with your business.
It’s high time you leverage the power of social media and conversational marketing to best suit your business needs. With the help of the above strategies, you can easily incorporate chatbots in your social mix. Chatbots are not going anywhere anytime soon and it’s best to include them in your marketing strategy, especially your social marketing strategy to reach a global audience.
