Have you heard of using a chatbot for Facebook Pages?

Do you have a Facebook page for your small business?

Do you use any kind of marketing automation tools to help your business grow?

Have you heard that chatbots can help your small business grow?

That’s a lot fo questions!

This year, the conversation around chatbots has shifted from “What can they do?” to “How can I use them?” With many businesses choosing bots to deliver their customer service, sales and lead generation, the list of chatbot benefits is growing rapidly.

Chatbots are changing the way small businesses work. From improving customer service to easing day-to-day operations, communication-based chatbots are already making an impact on the business world.

But if you’re new to all this, what in the world is a chatbot?

What is a Chatbot?

A chatbot is an artificial intelligence (AI) software that can simulate a conversation (or a chat) with a user in natural language through messaging applications. Today, chatbot for Facebook is no longer becoming a trend, but a standard tool.

Their purpose is to streamline communication between companies and their customers. They are intended to engage with your clients on your website or social media page.

It’s designed to work independently from a human operator, which means it can run on its own. That’s why it’s such an added convenience for support reasons.

Why Should you Use Chatbots

We live in a 24/7 world demanding immediate response or they buy from someone else. Chatbots can be a great way to combat that, and also to enhance your business and bring more customers.

If you’re a business owner and page manager at the same time, it is tough to be everywhere at once, taking care of the business AND responding to inquiries. This chance of automation can save everything from time to time and make you look like a rockstar. Using a chatbot for facebook is also helpful because people on social media re ALWAYS in a hurry and they expect a response even if they’re sending questions at 3 in the morning.

The main purpose of using chatbots is to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty by providing the right information IMMEDIATELY. It can also help in enhancing sales and reducing operational costs at the same time.

How do Chatbots work?

Chatbots are designed to simulate genuine conversation with natural language processing systems.

There are hundreds of chatbot services available that turn your website into a sophisticated 24/7 customer service center without the need of real people. These artificial intelligence systems can be used in a variety of ways, including content moderation, lead generation, answering your FAQs, posting content on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more.

Here are some examples of how chatbots are being used on Facebook

FAQ Chatbot

An FAQ chatbot is designed to answer some of the most frequently asked questions your customers may have. You can just list down those questions, and your customer can choose among the questions, and get the answers right away.

Appointment setting chatbot

Chatbots are also used to book appointments for offices, restaurants, salons and more. Just set-up your operating hours and available slots, and the chatbot can do the rest.

Marketing chatbots

Want to convert people who message you into actual customers? Chatbots can do that. They now have the ability to send marketing messages as long as it falls into the 24 hour window upon last chat with your page.

.

I’m not a techy. Can I make a chatbot myself?

Sure you can!

It’s still possible to create a chatbot and reap the benefits of AI technology, without having to hire an expensive technical team.

What’s great about using a chatbot for Facebook, or even for other messenger platforms is that they already come with their own chatbot builders. I will be dedicating several posts to discuss the different chatbot options you have, but for now, let’s start with Manychat.

According to the Manychat site:

ManyChat is a game-changing communication tool that lets you create Facebook Messenger bots to market your brand. ManyChat helps business can level up marketing, sales and support using Facebook Messenger. ManyChat’s visual drag-and-drop bot builder makes it easy and simple to setup your Facebook Messenger bot.

Take note that the words visual drag-and-drop are in bold. And that’s because this is the main reason why even a non-techy person can make their own chatbot. You don’t need to be a super chatbot expert to make your own chatbot. You can always

• build one from scratch using their builder. It’s easy especially since there are so many tutorials out there.
• use ready made templates that are available all over the internet.

Don’t believe me? I taught chatbot development in different areas all over the Philippines, and here’s a testimonial from one of my trainees.

I have been part of a free scholarship program of the government, and chatbot development was one of the topics included in the training. I don’t have any background on chatbots, and it never crossed my mind to learn the chatbot set-up. At first, I hadn’t planned to study the chatbot because I totally assumed I wouldn’t be able to do it. But I was shocked that I could do it even if I’m a non-technical individual. It was not the lack of knowledge that stopped me from learning about Chatbot, it is just time and effort. By this point, you might know that there is no shortage of resources on the internet, making it really easy these days to learn anything you want to learn.

The type of learning you need in creating a chatbot is depending on its purpose and how complicated it is. Some chatbot platforms already have pre-made templates, so it’s easy for you to set-up your own. You don’t need any coding skills to create a chatbot as there are many tools out there that allow you to create a chatbot without writing any code at all.

The best part is that you can use these tools even if you don’t have any technical background at all. It can be recommendable and a good start for a non-technical individual.

You may  have to spend some time researching data sources that you can use for your chatbot, and then work on integrating all of the necessary components so that your chatbot can run smoothly. In addition, you must consider whether you want your chatbot to be capable of handling complex conversations, or if it needs to stick to predefined responses or questions from users. This will have an impact on the kind of AI technology that you use for it. Finally, you must test your creation thoroughly in order for it to be functional when released.

I would suggest you take an online course, or read books on this topic. There are a lot of resources that you can download online for free, or you can watch video tutorials on different social media platforms about this topic. You can also take up paid online courses and it would not take 1 month for you to learn the basics. You can practice what you have learned since there are platforms that offer free subscriptions for the basic features. 

Ready to try making your own chatbot? Click on the button below to Try Manychat for free.

Need tutorials? You can subscribe to my channel and watch my tutorials there. I have long versions and shorts if you’re in a hurry.

Here’s a sample of a youtube short where I teach how you can add Manychat to your Facebook page.

Don’t forget to also subscribe to https://www.jessicamadrazo.com. As I mentioned above, I will be posting more content like tutorials and trainings on using a Chatbot for Facebook pages, so don’t miss them!