How to Get Started With Messenger Bots

Are you interested in Facebook Messenger bots?

Wondering why you should use bots and how to set them up?

To explore how to get started creating Facebook Messenger bots, I interview Dana Tran.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Dana Tran, a bot expert who writes about Messenger bots. Dana's course Bot Essentials can be found on her website ThinkTuitive.com.

Dana shares the three things you need to consider before building a bot.

You'll discover which bot-building platforms Dana recommends.

Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Facebook Messenger Bots
Dana's Story

As a digital coach, Dana helps people become more productive by teaching them how to make the most of technology. She first learned about Messenger bots after watching the keynote video from the Facebook 2017 F8 conference.

After doing a bit of research, she developed her current focus on Messenger bots and how businesses can use them. Through her research, Dana was just amazed at how quickly and easily you can build an interactive experience.

As a tech-lover, Dana loves playing with new toys, and Messenger bots were no exception. Dana saw something magical and special about Messenger bots. They're fun and interactive, and you don't need to code at all to build one.

Dana also sensed that bots had lots of potential. Because bots were new at the time, not much information was available, so she decided to write blog articles and courses about bots.

Listen to the show to hear why I was impressed with Dana's writing about bots.

Why Use a Bot?

In some ways, bots mimic email marketing, which is why some people refer to bots as email marketing 2.0. Bots can help you build your subscriber list, generate leads, deliver lead magnets, and broadcast messages. You can also combine Facebook ads with bots, include bots in an ad campaign sequence, or automate follow-ups.

Beyond email marketing tasks, bots can answer basic questions. You can also ask questions that help you learn more about users. However, Dana emphasizes that bots are not smart. Right now, the biggest misconception is that Messenger bots can answer anything and everything.

Dana notes that Facebook has tried to fix this misconception. David Marcus, the Head of Messenger at Facebook, said, "We never called them chatbots. We called them bots." The idea is that bots don't possess the ability to chat about anything.

When you focus on using bots to answer basic, common questions, bots save a lot of time. You can automate certain tasks that don't require a human. To illustrate, if you have a store, people likely ask all the time about your hours that day or during the holiday season. With a bot, you can automate that task and free up your time for more meaningful conversations.

Because Messenger bots are interactive, you can use them to customize what you share with people. Dana says this interactivity reminds her of the old Choose Your Own Adventure books she read as a kid. Also, this interactivity makes bots stand out as a great tool.

For example, instead of sending everybody the same long email that tries to speak to all of the people on your list, a bot can ask a question to learn about the user. Based on a user's answer, the bot can tag them or save their response to a custom field and then follow up with another relevant question.

In other words, bots help you avoid spamming people with a bunch of messages, hoping they gravitate to one specific idea.

Listen to the show to hear my thoughts on using bots to support sales and customer service.

How to Start Creating a Bot