How can you leverage chatbots in your social media strategy? Setting up a social media chatbot can be extremely beneficial for your business. Read our blog post to find out more!
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In today’s world, it’s important to be wherever your customers are - that especially applies to social media platforms. Providing quality services in this space is key to maintaining a good relationship with your audience and continually gaining more of them.
But. Easier said than done. Fortunately, many solutions have come to the rescue. These include, for example, social media chatbots.
Chatbots will work great in social media. If you don’t have any ideas on how to use them on your social media channels, stay with us because today, we’re going to talk about it!
What is a Social Media Chatbot?
To explain what is a social media chatbot, you need to understand what a chatbot is first. So, a chatbot is a program that responds to messages automatically and immediately. This general term is used to describe any software that automates DM correspondence.
Their use is effortless. They send responses that can be configured to be always the same, to be personalized when a keyword appears in the message, and they can even use machine learning to change their behavior according to the situation.
Social media chatbot is a tool you can use in social media space to improve your workflow there. It is designed, for example, to:
👉 help you and your team serve your followers in a qualitative way
👉 to provide them with answers to their questions
👉 and offer such solutions that solve their problems.
Social chatbots are becoming more and more popular due to their wide application. They have a real impact on improving communication and customer relations.
Why Are Social Media Chatbots so Important?
The main question is: why even are social media chatbots so important? Human agents can do a lot by themselves, and they often don’t need any additional help.
Well, yes, we do have those cases, but usually in small companies. And even this situation is not a rule, as more and more small businesses take advantage of automation tools like chatbots.
Let’s be honest; a simple chatbot software can give your business many benefits.
For example, it is able to improve user experience and your social media marketing strategy. As a result, your audience will notice a more convenient online experience, and your business will gain more customer engagement - without any additional efforts from your contact center because the chatbot will handle everything for you.
What’s more, in today’s world, customers expect better services, as they are really aware of their privileges. Therefore, an automated plug-and-play solution that ensures all questions are answered on all platforms immediately can be the best choice you have ever made.
Remember, too, that this type of customer service automation may have been implemented by your closest competitors. So in order to continue to compete for your audience and maintain a top-level relationship with them, you need to consider implementing this solution in your digital marketing campaign.
So, don’t wait any longer and implement a chatbot solution.
As you can see, you can gain more advantages without incurring more costs. Now, imagine that such social media chatbot works on all your social platforms. It helps your followers, improves customer satisfaction, and supports your business goals. Is it a fairytale? No, it’s reality, and you can have it all.
The Use of Chatbots on Social Media
Using social media chatbots is possible for many different purposes, and we have just listed a few examples below. Let’s see what such effective AI agents can do.
#1 Automate Sales and Marketing
First, proper use of chatbot automates and accelerates your marketing and sales process. These two can gain a lot from chatbot conversations.
Imagine you have a new product on offer and would like as many people as possible in your target audience to learn about it. Therefore, of course, you can use paid or organic advertising.
But why not bring chatbots into play?
For example, you can set up automated messages in Facebook Messenger or other social media platforms for those who have visited your Facebook page. Such direct messages combine conversational marketing and your social strategies. In effect, they simplify the buying process and marketing funnel.
#2 Generate Leads
Another awesome thing is that with a chatbot, you can generate quality leads. Using these online agents at the beginning of the buying process dramatically reduces lead generation time.
Have you ever visited a website and received a promotional code immediately?
It’s one of the chatbot templates.
In addition to qualifying leads, bots can answer pre-sales questions and assist social media users in their buying journey. Also, they:
- allow massive identification and targeting of potential sales leads
- assess a customer’s interest
- provide the necessary information
- collect contact information
All in just a few minutes!
#3 Offer 24/7 Customer Service
In social media, time is of the essence. Not all of your followers are watching the materials you share at the same time. Some of them open social media after finishing their work, and some user browses early in the morning. This often makes interacting with individual followers and social networks challenging.
However, you can solve this problem and let the chatbot serve active users constantly, even at night or after agents’ working hours. With this solution, you’ll avoid having your customer walk away from your company because they weren’t served when they required it.
#4 Empower Your Support Agents
Bots help social media teams work more efficiently. They take over many tasks, especially the routine ones, but they are great at handling more complex questions so that you can entrust your social media accounts to them.
If you choose the right chatbot, you’ll notice over time that the benefits it offers are real. Without involving the sales department, all of this is done in a simple, non-intrusive manner. Meanwhile, your employees can focus on something else, such as planning the next Facebook campaign.
So instead of hiring new employees to handle your social media accounts, bet on an advanced chatbot that can handle multiple customers at once.
Moreover, implementing a chatbot solution for customer service may take moments! See how to set it up step by step.
💡 Did you know that chatbots can reduce response times by half?
#5 Provide Important Information about Your Business
Of course, these automation tools can deliver the most important information to all users without any effort. More than once, you’ve had someone ask you via Facebook Messenger what the store hours are. Or whether deliveries are made on Saturdays? Or what is shipping like during the holidays?
Well, social media bots don’t have to think about the answer, and sending a message will take them a few seconds at most. You can also predict followers’ behavior and prepare a pop-up chat window that provides the most important information or answers to FAQs.
picture source: Rawpixel
#6 Build Relationships
We can certainly say that social media chatbots build, sustain and develop relationships with social media users. One chatbot can operate on multiple channels, following customers and keeping their information in one place.
In practice, this means that it takes very little time to gather information about a given user so that it can offer him a comprehensive service and a memorable experience. And that counts for a lot when it comes to keeping users with a brand.
If you have some questions about chatbots, check this 👉🏻 20+ Questions about Chatbot Support: Answered 👈🏻 maybe you will find the answer.
How Choose the Best Chatbot System?
All of this can be achieved with a good strategy, clearly defined goals, and good chatbot technology. But that’s where the knot is. How to choose one? What should the right chatbot automation have? We already explain.
#1 Define Needed Features
There are many chatbot tools, and you have many options to choose from. But have you thought about:
✨ What do you really want?
✨ What are your business needs?
✨ What features do you care most about, and which are optional?
To ensure that the social media bot you choose meets your expectations, clearly define what built-in features it should have because they are the path to your success. This is, in a sense, the foundation that will allow you to develop your social channels further and may decide that potential customers will turn to your brand. It is because they will be satisfied with the service.
Also, these features will relieve the burden on your customer service reps and make their jobs easier.
#2 Check Out Integrations
Another key aspect is the number of integrations the system offers. Usually, AI-powered chatbots provide additional capabilities that are not built into the application but connected to a third-party system and which thus enriches the chosen solution.
Such add-ons:
- extend the software’s abilities even further
- automate even more human interactions
- positively impact the customer experience
In addition, they usually don’t cost extra, and you don’t need any technical knowledge or expertise to implement them. Therefore, you need to determine which integrations you could use so that they will be beneficial for your company and help you meet your goals.
#3 Be Sure the System is Easy to Use and Intuitive
What else you can do to choose the best software from the available chatbot platforms is to try its trial version and define whether it is easy to use and intuitive.
Why is this important?
Think about it: how will you help your customers if you first struggle with a system you don’t understand and find difficult to use?
Instead of implementing automation, your customer service agents get lost in it and don’t work more efficiently. In fact, they are upset, and their satisfaction drops. So, one of the many cons of chatbots may be that they sometimes are not easy to use.
Clearly, just as your social marketing strategy should be understood by all employees, the tools you use should be user-friendly.
Smartsupp Is Your Number One
Considering all the elements you need to take into account when choosing the right chatbot, you can’t miss Startsupp, which offers one of the best chatbot solutions in the social media marketing world.
Smartsupp is a platform that provides live chat, chatbot, and video recordings. Its chatbot can expand your customer base with loyal customers and will serve any interested party, regardless of language barriers.
Whether a Twitter chatbot, Facebook Messenger support, or other social messaging services are needed, advanced and basic Smartsupp features will make you drive better customer care. And the chat experience of all your followers will be greatly improved.
What’s more, it will:
- deliver you valuable leads
- speed up the buying process
- support sales of more than just favorite products
- improve marketing efforts
And more! The list goes on and on.
Additionally, the customer support team will feel that many responsibilities have been taken off their shoulders by the chatbot - an employee who works 24/7, is available at night, and doesn’t need holidays. Tons of time can be saved with such virtual assistants.
Aside from that, sending instant answers to customer questions, routine direct messages, and even personalized messages will no longer be the responsibility of the customer support team.
👉🏻 If you feel interested, see what pricing plans Smartsupp offers and choose the best one for you. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to write, and the team will provide the answers you need. 👈🏻
Chatbot Social Media: Over to You
Your social media strategy backed by the right chatbot can improve customer interactions with your brand and allow you to achieve the success you’ve dreamed of.
Moreover, happier customers aren’t the only difference you’ll see. Your marketing team, customer service teams, and the entire company will benefit. So choose Smartsupp as your chatbot provider today and enjoy more significant social media engagement.