Tag: messenger

Facebook Updates Messenger Platform To Help Brands Drive Conversations

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has updated its Messenger platform to add a few useful tools to help developers and brands reach users and drive conversations on its messaging app. To begin with, the social network is rolling out sponsored messages to all advertisers. Facebook has been testing this feature, which allows businesses to re-engage users who have an existing conversation with them on Messenger, with select brands since June. Developers can now also advertise their bots with News Feed ads that directly send people to Messenger to start a conversation.

In addition, a new list and checkbox plugin provides developers with an alternative to Messenger’s typical horizontal carousel layout, which should be useful for surfacing sign-up forms and lists of retail items. The company also confirmed that it continues to roll out mobile payment capability for chatbots in a closed beta.

What Brands Should Do
With these additions, Facebook is making it easier for brands and developers to create more functional chatbots and reach more users. With 1 billion people now checking Facebook only on mobile, it is important for brands to leverage the available Messenger tools to effectively reach the massive mobile audience on Facebook.  

The Lab has extensive knowledge about building chatbots. If you’re interested in reaching your audience on messaging apps and better serving them with a chatbot, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) for more information or to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Facebook for Developer

Facebook Allows Messenger Chatbots To Accept Payments

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook will soon allow chatbots on its Messenger service to accept payments. Messenger bots will be able to use credit card information users saved in Facebook or Messenger without having to open a webpage to complete purchases. Developers can now apply for a closed beta test program if they wish to add this feature, which Facebook says will become more broadly available by the end of the year. To ensure a smooth checkout experience that supports most payment options, Facebook is reportedly working with all the major players in digital payments including Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

What Brands Need To Do
This new feature marks an important step for Facebook to fully realize the ecommerce potential of chatbots. It creates a frictionless purchase experience within chat that signals huge opportunities for social commerce, as WeChat’s success in China has shown. Therefore, brands that are consider developing Messenger bots need to take this new capability into account.

For more information on how brands can effectively reach consumers on messaging apps and other conversational platforms, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016 and our latest Fast Forward analysis on chatbots. If you wish to develop a branded chatbot to connect with consumers on messaging apps, please reach out and schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Facebook Updates Messenger Platform With New Chatbot Features

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
The chatbots on Facebook Messenger are getting a little bit smarter. The social network announced on Friday a slew of new chatbot features and tools in the latest update of Messenger Platform. The stand-out additions include quick replies for guiding consumer-bot conversations, a persistent menu for easier navigation and selecting commands, account linking that users can opt into to link their Messenger accounts with their customer accounts, and support for more content types such as GIFs, audio, video, and other files. Also, users will be able to mute bots and rate the chatbots as private feedback for developers. You can click here to read more details about each of these new features.

What Brands Need To Do
With these additions, Facebook is making it easier for brands and developers to create more focused and functional chatbots. The new quick replies and persistent menus, for example, can help guide user-bot conversations and keep the interface streamlined and more user-friendly. The added support for more content types grants brands a good opportunity to spice up conversations with fun GIFs and add a touch of personality to their bots. Account linking should also help branded bots offer users that opted in a more personalized experience and optimize the conversation based on their customer profiles. Therefore, brands building chatbots for Messenger should definitely incorporate these new features into their bots when necessary.

The Lab has extensive knowledge about building chatbots. If you’re interested in reaching your audience on messaging apps and better serving them with a chatbot, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) for more information or to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Header image courtesy of Facebook

American Express Debuts Financial Service Chatbot On Facebook Messenger

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
American Express has snatched the honor of becoming the first financial institution to create a chatbot on Facebook Messenger. The credit card company demoed the chatbot at Cannes Lions with plans for a roll-out in the coming months. Designed to provide transaction alerts and other purchase-related content, the AmEx bot will message users receipts, reminders for flights they purchased, and restaurant recommendations. The company also says it is working on leveraging the purchase data to personalize the recommendations.

What Brands Need To Do
Ever since Facebook introduced chatbots to its messaging app at its annual F8 conference in April, some early adopting brands such as Mondelez and Staples have been experimenting with bots to reach the over 900 million active users on Messenger. With increased usage of messaging apps, brands need to follow the consumer attention and start developing useful bots to better serve their customers.

To learn more about Facebook’s F8 conference this year, click here to read our Fast Forward analysis of the event.

 

Source: AdWeek

Mondelez Doubles Down On Facebook Chatbots

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Mondelez International has reportedly increased its investment in developing branded chatbots for Facebook’s messaging app. Mondelez, whose brand portfolio includes household names such as Oreo, Cadbury, and Trident, has renewed its global partnership with Facebook, specifically doubling down on creating Messenger bots and targeted ads using Facebook’s Audience Insights API. Though the company has yet to reveal which brands it is building chatbots for or when they will roll out, it did confirm that the chatbots in development will be designed to either support customer service or push for direct sales on Messenger.  

What Brands Need To Do
As more and more smartphone users turn to messaging apps, brands would be smart to follow suit and join them on those conversational platforms. In that context, chatbots can be a great tool for promoting fan engagement, handling simple customer service requests, or even serving as an ecommerce portal. Mondelez’s increased investment shows its confidence in the potential of Facebook chatbots and that it can leverage them to better serve its customers.

For more information on how brands can make use of chatbots to connect with fans, please check out our Fast Forward analysis on Facebook’s F8 Event.

 

Source: AdWeek

The First Sports Chatbot For Facebook Messenger Is Here

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
If you ever wanted to receive sports updates via text but don’t know anyone who follows the same teams and loves texting, you are in luck. The Toronto-based sports media company theScore has created the first-ever sports chatbot on Facebook Messenger to keep fans in the loop. As it is, the chatbot is not exactly conversational; instead, it is designed to figure out which sports teams you would like to follow and then dispense news and updates about them to you via Messenger in a timely manner. The chatbot currently covers all teams in major U.S. sports leagues such as MLB or NFL, as well as most major European soccer leagues.

Why Sports Brands Should Care
As more and more smartphone users turn to messaging apps, sports brands would be smart to follow the fans and engage them on the messaging platforms they are already on, and chatbots should come in handy as a tool for promoting fan engagement and communications. This is not only true for sports media companies, but also for sports franchises as well. In fact, The Sacramento Kings, an NBA team, is working with startup JiffyBots to create a team chatbot on Facebook to serve fans with game stats and digital content upon request. They also plan to add more commerce features to the chatbot, such as guiding fans to purchase tickets or upgrade their seats, something that most teams should consider to boost ticket and merchandise sales.

For more information on how sports brands can make use of chatbots to connect with fans, please check out our Fast Forward analysis on Facebook’s F8 Event.

 

Source: GeekWire

Facebook To Add Analytics To Chatbot Platform

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Since Facebook announced its chatbot platform for Messenger at its F8 conference last month, chatbots have garnered a lot of attention from brands and marketers alike. According to Messenger’s head of product Stan Chudnovsky, Facebook has started developing “a full-fledged analytics system” for its platform to help brands better understand how their chatbots are doing by breaking down, for example, which calls to action or messaging schedules are most engaging. In addition, he revealed that there are currently “tens of thousands” developers building chatbots on its platform and cited Activision’s Call of Duty bot, which exchanged 6 million messages in its first week, as a standout.

What Brands Need To Do
As we pointed out in our Fast Forward analysis on Facebook’s F8 Event, brands should consider developing useful bots to reach customers on the popular messaging apps they’re already using. The upcoming analytics tool will offer a way for brands to monitor the performance of their chatbots and improve their services accordingly.

For more information on how brands can effectively reach consumers on messaging apps and other conversational platforms, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: TechCrunch