Pop Quiz: What do people use more, social media or messaging apps?
Answer: Messaging apps!
Why is this the case?
It’s simple, the communication is quick and easy, essentially, it’s interactive. The chat over messaging apps are more personal and have the ability to retain user attention. With a tool this valuable, it’s no surprise that businesses are jumping on the first chance to leverage chat. But businesses are not stopping with that, they are streamlining chat using chatbots.
What are chatbots?
Chatbots are computer programs that simulate human-like conversations. The chatbot engages with the customer when they make contact. It understands the customer’s intent by asking them relevant questions and provides contextual results. Basically, they are a productivity tool for communication.
Businesses use chatbots to automate basic conversations that don’t require a live chat agent. On social media, chatbots play the role of a representative for your business who is available 24*7.
Why Chatbots for Social Media Marketing?
With messaging apps attached to social media platforms, it’s easy for businesses to target users via social media marketing. For businesses in SaaS, automating this process means, reducing the dependence on social media support and live chat support agents.
More importantly, businesses have the opportunity to interact with customers on a personal level where they are already gaining engagement. Consequently, increasing their rate of conversion.
The edge that chatbots provide in social media marketing for SaaS businesses is, you can talk to customers and direct them to have a personal conversation with you. Chatbots on social media remove hurdles like time-zone difference and support agent availability.
How to use chatbots in social media marketing?
The underlying reason for SaaS Businesses to use social media is to:
- Generate leads for the sales teams
- Educate people about their products
- Provide customer service for existing customers.
Chatbots can simplify all three of these processes by automating the conversations that are derived from marketing efforts on social media.
Listed below are a few ways SaaS businesses use chatbots in their social media marketing. The goal is to drive interactions with the company. Here’s how:
- Customer Service Channels
Customer service through social media became a channel when brands started promoting on social platforms. Users directly reached out to companies and interacted one-on-one. So eventually when the social media platforms integrated messengers. Customer service became an important part of social media marketing.
Businesses that leverage messengers are able to deliver great customer service. But to maintain consistency in customer service businesses use chatbots. Chatbots track customer use patterns, answers FAQs and more. Users will be able to receive instant resolutions to their queries. In an instance where the bot can’t answer a query, it will transfer the conversation to a live chat agent who can then solve the customers’ problem.
- Customizing Interactions
Personalization is key to connecting with a customer. Chatbots can be programmed to retrieve background information of the user and immediately gain context as to why the customer may be reaching out. This is the advantage with social media, customers can choose the information they wish to share with the business and this in turn can be used to find out what they customer is looking for.
Personalizing communication will make the customer know that they are valued. Also, your business understands which stage of the buyer journey the customer is in. So, you’ll be able to cue them to the next step with your business. The chatbot can offer calls-to-action to give the customer options. This way after every conversation, there is a step taken by the customer that can ultimately lead to a sale.
- Informational Engagement
SaaS businesses engage with customers inform them about product updates and educate the customer about their product features. Chatbots are the ideal tool for educating, because the communication is two-way and you’ll be able to understand how much the customer knows and tell them exactly what they need to learn. For instance, When the customer is looking to make a purchase, the chatbot can suggest offers, this can motivate the customer to complete the purchase.
This also provides opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell. Your marketing team can narrow down on the kind of communication that needs to be provided for the customer to get them to move forward with a purchase. Engagement is at the core of educating the customer about the product, if done right, it can yield higher rates of conversion.
- Multi-channel Experience
Just like how social media is a channel for marketing, so are chatbots. Chatbots can be enabled on websites and apps. So your customer can be eased into understanding that they don’t necessarily have to reach out over social media to reach your teams. Even if you primarily only use social media for marketing, letting your customer knows that they can reach out across platforms will make them feel closer to your business.
So, Consider enabling chat widget on other platforms as well, because this will provide a frictionless experience for your business. Customers will also have a consistent method of communication no matter where they reach out.
By using chatbots for the above mentioned cases, you’ll be able to get more leads for your business, customer’s will be able to get to know your product better and they can also get their problems resolved instantly. If you are looking to build a chatbot for your business to be used in social media channels, try Freshchat.
Future of Chatbots in Social Media Marketing
In time, messaging channels will take over social media. At that time, when the majority of communication is over chat, it will be easier for businesses to use chatbots rather than using live chat agents working around the clock to help users. Chatbots learn, so in the future, they will be able to communicate and analyze user patterns better.
The world is still to discover the depths of chatbot use-cases. As experiments with artificial intelligence improve, so will the capabilities of chatbots. Starting early with chatbot integrations, will allow you to push the limits of its abilities and increase business productivity.