Chatbots available now on Instagram
Facebook to release Messenger API for Instagram. KODA to provide secure payments directly in the service.
A landmark change on Instagram: chatbots to assist with communication, sales and customer service
Instagram is a powerful social media, which both inspires and engages, but is also becoming a viable sales platform. Among over billion of its users monthly, as many as 71 percent are young people under 35 years. Five hundred million people watch Instastories uploaded daily by brands, influencers and friends, which is now one of the most engaging and interesting formats in social media. Well over 90 percent of Instagram users follow at least one company on the platform, and 80 percent of Instagrammers make decisions about what product to buy and what service to use, precisely while on Instagram. This means huge promotional, communication and sales opportunities that are worth seizing.
Instagram steps up to meet these expectations. At the F8 developers conference, Refresh announced the open access to Instagram’s Messenger API for developers. A new era of professional communication between brands and customers on Instagram is about to begin. The KODA team is ready for action.
Finally, we can develop Instagram-accepted and supported tools to build engagement and automate communication with brand followers. The KODA team is currently working on the implementation, while carrying out final solution’s tests. We are ready to commercially provide communication automation on Instagram
And what does all this mean and what opportunities are there? Chatbots on Instagram!
To effectively automate communication in real time, to increase brands’ engagement with customers, to build relationships and organic fan engagement, as well as provide location, entertainment, promotion, customer service, sales… Instagram is finally catching up with Facebook and allowing businesses on the platform to effectively leverage its potential.
The key is knowing the differences, because just as chatbots on Messenger should not be a duplicate of a website, chatbots on Instagram should not be copied from those on Messenger. With many years of experience and more than 100 implementations carried out to automate communication in various channels, we know how to quickly and effectively perform this process taking into account the new medium’s nature and its users
Chatbots on Instagram will make it possible to:
- Automatically reply to an unlimited number of direct messages sent by users;
- Automatically send messages to users who have commented on our posts, also selectively based on the defined keywords / passwords used in the comment;
- Automatically respond to users’ comments under our post;
- Automatically send a message to users who have mentioned our brand in their story or reacted to our story. Sending a thank you note, pointing out products similar to those viewed by the user, providing a promotional voucher or a link to dedicated content available only to insiders – this is all a good way to build users loyalty, engagement and interest. It also provides a wide range of sales and up-selling options by engaging through conversation beyond the swipe-up;
- Provide support for the Handover protocol, which enables inbox messages to be split into those handled by the consultant and those handled by the chatbot. Messages exchanged automatically between the chatbot and users are placed in a separate inbox, allowing moderators to work easily and efficiently. Once a user switches to chat mode with a moderator, the conversation is routed to the main mailbox;
- Provide seamless integration with systems such as Zendesk, Salesforce… or online stores;
- Use the user’s name in a conversation;
- Send original brand content as images (acceptable formats are .jpg, .gif, .png, .ico, .bmp of size less than 8 MB.)
Is your brand present on Instagram?
Thousands of people see your products every day?
Are you ready to increase your sales and provide your customers with more innovative, convenient and simpler social selling solutions? Let us show you how!
What do we still have to wait for?
For the time being, chatbots on Instagram cannot handle audio, video or pdf files. Carousels are not yet available to use, but as assured will be added soon. Neither are we able to send messages with buttons.
It is not already possible for all businesses / accounts on Instagram to connect to the API. Phase one of the Instagram Messaging rollout includes profiles with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers. Smaller and larger profiles will get this opportunity in subsequent stages later this year.
The door opened by Instagram means virtually endless possibilities, which we can use by creating for our clients personalized but automated communication with their fans. The main advantages include, naturally, the work-time optimization and the reduced use of consultants or specialists in social media communication or customer service departments, but also the improved speed of response, which is forced upon us by the pace of life and the expectations of users consuming brands on Instagram. Automating communication is about building greater audience engagement with the content posted by brands on Instagram, it’s being able to respond immediately and interact with fans in real time, and it also means customer service, consulting, after-sales support available 24/7/365 days a year, regardless of sales peaks or seasonality. It is personalization and professionalization, which bring presence on Instagram to a whole new level
With the tool developed by KODA in cooperation with Tpay, from now on you can make purchases in Instagram chatbots. Not only businesses specializing in the chatbots development, but above all brands have been waiting for access to Instagram’s API, making it possible to automate communication with the service’s users. This is a real game changer in the area of fan communication automation. “We are already one step ahead: we have the technology that allows us not only to implement a chatbot, but also to immediately turn it into an additional sales channel,” asserts Mariusz Pełechaty, Head of Growth at KODA.
The innovative solution from TPay and KODA for closing transactions during a user’s conversation with a chatbot saw the light of day in mid-May this year. “We were the first in Poland and Europe to implement chatbot payments in Messenger using secure BLIK payments. This tool perfectly fits into the fast-growing trend of conversational commerce. The mechanism is very simple for both the brand and the buyer, since the user – while chatting with a bot on the brand’s profile – can at some point decide to make a purchase and the chatbot will prepare the order for him.” explains Mariusz Pełechaty. What is important, the user does not have to navigate to the store website or the marketplace. They pay in the chatbot by entering a secure BLIK code, authorized in the mobile application of their bank. The chatbot will ask about the size, color or shipping details, making the purchasing process as short as possible, and the user can continue the conversation or search the site. Taking into account the way Instagram is consumed and the fact that for many brands it acts as a virtual showroom, the sales conversion can be really high. A user viewing a post now will be able to launch and complete a purchase in a bot on the brand’s profile, without navigating to the store’s external website, and then continue browsing completely seamlessly. “This way of selling and buying on Instagram will quickly become something obvious and natural.” asserts Mariusz Pełechaty.
We are ready not only to effectively automate communication on Instagram, but also to handle the entire sales process, from the first product interaction to closing the transaction.
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