The best chatbots don’t seem like chatbots at all — they seem like humans!

So how do you create a tech-powered bot to sound like a human?

Easy!

You inject the bot with a bit of familiarity, humor and empathy — and all this is possible because, contrary to popular belief, chatbots aren’t powered by AI.

They run based on scripts written by marketers like you and me, meaning you can humanize your Facebook Messenger chatbot campaigns the same you you humanize an email marketing campaign.

If you’re running Facebook Messenger chatbots, it’s essential to humanize your bots.

Empathetic, kind, funny bots are unicorns that stand out in the sea of hum-drum, droll bots that sound like … bots.

Here are my top four tips for humanizing your chatbots and make them more engaging than ever!

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1. Get to know your Facebook Messenger contacts.

According to the research conducted by Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product or service from brands that provide a personalized experience for them.

Customers feel more important and valued when they receive messages are personalized for them.

In order to start personalizing messages, you have to get to know the users.

A travel agency, for example, could ask users what their dream destinations are — and then follow up on that dream destination down the road.

Or, a coffee company could ask what users’ favorite drinks are, or how many cups of coffee they have on an average day.

I run a company called MobileMonkey, which is a Facebook Messenger software company (now you see why I’m so keen on chatbot strategy).

In order to get to know our users better, we asked our users what kind of marketers they identify as:

Whether you are sending your customers a chat blast or drip campaigns, the ultimate goal is to make your users feel that their interests, issues or concerns matter and that they are being addressed.

3. Create a chatbot that remembers its users and adjusts its conversations accordingly.

One of the hardest parts of creating a chatbot is maintaining contexts in conversations.

An efficient chatbot analyzes the user intent and knows what offer to its user next.

For instance, when a user has already ordered from a messenger chatbot once, the chatbot should consider offering the user the exact items that she ordered in the past.

Ideally, a bot how to adjust conversations based on different situations and users.

4. Get Visual with Images, Emojis and GIFs

Facebook Messenger chatbots are capable of sending emojis, images and GIFs.

Inject visual flair into your chatbot conversations by using them!

If you can make a user smile with a funny (and relevant) gif, by all means, add it!

As with all your content and social channels, visuals always increase engagement.

Here’s an example from one of our MobileMonkey chatbot conversations.

5. Give your chatbot a voice and a personality.

Giving your chatbot a distinct voice and personality will make your customers feel more comfortable during the conversation.

Using everyday language and injecting humor (while still being professional) will improve the engagement with your chatbot.

Take a look at how MobileMonkey composes conversational messages to its followers.

If you click on the “Get MobileMonkey” option, it’ll lead you to the sign-up page to get your free account without having to leave the Messenger app.

Throughout the exchange, there’s casual language, emojis and plenty of fun, which are all in keeping with MobileMonkey’s brand voice.

Make your chatbot easy to use because this is one of its primary functions.

Republished by permission. Original here.

Image: Depositphotos.com

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Kyle Maynard literally dragged himself across the stage to give the opening keynote at Nextcon 2019 in Phoenix. And he gave what proved to be one of the most inspiring and motivational keynote talks to a business audience.

Maynard is a quadruple congenital amputee. He was the first quadruple amputee to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, unassisted. He also climbed Mt. Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Andes Mountains.

For the address to the 1,000-strong crowd at Nextcon, Maynard did not wear prosthetic limbs nor was he in a wheelchair.

It was just Maynard, unplugged, with an inspiring uplifting message as he told his life story and the principles he lives by.

His message: what you achieve in life is based on what you want to achieve. And whether you put your attention on your dreams.

“Where the attention goes, the energy flows,” Maynard said.

His visual presence on stage added weight to his message. The contrast between seeing someone drag himself on shortened limbs across the stage, and imagining him climbing some of the tallest mountains in the world, couldn’t have been more stark. Seeing him, you couldn’t help but think, ‘If he did all of that given his physical limitations, what could I achieve if I tried harder?’

Slow Down to Get Where You Want to Go

Maynard told the story of climbing Mt. Aconcagua in the Andes, and being told that his friends would have to leave him behind so they could reach the summit before they all had to turn back. The climbing party was running out of daylight.

Maynard was faced with a daunting 800-foot sheer ice wall to scale. While he understood the others’ decision to go on without him, “I felt bad at that moment,” he said.

“When I looked off in the distance I could see my friends already there on the summit and it looked so far away. But then I realized that if I just looked down 3 feet ahead of me, it seemed easier. I could make that 3 feet. And then another 3 feet. And another.”

So with his own guides, he continued toward the summit at his own pace. He kept his head down three feet in front of him at all times, making progress in 3-foot increments.

“And then I remember that moment when my guide, Guillermo, lifted my head up and told me to look. We were just 15 minutes away from the summit. And I made it.”

Maynard added that at times in his life he felt like he was pulled in a million different directions. “I spent so much of my life going as fast as I possibly could, not realizing that I had overlooked many things. If I just slowed down to see where I wanted to go, I could enjoy it more.”

It’s all on where you place your focus, was his point.

He has had to overcome things the rest of us don’t give a second thought to, such as putting on socks.

The first time he tried to put on his own socks, he had to jury rig paper clips to pull them on. It was a 30-minute production at first. Eventually he learned to do it without paper clips. He demonstrated in front of the audience in seconds, using just his arms to deftly put on a sock. “You learn,” he says.

Likewise, he created his own climbing gear. He started with bath towels, then oven mitts, morphing to bicycle tire rubber and duct tape. For him, that worked better than prosthetics.

Support From a ‘Lioness’ Mother

Maynard credits his family with instilling in him the drive to seek adventures and not be limited by his disability.

“I feel lucky in the family I was born into,” he says. He singled out his mother in particular, whom he called a fierce lioness who lovingly protected her cub.  “I couldn’t have gotten luckier to have a mom who fearlessly fought for me at every single stage along the way.”

His grandmother also was a towering figure of support, despite the family not realizing what it would mean to have a special needs child in the beginning. Upon seeing him shortly after his birth with such a severe disability, she told his mother, “You just look at his face, you see a smile, and know that everything will be okay.”

And in time it became true, he added.

In school, Maynard participated in a variety of sports, yet despite losses didn’t give up. “I lost at wrestling 35 times in a row. My parents would not let me quit.”

Today, Maynard has a built a circle of friends he calls his extended family. That circle includes the people he’s come to know from his various mountain climbing and other activities, and the people at K2 Adventures Foundation, the nonprofit he serves on the board of.

“As a kid, I always wanted to go places my wheelchair wouldn’t let me.” He was drawn to K2 because, he said, “I wanted to be part of making experiences accessible for other disabled people.”

He singled out for praise the co-founders of K2 Adventures, Kristen Salcito Sandquist and Kevin Cherilla. K2 led an expedition to Mt. Kilimanjaro that including eight blind people.

He credits the support and love of all of his family and friends with enabling him to live his life to the fullest and not let his disability hold him back from his dreams.

“At the end of the journey there is only one battle you remember. The battle you won getting there.”

Maynard left the audience with this thought, “I challenge you to consider what you want. Focus on it and go for it.”

Nextcon is the annual customer and partner conference for Nextiva. Nextiva is a business communications company headquartered in the Phoenix area.

More images about the event can be found on social channels at the hashtag #Nextcon19.

Image: Small Business Trends

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Instagram is a great tool that, if used right, can separate Unicorn businesses from Donkey businesses.

If you follow the news, you know that the app has been dealing out a lot of changes recently, and it seems a new one is afoot.

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The Death of Instagram Following Activity Tab

Instagram has eliminated the Instagram Following Activity tab in the app.

The Instagram Following Activity tab, previously located in the Likes section of the app, showed what content the accounts one follows were liking. By viewing the Following Activity tab, you were able to see the activity of all of the other users you followed.

Losing this tab means a few things for business, especially marketers who used this tab for audience insights and competitive content analysis. Read on for my take and replacement Facebook power tools.

Spoiler alert: Expect even more changes ahead.

Who Used the Instagram Following Activity Tab?

Did you use the Instagram Following Activity tab?

According to Insta, the Instagram Following Activity tab was not used frequently by most users.

It’s rather hidden and, compared with the feature that shows a user who is liking photos, probably isn’t that useful or important to the everyday Instagram user.

Starting Monday, users saw their Activity tab without the Following Activity content.

As you’ll read in related news coverage, the Instagram Following Activity tab was a favorite of users who liked to “stalk” the activity of their friends and celebrities.

However, the Instagram Following Activity tab was also used by businesses.

It was a handy tool to see what users were liking, providing insights into the popular social channel’s audience, likes, and best-performing content.

File this feature under “discontinued business insights tool in Facebook products.”

(We learn not to get too attached to any marketing tool after a while in the digital marketing business.)

But the death of the Instagram Following Activity tab is not the end of the world for marketing professionals.

What Can Businesses Use in Place of the Instagram Following Activity Tab?

There are a number of features and tools that businesses can use to replace the Instagram Following Activity tab now that it’s gone.

If you’re looking for insights about what the Instagram audience is liking, there’s another great way to see what audiences are consuming on Instagram — the Explore feed.

The Instagram Explore feed mimics the Instagram Following Activity tab in that it displays content users that one follows are liking.

It will also provide new content to discover based on one’s own Instagram activity.

If businesses pay attention to the Instagram Explore feed in place of the Instagram Following Activity tab, they can gain insights into audience behavior, popular content, and what’s trending.

Additionally, Instagram offers business tools that are far more useful than the Instagram Following Activity tab.

Instagram Business offers in-app metrics and promotion options.

And, as always, a great way to make sure your business is performing well on Instagram is to use the app expertly.

Make sure you have an aesthetically appealing grid of content on your page. Post once a day. Interact with your audiences.

There are a number of social media tools outside of Instagram that will aid in using Instagram to the best of your ability.

What Other Changes Is Instagram Making?

We have to ask why Instagram made this change now.

In an interview with BuzzFeed, Instagram head of product Vishal Shah said, “Simplicity was the driving factor.”

Streamlining the design of Instagram will help focus the app on what is essential.

This is key for the app to foster continued engagement by users.

And it focuses the mission of businesses using Instagram for marketing: creating and supplying the best content and advertising possible to increase reach and engagement for audiences.

The discontinuation of the Instagram Following Activity tab is not the only change that Instagram has pushed out recently.

And it’s not the last change that the app has planned.

In the next year, users can expect more changes for the platform, including a separate Instagram DM app that is live in the internal user testing phase.

In addition, Facebook is integrating its messaging apps including Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Messaging is the fastest-growing method of online communication, and it’s about to be easier than ever for businesses to utilize its benefits.

The integration of Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp will simplify marketing, as businesses will not have to create and use different tools for each of the apps separately. For example, a business will not have to make a separate chatbot for their Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp platforms.

You’re going to need to get familiar with Facebook chatbot marketing STAT.

So while businesses might be losing a handy insights tool in the discontinuation of the Instagram Following Activity tab, the changes add up to a more engaged audience and more platforms for customer engagement and reach.

Stay tuned for what else Instagram and the rest of the Facebook family has in store.

Republished by permission. Original here

Image: Depositphotos.com

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It’s time to amp up and adjust our marketing strategies for the holidays!

If you want to get ahead of the marketing game and stand out from the crowd, check out these incredible unicorn tips from the top social media marketing experts.

We’ve got insights from Mari Smith, Neil Patel, Virginia Nussey, Dennis Yu, Lilach Bullock, Lisa Dougherty, Marsha Collier, Sujan Patel and Kristel Cuenta-Cortez.

Among the tips?

Leveraging live videos, launching Facebook Messenger chatbots, running social media ads and more — all with the aim of increasing brand visibility, ramping up your holiday sales and boosting ROI.

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Tips for Holiday Marketing

So let’s jump right in — and I’ll start with my own No. 1 holiday marketing tip!

1. Run Facebook Messenger Ads | Larry Kim, CEO of MobileMonkey

Ad prices get crazy competitive around the holidays!

Since most of your sales are going to come from customers with pre-existing brand affinity, focus the majority of your social ads budget using remarketing as the targeting option rather than trying out new, unproven audiences at this critical time.

People’s inboxes will be full of offers, so try reaching your audience using new higher-engagement marketing channels like Facebook Messenger ads in Facebook and Instagram to ensure your targeted audience actually sees your important marketing messages

2. Go Live on Facebook | Mari Smith, Facebook Marketing Expert

Use holiday-themed Facebook Live videos to really engage with your audience this holiday season.

Facebook continues to favor content that generates meaningful social interaction, specifically conversations between people within the comments on Page posts.

Live video typically leads to discussion among viewers on Facebook, which helps bump up the algorithms and you should see even more reach on your posts.

In fact, Facebook states that live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos.

Strive to stand out in the news feed and create “thumb-stopping” live video content that draws your audience in.

• What if you did a whole “bah humbug” Facebook Live centered around how crazy it is that stores seem to start pushing the Holidays earlier and earlier every year?
• Use the broadcast as a fun way to get your audience talking to you–and with one another–about their preferences around the Holidays. You can then retarget your video viewers with different content driving to your website, offers, etc.
• Or, perhaps someone in your office would be willing to dress up as Santa Claus and do a whole series of Facebook Live videos where you do prize drawings and giveaways!
• Or, mobilize some team members to come on live video as “Santa’s elves” and show behind-the-scenes of how your products are created, or your service is developed.

Think outside the box and get creative to put a smile on the faces of your prospects and customers and have your business/brand be top of feed and top of mind!

3. Collaborate with Influencers and Create Gift Suggestions | Lilach Bullock, Content Marketing and Social Media Specialist

It’s difficult to stand out during the holiday season when everybody is sharing special offers and discounts.

But one way to stand out and generate better results during this period, is to collaborate with a relevant social influencer as they can help you reach a wider audience.

However, you need to start working on this campaign way ahead of time: from finding the ideal influencers to work with to planning the actual content, it’s a big project but one that can yield amazing results.

Another tip I have to mention is to create remarketing campaigns on social media and target all of those people who viewed your products but didn’t buy.

Everyone is looking for gifts during this time period so chances are, they’re checking out a lot of ideas and products — remind them of your products at the right time and it can have an amazing effect on your sales.

4. Give Your Social Media Channels a Holiday Makeover | Virginia Nussey, Marketing Director at MobileMonkey

Holiday fever is not just for ecommerce.

B2B should get hyped for the holidays, too.

Holidays are an occasion for a company to reveal its customer appreciation along with its culture, brand and staff appreciation.

And doing so can have a positive marketing impact through visibility and brand affinity during the cheery time of year.

Give your Facebook chatbot and social media avatars a holiday makeover — and that will mean something different for every brand.

Just because B2B marketers don’t have a Black Holiday sale to promote for the holidays (although, you certainly could!), doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have some holiday fun.

Your customers (and future customers) may fall a little more in love with you when you take the opportunity to get in the spirit!

5. Curate Sentimental User-Generated Content | Dennis Yu, CEO of BlitzMetrics

My No. 1 tip for the holidays … ask customers and employees what they’re grateful for, collecting the pictures and videos.

Then after getting their permission, you now have a massive library of UGC (user-generated content) that you can mix and match to drive sales without having to rely as much on sales and discounts.

And now you’ve solved your content issue, too.

6. Run Remarketing Ads | Neil Patel, Founder of Neil Patel Digital

During the holiday season, expect your ad costs to increase.

Consider pushing out more educational content and sharing them on your social profiles.

You can even spend a bit of ad money to promote these educational pieces.

From there remarket all of those users and pitch them your product/service through remarketing ads.

It’s one of the cheapest ways to acquire customers from the social web at an affordable rate.

7. Show the Human Side of Your Business | Sujan Patel, Co-founder of Mailshake

Something I’ve seen that customers and followers of our brand engage with around the holidays is learning more about the team behind the scenes.

We are fully remote, and have employees working literally around the world.

We’ll work with our employees to share interesting stories about them with our audience to give people the human side of our business.

People are in “family” mode, not “business” mode around the holidays.

Sharing our company family with them pulls on that thread a bit.

8. Start Early | Marsha Collier, Social Media Author

It’s a two-pronged approach.

Start by reconnecting with your existing customers very early on without a hard sell.

Let them know you’re there to help make their holidays easier.

Then during the season, your ads should always go for the hard close — make your offer ads irresistible.

9. Create Holiday-Themed Content | Kristel Cuenta-Cortez, Social Media Strategist

There’s so much truth in the statement “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” especially when crafting a social media campaign for your brand.

One best practice successful brands do to ramp up their campaigns is to put together a holiday-themed content schedule based on their goals.

For example, if your goal is to solicit customer reviews and collect user-generated content that you can utilize in the future, you can run a simple photo contest where you ask your customers to submit their entries with a branded hashtag.

Pick a relevant prize and decide on the theme, and find the best time to launch it! Monitor your results and adjust your strategy as you go along!

This doesn’t only provide social proof, but it also saves valuable time and effort since user-generated content is generally free.

10. Leverage Influencers | Lisa Dougherty, Community Manager at Content Marketing Institute

My number one social media marketing tip for B2C marketers is to work with top influencers in your niche.

People like to scroll through their newsfeeds looking for gift-giving ideas. I know I do.

And, they tend to trust brand recommendations from individuals (even if they don’t know them).

But, before you get started, make sure you’ve set a clear goal that aligns with your business objectives.

Once you’ve determined your goals, you’ll need to find the right influencers in your industry to work with.

Once you do, put those influencers to work as your brand’s little elves creating customized content for your social media channels to help increase visibility, trustworthiness, and generate ROI for your brand.

Republished by permission. Original here.

Image: Depositphotos.com

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