Facebook Messenger offers businesses a cool way to connect and interact with customers and prospects in real-time with convenience and speed on the world’s largest social network. Did you know there are over 2 billion monthly active Facebook users, 80 million Business Pages, and 1.3 billion monthly active Facebook Messenger users, yet only 31% of businesses use Messenger?
Did you also know that your biggest competitor could be using Messenger to grow their business? Well, you should also use FB Messenger to grow your business going forward.
In this piece, we shall highlight what Facebook Messenger is, how does Messenger work and how to make Messenger work for you, but first
What is Facebook Messenger?
Facebook Messenger is a popular communication platform for exchanging messages, photos, videos, stickers, audio, and files. Voice and video calls and interaction with chatbots are essential features, as well.
Originally Facebook Chat, it became a standalone app in 2011. It is available on Google Play Store at 37MB and has a 4.2 rating based on 69M reviews.
Facebook Messenger for Business
It is an essential way to boost business-to-customer communication on a more personal, private, and intimate level, using chat.
Personalization is one of the leading ways to design an effective customer journey map that converts. You can configure your ChatBots to do this by automatically responding to customers on a first-name basis.
You can also send push notifications and targeted conversations to Messenger users worldwide.
Here are
Some Interesting Facebook Messenger Statistics
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- According to Tech Crunch, Facebook Messenger currently has 70 million daily active users and 3 billion monthly users.
- Users have about 8 billion conversations on Messenger every day. That’s over 2.9 trillion conversations every year!
- There are over 300,000 bots on the Messenger platform.
- Over 20 billion messages are exchanged between people and businesses.
- There are 40 million active businesses conversing with customers across the globe.
- Facebook Messenger for Business resolves problems within 42 seconds
Key Features of Facebook Messenger for Business
Discover
The Discover button allows your business to be explored by potential customers. They can start a conversation with your business, a chatbot, employee, can reply.
Chatbots
These allow you to have automated conversations with customers, reducing the monotony of replying to routine questions. It is heavily dependent on keywords. More complicated questions can be handled by an employee.
AI Personal Assistant Called M
This feature helps to suggest certain conversations with Facebook Messenger. Although it was discontinued in 2018, it was making a comeback in 2019.
5 Smart Ways to Use Facebook Messenger for Business
#1. Brand It
The first smart step to using FB Messenger for business is by proper branding. Make sure your username is your brand name or that it clearly represents your business, product, or services and what you do. This will help new prospects and old customers identify you from a crowd.
Also, ensure to use your brand assets like your logo as your profile picture. This is what other users see when engaging with you via Messenger. This is essential for identification and recall.
Again, because there are a lot of fakes, clones, copycats, and wannabes online, ensure to verify your FB account. It assures customers that they’re dealing with the real deal. This is the key to differentiation.
#2. Tell a Story
There are now over 500 million people who use Facebook Stories daily, up from 300 million. According to Zuckerberg, stories, small groups, and messages are the fastest growing areas of online communication.
Stories last for 24 hours and can be shown on your profile and Messenger. This presents businesses with an opportunity to connect with customers. With stories, you can share motivational content, status quo, new product announcement, upcoming events, etc. Use it to tell different aspects of your brand journey and story.
3 million advertisers use Stories Ads across Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram. These ads are also cheaper than feeds ads and were the biggest contributor to overall impressions growth in Q1 2019.
#3. Build Bots
FB Messenger bots help you automate communication with new and existing customers via chat. With these bots, you can qualify leads, nurture them, receive payments, and create promotions.
In fact, reports say Messenger Bots have an 85% open rate and 25% CTR, which are incredibly good. And the best part, it is free and relatively easy to create bots.
This way, whenever people contact you, there’s always a well prepared, pre-set response, much like voicemail. Ensure to respond ASAP and chat with customers in real-time. Instant messaging like this assures customers that they’re dealing with a real and responsive brand.
#4. Create Groups and Be Active
Facebook Messenger allows you to create groups comprising of different users with a common or shared interest/purpose. Members can be added even without their phone numbers. Ensure to get their consent before adding them to random groups.
By default, Facebook Messenger shows when people are active online with a green indicator. Within these groups, you can tell when the majority of your customers/prospects are online.
With this insight, you can plan your ads, stories, status updates, etc., to go live when more people are online. This can boost visibility and increase the chances of conversion and conversation.
#5. Facebook Shop Checkout
Facebook Shop allows users to sell their products on its e-commerce platform, which also integrates with other popular e-commerce solutions like Shopify. If you have a Business Page, you can create a Facebook Shop.
During setup, you will be asked to select a method of checkout, one of which is checkout via Messenger. If you select this option, customers will be able to place an order by contacting you via chat.
To enjoy and harness this feature, businesses must be constantly online so as not to miss new orders. Ordering via chat is a new trend and can benefit brands like yours if used smartly and correctly.
This can improve personalization, engagement, customer experience, and also help with more appropriate and customized upsells. Businesses can also gain instant feedback from customers.
Conclusion
Facebook Messenger for Business is a must-have app for any business that means business. It is pretty straightforward and offers a plethora of quick, engaging tools you won’t find anywhere else.
Author Bio
Amos Onwukwe is an AWAI trained Business and Ecommerce Copywriter who also covers Tech and Social Media. When not writing, he’s thinking of writing or making music. He’s been featured in Huffington Post, Dumb Little Man, Ecommerce Nation, eCommerce Insights, Understanding Ecommerce, Result First, Floship, GrowMap, Self Growth, among others.
