Why Your Social Media Marketing Plan Needs to Include Chatbots

Marketers can no longer be effective without incorporating a robust social media marketing strategy into their overall plan. Whereas a decade ago, an effective online marketing strategy revolved mainly around search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, the most powerful digital marketing strategies today call for brands to meet with consumers where and how they prefer to communicate, which is increasingly social media channels and chat platforms.

In fact, if technology predictions are even close to what they currently project, chatbots will drive a critical paradigm shift that could change the essence of digital marketing as we know it today. It will be up to individual brands to find a way to embrace this change in order to remain viable and competitive.

What are Chatbots?

Chatbots are software programs developed to initiate and manage one-to-one online interactions between brands and their consumers on various chat platforms. Given the changing behaviors and demands of consumers, the chatbot has become one of the most talked about and promising social media tools available in marketing today. Incorporating chatbots into your social media marketing strategy provides the opportunity to increase website traffic, engagement, and sales while offering a customer experience for your consumers.

Driving Social Media Marketing Through Engagement

Chatbots are now viewed by marketing experts as a powerful tool to transform the essence of social marketing itself by changing the meaning of engagement. Whereas traditional concepts of engagement called for user clicks and views, the chatbot level of engagement is an interactive dialog experience between a consumer and their brand. This level of interaction is not only fun for the user, but it leaves them with a better sense of what the brand is all about and a feeling of real, personalized involvement with that brand.

A Unique Opportunity for Personalization

One of the greatest and most challenging goals a brand takes on through its marketing strategy is an intention to interact with its consumers in a more personalized way. Chatbots provide a unique opportunity to accomplish this without seeming overbearing or intrusive to the consumer. A well-designed chatbot might ask a number of harmless questions to get to know the user in order to serve them better and direct them to the answers and information they need in a timely and relaxed manner. And chatbots have the ability to remember that user for future conversations and perhaps make suggestions about complementary products or service that the consumer might find interesting, based on their profile.

Instant and Persistent Access

Unlike humans, chatbots are available on a 24/7 basis with instant access. This can be extremely beneficial for brands, given today’s consumer’s tendency to research products, services, and support issues after hours.

And chatbots are able to accomplish all of this without the need for human intervention, which makes chatbots extremely cost-effective for any marketing budget.

Contact us to learn more about incorporating chatbots into your social media marketing plan.