Generally speaking, a social bot (or simply, bot) is an automated piece of software that makes use of artificial intelligence (A.I.) to mimic real human speech in conversations on Facebook Messenger. Bots on Facebook Messenger are typically used by people as a way to have conversations with other individuals they may be connected to via email or through other forms of social media. They can also be used to contact other individuals through a group or activity.
Bots on Facebook Messenger work in the same way as most other webhook applications on Facebook. In order for this type of application to function on Facebook, you must have access to a webhook through Facebook's servers. This is essentially an HTML page that you can insert onto your Facebook profile. The advantage of having your own webhook is that it will allow you to utilize a variety of different functions on the social networking site. Additionally, your webhook will allow you to connect to other services like Facebook's photo album or chat application, allowing users to gain access to each service without having to log in to each service separately.
Unlike chatbots, however, the Messenger Bot is specifically designed to work only on Facebook's mobile messaging app. Although the functionality has been optimized for use with the Facebook Messenger app, this mobile app does not have as many features as the web counterpart, hence the bot's functionality is limited. Therefore, the major advantages of using Facebook Messenger Bot over other web-based bots is the fact that it can be used on any browser and platform, while other types of bots are only available to those using specific browsers and platforms. Additionally, you can set up your Facebook Messenger Bot specifically to perform specific tasks, such as posting a message, forwarding a message, or answering messages. In fact, these actions are even tied to certain currencies, so that you will be able to receive the appropriate amount of money in your local currency based upon where you are sending the messages from.
Along with this, another major advantage of the Facebook Messenger Bot is that it can save time for sales representatives. Not only is the bot useful for making sales calls, but it can also route calls between representatives, saving time that could have been spent making more calls. Ultimately, by using a web-based bot, rather than installing a desktop program on a sales representative's computer, the business is actually saving money.
The final major advantages of Facebook Messenger Bot include several advertising options. Not only are there over one hundred advertising campaigns currently supported through the Facebook interface, but there are an additional six million advertisers currently paying to have their ads displayed on the Facebook home page. In addition, the Facebook Messenger Bot supports both text-based and image-based advertisements, meaning that it is capable of creating ads that match a variety of different advertising options available on the web. In fact, according to a recent study by e-commerce specialist Pivotal Labs, there are currently more than two hundred and sixty thousand ads placed on Facebook right now. This means that more advertising dollars are being wasted every single day!
However, it is not just the advertising opportunities that will save businesses money with the Facebook Messenger Bot. By using the Facebook app, marketers are given the ability to directly communicate with their customers in a conversational manner, something that is impossible via a web-based customer relationship management system, or CRM. In fact, according to tech blog The Information, Facebook is working on integrating chat apps into the Facebook Messenger Bot, which will allow businesses to directly connect with their customers on the social networking site. Conversational commerce will become even more prevalent as more companies begin to use apps such as Twellow or Epsom to track consumer searches and purchases made on Facebook.
Even more amazing is the news that Facebook is looking to expand its webhook API to allow webmasters to integrate the Facebook Messenger Bot directly into their websites. Simply put, webmasters will be able to take advantage of the Facebook webhook API to create mobile apps that link directly to Facebook and place marketing messages and advertisements in the user's newsfeed. The Facebook webhook API is similar to the JavaScript code that webpages use to make the information on a website available to users, but the difference is that this code is placed on each page and is only activated when a user clicks on it, whether they are signed up to use the Facebook service or not. By placing a simple JavaScript file on a web page, webmasters will be able to use the Facebook webhook to trigger customized advertisements and messages which are then delivered to the user's mobile device.
There are a few other advantages which are quite a bit more complicated. For example, one of the major advantages of using the Facebook Messenger Bot is the fact that it allows users to chat with friends who are not signed up to the Facebook service, which is a massive advantage over the way that Facebook used to limit the numbers of friends that any individual could have. When chatting through the Facebook Messenger Bot, a user will be given a list of all of their friends and will be able to choose which box they would like to chat with, either by restricting to conversations only with specific types of friends, or by customising their chat module to be more specific. This is likely to be one of the biggest differences between the Facebook Messenger Bot and traditional web browsers and mobile apps, as it is possible to restrict certain functions to be performed solely within the Facebook Messenger Bot.