Facebook Messenger is a critical platform to add to your social media marketing strategy to connect and communicate with current and potential customers and followers. Read on to find out what exactly Facebook Messenger is and how to use it to boost your business.
What is Facebook Messenger?
Facebook Messenger is the second-most downloaded messaging platform in the world (second only to WhatsApp, which is also owned by Meta), and with a whopping 8 billion messages being exchanged every single day, it’s proving to be more than a way for friends to keep in touch, it’s a critical tool for businesses as well. According to Facebook’s internal data from 2019, businesses exchange 20 billion messages with people each month.
On Messenger, you can send text messages and make voice calls, video calls, and even group video calls. You can personalize your Messenger experience by creating an avatar and using custom reactions, stickers, and chat themes. Businesses can use it to answer questions from customers or as an advertising channel. Facebook Messenger is free—all you need is an internet connection and you’re ready to chat.
Let’s take a look at some creative ways to use Facebook Messenger to benefit your business or brand.
Offer Accessibility & Customer Support
Brands active on Facebook find that Messenger is one of the most popular ways users want to communicate with businesses. It’s almost become an expectation that businesses and brands are available! These days, whether it's asking questions about products or services, receiving support, or even making a purchase, people love being able to personally communicate with businesses. Recent studies show that 64% of consumers prefer to deal with customer service issues via messaging rather than by phone or email.
Users want to feel they are seen, being listened to, and are connected with your business or brand. Messenger offers that chance.
Use Messenger as a Pre-Sales Resource
Often, potential customers will contact a business or brand with a question about a product or service before purchasing. In this way, Messenger becomes a valuable pre-sales resource for businesses. Establishing communication before making a sale is more likely to lead to one, and can pave the way for future communication.
Create Leads
On a similar note, in addition to using Messenger as a pre-sales resource, businesses can use the service to create leads. After someone has contacted you via Messenger, you have their contact information and thus the opportunity to follow up. Use Messenger to collect customer emails or other demographic info that can help narrow down your target audience.
Keep Followers in the Loop
Rather than thinking of Messenger only as a way for folks to communicate with you, embrace it as a new mode of communication for reaching large groups of people. You can use Messenger to inform followers of important information and events, distribute content, share news, and let people know about sales or other updates about your business. While you may be hesitant to use Messenger rather than an email marketing campaign, a recent study showed a 242% higher open rate and a 619% higher click rate for content sent through Messenger. With stats like that, what do you have to lose?
Build Brand Awareness & Trust
Using Messenger to connect with and respond to customer messages is another way to build brand loyalty. A 2018 survey found that 61% of daily messaging app users in the United States said they had messaged a business in the last 3 months. Being available to current and potential customers is a savvy business decision since it helps build trust and brand awareness with current and potential customers.
The idea that a consumer can engage in a private conversation with a business is attractive. A current or potential customer might have a question they don’t want to ask on your public page, but engaging 1-on-1 on a more personal level makes your brand that much more appealing.
And for those moments when you can’t engage personally, there are Messenger Bots who can help you stay on top of your communication.
Try out a Messenger Bot
While you may be able to keep up with some of the communication on your own, you can’t spend all day responding to queries from followers. That’s where Facebook Chatbots come in.
Chatbots are automated response tools available 24/7. Chatbots use AI to greet interested customers, make appointments, answer basic questions, and perform tasks. Best of all, you can program your bot to help you in the ways you need—so you are more available to apply the human touch to other areas of your business.
Messenger Best Practices
Now that you know a little more about how to maximize your Messenger account for your brand, take a look at a few best practices
Schedule Automatic Away Messages
If your business is closed or you know you won’t be able to respond in a timely way, create an Away Message (like an out of office email, but for Messenger) to inform any inquiring customers when you’ll return, reopen, or be able to respond to their message. In this way, you’re still letting people know you’ve received the message and will reply, which is so much better than silence.
Even if you’re not out of the office, you can create automatic replies in Messenger just to be sure you’re greeting users in a timely way. You can even set up answers to questions you frequently get asked via Messenger.
Focus on User Experience
One of the biggest digital marketing trends in 2022 is ensuring you’re offering users a satisfying experience. One way to deliver a quality user experience using Messenger is by listening, responding, and being authentic.
Being responsive shows that you prioritize user experience first. Other small details can help you show your customers and/or followers that you care about them, such as personalization. We all like feeling heard, being seen, and remembered. What’s that line from Cheers? “Sometimes you want to go / Where everybody knows your name / And they're always glad you came.” Creating great content and sharing it via Messenger, using someone’s name, and communicating 1-on-1 are some of the ways to make users feel comfortable and valued and cultivate a sense of trustworthiness.
You can also gather feedback from consumers by using Messenger to send a survey, or simply ask them via direct message how they found your product or brand and what they thought of it. Use the information you glean to establish genuine connections with users and provide them with an enjoyable overall experience—all through Messenger.
Practice Messaging Continuity
If you are a team of one, it’s easy to set protocols around response time and content. If you have a team, create a process surrounding how you’ll respond to customer service issues (including unhappy clients!), general inquiries, and other Messenger correspondence. You can even create templates for how to respond in various situations, no matter who is monitoring the Messenger inbox. Having continuity in language, style, and information no matter who is replying helps keep your correspondence on-brand.
Use Messenger Chatbots to Drive Traffic to Your Website
While chatbots are a great tool to ensure you’re answering your followers’ questions promptly, consider using them in another role: as a way to drive traffic to your website. You can set up the chatbot to create an automated response to a message that directs the sender to your website. Including links to your website in chatbot, correspondence is an easy way to get users to visit your website.
Learn Facebook Marketing
Want to learn all things Messenger, as well as other Facebook-related tips and tricks? Noble Desktop’s Facebook Marketing course provides an in-depth look at creating targeted ads, leveraging Facebook groups, and creating business pages within the platform. Students will also unpack the Facebook algorithm, get business account management tips, and learn how to set up the Facebook Pixel. You can attend this course in-person classes at Noble Desktop’s New York City location or live online from anywhere in the world.
Those ready to dive into other platforms besides Facebook can look into Noble’s 30-hour Social Media Marketing Certificate. The curriculum gives participants a comprehensive overview of the industry. Hands-on training over five distinct units allows students to master various elements of social media marketing. Certificate program participants will learn how to determine the right social media platform for their goals, develop a successful social media strategy, and create content that increases engagement and drives sales. Expert instructors teach participants how to gain a following and underscore the importance of market positioning and using social media analytics to improve results. Noble even offers students a chance to retake the class for free within a year to drill down on challenging concepts or refresh their skills.
You can also find local and live online social media marketing courses, bootcamps, and certificate programs in your area using Noble Desktop’s Classes Near Me tool.
Other social media marketing resources offered by Noble Desktop include its blog which has detailed articles about various social media marketing topics, and the Intro to Social Media Marketing seminar on YouTube, which gives in-depth descriptions about various social media platforms and strategies.