Introduction
Messaging apps like Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. play a vital role in connecting people with businesses & brands. Businesses have seen a massive increase in customer conversations as now customers are getting engaged & can reach them on platforms that they are familiar with & are spending a lot of time already.
Instagram has surely emerged as a super widely used social media platform in the past few years. It has 2.35 billion active monthly users & they spend an average of 24 minutes per day on the app. These statistics are not limited to millennials but businesses & brands also post an average of almost 28 times per month, which means nearly once a day.
As per Instagram research, 90% of Instagram users follow a business & nearly 50% are highly interested in a brand after watching its ads on Instagram. Hence, there is no surprise that this messaging app has the 4th highest number of users among all other mobile apps on all the different platforms. Instagram business accounts are also growing at a decent pace and see an average follower growth of 1.69% per month.
The Instagram Mania
Instagram has a user base of more than 2.35 billion. Emerging market India is the leading country based on Instagram audience size with 229.55 million users followed by the United States with 143.35 & Brazil with 113.5 million users.
Instagram took only 11.2 years for reaching the milestone of 2 billion monthly active users around the world. 62% of these users get more interested in a brand after viewing it on Instagram stories. Studies also show that nearly 70% of shopping fanatics use this messaging application for finding new products.
Instagram is acting as a fantastic discovery tool. 50% of Instagram users consume it to find new goods, companies, & services. 44% of users on Instagram use it to make purchases every week.
These numbers give businesses a reason to focus more on Instagram as it is one of the best ways to reach existing & potential customers both. Instagram is turning out to be a great tool to be used for showcasing your products & services (pre-purchase), providing them options to order, pay, & track their purchase, & offer customer support, answering their questions, receiving feedback & reviews (post-purchase).
Instagram bots are also playing an essential role here as it becomes difficult for businesses to manage such a huge audience & reaching out to them with accurate & quick answers. Let’s learn how chatbot conversations are taking place on one of the most popular platforms Instagram.
Bots on Instagram
Social media is over every sector, be it FMCG, retail, or e-commerce. Brands & businesses need to take action now & should take this opportunity to make the most of it by building & using chatbots. Instagram chatbots can engage the audience with automated conversations for driving sales. So, let’s talk about how a chatbot conversation starts.
User-Initiated Conversation
One way of initiating conversation is from the user end where the user is sending the first message to the business. Here are the scenarios where the user starts a conversation with an Instagram bot.
- Message Button on Instagram Profile: This is the scenario where a user come across a product post, goes to the brand’s Instagram handle & clicks on the message button to enquire about the product. The message reaches the bot which replies with the relevant product information & asks the user if he/she is interested in placing the order or not.
- Link Click: In this scenario, the user gets a link to the bot on an SMS & when the link got clicked by the user it redirects to Instagram & says Hi. Here, the bot receives the message & responds back with a welcome message & asks for the product preference.
- QR Scan: In the case of a QR scan, a user scans the QR code from a poster/flyer & gets redirected to Instagram DM & says Hi. The bot responds to this message with the brand’s offerings, product catalogue, etc.
- Website Click: While scrolling through the website, a user clicks on a popup or a button that is redirected to Instagram with the message Hi. The bot gets active & starts responding by asking about users’ preferences & accordingly displaying the product lists that the business offers.
- Redirected From Other Bots: When a user chats with a website bot, it can provide the user with an option to chat on Instagram with an Instagram bot, & when the user selects it, the conversation continues on Instagram DM.
- Search in Instagram DM: This is the scenario where the user finds a product post & goes to their own Instagram DM. Now the user searches for the brand’s Instagram handle username in the search bar. The user sends Hi & then starts enquiring about the products after the bot responds with a welcome message.
Bot Initiated Conversation
On the other hand, another way of starting a conversation with an Instagram bot is bot-generated conversations where the bot or the business sends the first message. Any business is allowed to send only one message to a user until the user takes a certain action on it.
- Sponsored Post: This is the case where while scrolling through the posts, the user comes across an ad on Instagram & clicks it. This redirects the user to the Instagram DM of the brand. Here, the bot sends a welcome message & starts presenting its offerings.
- Sponsored Story: When a user sees a sponsored story on Instagram & clicks on the send message button the presents a pre-set of questions with suggested replies in a pop-up. Users can reply by typing in the pop-up or selecting one of the suggested replies & send it to the bot.
- Post Comment: When a user comment on a business post where their product is being praised. The bot sends a message to the user appreciating their feedback.
- Story Reply: When a user responds/ reacts to a brand’s story, the bot sends a message to the user appreciating them for their response. The user also gets intimated about this response from the bot.
- Whenever a user mentions a brand in their story either with a photo or video with a product of the brand, the bot replies with an appreciative message for the mention. The user gets intimated about the reply from the bot.
Conclusion
The importance of Instagram has led businesses to Instagram bots that are capable of automating customer interactions. It can help customers by providing them with product/ service details, assisting them in placing orders & making payments, helping customers with post-purchase assistance & a lot more.
If your business is in need of an Instagram bot, reach out to Gupshup.