COMPLACENT MARKETING
AI Changing The Face Of Social Media E-Commerce
By Diana Obath
We have long waited for an easier message management process on Instagram for e-commerce users . Meta has finally developed an answer for brands and businesses that depend on Instagram to boost or drive sales . The recent developments on the platform will improve customer service for many brands thanks to the new Messenger API for Instagram .
The Instagram Messenger API for business is similar to the Whatsapp for Business and Messenger capabilities which makes it easy to respond to messeges sent via chat with pre-set text responses . With the latest addition on IG , it is easier to automate customer interactions on Meta ’ s trio of platforms which should be something any brand passionate about customer service should be excited about .
Meta ’ s apps continue to offer a large opportunity for brands to connect and engage with customers due to the powerful AI and messaging channels that they offer . The family consists of Facebook , Messenger , Whatsapp and Instagram which integrate to offer customers seamless conversational options .
Meta ’ s apps make them ideal for brands that use social media for marketing and customer engagement to easily manage interactions and communication with customers at scale and therefore are an integral part of any social marketing strategy .
Instagram now joins the stable as one of the most important customer service and e-commerce platforms we use today due to its visual nature and ease of use for audiences and businesses of all sizes . As a matter of fact , most small and medium sized business particularly those in retail can peg their marketing success on the proper use of Instagram to reach their audiences .
Messaging is particularly useful for Instagram as it helps customers connect with brands and have lengthier conversations in the DM , feed , stories or via mentions . Customers now expect brands and e-commerce platforms to have a chat functionality mostly represented by a chat box as seen on most websites . Chat boxes are easy and convenient and allow customers to ask quick questions and get answers . This is different from how it would work with email conversations .
This same chat functionality now becomes a vital tool touchpoint for interactions between brands and their customers or followers on social media . All chat functionalities
“ In the age of e-commerce , business never shuts its doors and asking customers to contact you or make purchases during working hours is simply asking them to seek other alternatives . The Instagram chat bot allows your sales efforts and customer support to be live 24 hours a day .” eventually end up with a human interaction but cut short those journeys by offering quick responses to frequently asked questions thereby reducing drastically time that would have been spent waiting for a response . This is where chat automation becomes most relevant .
Big brands receive hundreds of queries on social media platforms in a day . Instagram has been the laggard in this process as most large organizations have not been able to offer full time customer service to customers on this platform as seen with the successful integration with Facebook and Twitter . The Messenger API for Instagram will now elevate Instagram to more than just a showcase platform and allow brands to interact with customers seamlessly through the chatbot and by offering the option for forwarding queries to real-time agents .
Any brand that has automated responses can now set up the functionality on all of the four Meta platforms and combine chat histories across platforms into a single inbox , making communication and sentiment tracking a much easier process for brands . API messengers provide a high degree of accuracy and flexibility because they are selflearning and algorithm driven tools thereby able to speedily recognize questions and match them with appropriate responses .
For brands that thrive on Instagram , this development is a game-changer in the sense that it carries with it many benefits . The integrated API messenger will be useful to propel sales and help track customer
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