How to engage your audience with Facebook messenger

Messenger is a social media platform that pretty much everybody tends to use. Owned by Facebook, it’s consistently in the top 5 charts on the app store. Having a giant impact on the entire world, it is generally accepted as the primary platform for communication amongst people in the music industry – besides WhatsApp (which is also owned by Facebook).

Thanks to a variety of platforms constantly popping up, companies & musicians no longer need to spend hundreds of hours learning how to code in order to create an effective chatbot. Essentially, they allow you to build a mobile experience for the consumer which allows them to undergo a variety of commands. Do they want to know when you are next doing a show nearby? Do they want to listen to your new song released today? A chatbot can help them do that.

Instead of fans having to wait days for a reply, the use of a chatbot now allows them to receive instantaneous & personalized answers which provide an extremely positive user experience. Due to the majority of people being driven by brand interaction (such as Innocent Smoothies and Wendy’s), music producers, record labels etc should be heavily pushing towards similar experiences in order to strengthen the relationship between the artistic brand and consumer. 

The App Store was extremely successful because it provided a bunch of popular services (such as Uber & Airbnb) directly to consumers. But with automation on the rise, it is only natural that chatbots take precedence over the coming months. After all, you probably want to get ahead of a trend instead of simply joining it. If you are able to create an extremely effective bot, it’s possible to integrate it into ticketing platforms in order to generate revenue. For example, somebody could send a message saying “Hey when are you next in Paris?” The Chatbot would then look at your event schedule, and link the consumer towards the ticketing platform for the event. The possibilities are literally endless.

As well as platform integration, messenger bots can allow you to strengthen the relationship between you and your fans on a totally new level as it encourages a new level of engagement. Gone are the days in which you would take weeks to reply to a message, or even not respond at all. By preemptively typing in questions & answers, Facebooks algorithm will use artificial intelligence to show the answer to the end consumer. As an example, they could ask what your favourite song currently is, or producers that you’d like to collaborate with. As the answer is already programmed into Facebook, the fan would receive an instantaneous answer.

When you release new music, you can broadcast messages directly to all of the fans that have previously engaged with you on messenger. For example, it could say something like “Hey James, I’d just like to thank you for previously talking with me 2 weeks ago & for being such a great fan of my music. As you regularly engage with my page, I thought you might want to know that I just released a song on Spotify. I’d love to know what you think of it? (Insert link)”.  All of this would be done at the touch of a button. After spending a couple of minutes programming the broadcast into the platform, it would be sent to (potentially) thousands of people that have previously interacted with your page. Incredible. 

Likewise, there is the potential to send content to fans – and thus bypassing the Facebook algorithm. They can deliver personalized photos, videos, and messages directly to your fans based on previous engagement history & interests in other pages. Are you playing at an upcoming festival? Target people who have an interest in festivals who live in the same country. Are you doing a fan meetup? Target fans in your city that already like your Facebook page. The power of artificial intelligence via Chatbots is absolutely incredible for any music producer wishing to take their career to the next level over the next few months.

Finally, you can use chatbots to provide your fans with information about a particular event or topic. If you have fans attending your show in Amsterdam (or anywhere else), there’s a strong probability that you won’t be able to reply to messages due to an extremely busy schedule in the city. However, they can easily open the chatbot conversation and ask what time your set is, or when you are next going to be in town. Likewise, if people have business inquiries (such as booking you for a future event, record label signings or a blog wanting to interview you), the chatbot will be able to direct them to the appropriate emails to contact.

Finally, the opportunity to monetize your social media account via Chatbots is a chance not to be missed. Are you selling new merchandise? You can include a message at the end of each conversation with somebody that engages with you. Are you selling a high-ticket item such as a Meet & Greet or production masterclass? There is the ability to target people in the top 25% of income earners. There are so many possibilities.

Messenger is one of the most under-utilized platforms within the electronic dance music industry. However, its benefits are incredible considering that it’s free to use. If you are able to create an effective chatbot that users genuinely want to engage with, you are 5 steps ahead of everybody else.