How To Create a Facebook Chatbot For Free (3 Steps)
By Joren Wouters • Updated on
Are you struggling to turn your Facebook followers into leads? Or is your Facebook inbox flooded with messages? Then, you should create a Facebook Chatbot.
So in this tutorial, I will explain:
- What Facebook chatbots are
- How you can create your first Facebook automations
- And how to automatically reply to comments and messages on Facebook
And I will even give you a FREE template so you don’t have to build it out yourself.
Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
What is a Facebook Bot?
A Facebook chatbot is a program that automatically replies to comments and messages on Facebook. These bots have multiple conversations with different people at the same time and work 24/7! Using these bots, you can:
- Automatically answer questions your customers may have.
- Start Messenger conversations when someone comments on a Facebook post.
- Increase the sales of your business.
How to Set Up a Facebook Chatbot in 3 Simple Steps
Creating Facebook chatbots is super easy and can be done by following 3 steps. To create one, here’s what you need to do:
Step 1: Create a Free ManyChat account
Manychat is the chat automation platform I have been using for my own clients because it is:
- Easy to use: you don’t need any prior chat automation experience
- There is no risk of getting banned since the platform is 100% Meta approved.
- It’s very cheap, comes with a free plan, and their paid plan starts at just $15 per month.
To create a ManyChat account, just click the button below (and get my 100% discount code):
Your Discount Code
joren_wouters_edc
Now click on Get Started:
Then, click on Facebook Messenger:
Once you’ve done that, click on the Continue with Facebook option to log in with your Facebook profile:
Once you are logged in with your Facebook account, you need to give Manychat access to your Facebook Profile. Here, you can just click on Continue as:
Then, Manychat will ask you a couple of questions and you need to verify your email address:
Lastly, you need to click on Connect for the Facebook Page you want to connect:
And now your Facebook Page is connected to Manychat!
Important: You still need to do the next step to use all Manychat features for your Facebook Page! So let’s go to the next step.
Step 2: Set Manychat as your Messenger Receiver
The next step is to set Manychat as the Messenger Receiver of your Facebook Page.
By doing this, you basically tell Facebook that you allow Manychat to handle your Facebook Page messages.
To set it it up, go to the Settings of your Facebook Page (Make sure you are logged in with your Facebook Page profile):
Click on Page Setup (Under “Audience and Visibility”):
And then, choose for View next to “Advanced Messaging”:
Click on Configure next to “Messenger Receiver”:
And ultimately, set Manychat as your Primary Receiver for handover protocol:
Once you’ve done that, you can create your first ManyChat automation.
Step 3: Create your Facebook Greeting Message
The first thing we’re going to do is create an automated greeting message. So, when someone reaches out to you on Facebook, the chatbot will automatically greet them.
To create this message, go to Automation and click on New Automation:
Now click in the top right corner and rename the chat flow. For this tutorial, we’ll call it Facebook Greeting Message.
In ManyChat, each automation consists of a trigger and the content of the flow. To set up the trigger, click on Add Trigger.
Then, choose Messenger and click on User sends a message:
Now choose the Detect specific word in message option:
Now, click on +Keyword to add different options. You can add words like Hi, Hey, Hello, and more. Once you’ve done that, click on Create:
The next step here is to create the actual greeting message. To do this, go over to the content flow and choose Messenger.
Here, you can add the actual text. But, when you’re creating your greeting message, remember you need to:
- Greet the user.
- Tell them they are talking to a chatbot.
- Let them know if the chatbot doesn’t know the right answer, they can be connected to a real support agent.
- Ask their questions and tell them what they need to do.
Here’s the example message I created for this tutorial:
“Hey! 👋
I will try to answer your question. If I don’t know the answer, I can always connect you with a support agent.
What is your question about?
Just type in your question below 👇”
Now, all you have to do is click on the Set Live button, and your automation is working!
How to Boost Sales with a Facebook Bot
As mentioned, Facebook chatbots can be used for different purposes, one of which is to boost sales. Doing so can double your conversions when compared to other channels, such as email or landing pages.
For this tutorial, let’s say you’re a fitness coach who’s selling a program for people looking to gain muscle. In this case, your Facebook post could read something like:
“Comment “GAIN” below and unlock your personal 50% discount code!”
Now, let’s say that you have the chatbot step up. When someone comments “GAIN,” your chatbot will automatically reply to their comment and can send a message using Facebook Messenger.
It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? Let’s look at how you can build this automation in ManyChat.
To do this, first, click Automation and then click New Automation.
When creating a chatbot, the first thing we need to do is create a trigger. To do that, click on the New Trigger option.
Now, choose User comments on your Post option.
Once you’ve done that, you can choose whether you want the chatbot to reply to a specific post or any post in general. I recommend going with any post because, this way, you can just use the same automation over and over again.
Here, you can also choose whether you want to reply to any comment or the ones that contain specific words. For this tutorial, since we’re only replying to people who comment “GAIN” we will choose the comment contains specific words option.
To add the specific word, click on +Keyword and type in “GAIN.” But remember, you should also include some variations of that word, as some people could make spelling mistakes.
Another thing you need to do is turn on the Track first-level comments-only option.
Now, replies will only be sent to first-level comments. These are the initial comments on a Facebook post, whereas second-level comments are replies to the initial ones. Then, you need to turn on the Public auto-response in Feed option.
By adding multiple variations, the replies seem more authentic and it don’t come off as spam. Once you’ve added the response, check the Like comment option to automatically drop a like, and then click Save.
The next thing we need to do is determine the messages that will be sent in Facebook Messenger. To add the first message, click the Messenger option.
Now, choose the Send as Comment Reply option. If you don’t choose this option, the automation protocols won’t work.
When you do that, you’ll notice that you’re only allowed to add text, quick replies, and buttons in the first message. So, the first message could say something like:
“Are you ready to gain more muscle and take your body to the next level?
Just click the button below to unlock your 50% discount. 👇”
Now, click on the Add Button option to add an action that people can take, and then click Done.
When someone clicks on this button, we can send them a new message. That message could be something like this:
“You can use this coupon code on checkout to unlock your 50% discount: DISCOUNT50
Just click the button below to get access to the program.👇”
To continue, paste the message in ManyChat and then add a button redirecting users to your website. Click the Open website option to add a link to your website.
Now, enter your website URL and click Done.
And here’s what complete automation will look like.
What you need to know here is that we even take this automation one step further. We can use it to retarget users. The best part of doing this is that since we’re using a Facebook Chat Funnel, we can re-target the user for free!
To do this, we need to add a Smart Delay.
Then, we need to set the duration of that delay to 1 hour.
What this means is that ManyChat will wait for one hour and then continue with the automation.
After the Smart Delay, we can add another Facebook message asking the user whether or not they were able to access the program. Along with the message, you can also add two quick reply options:
If they click on the first quick reply, we can send another Facebook message that says:
“That’s great! I’m glad you are part of the program. If you have any questions going through it, feel free to send an email to info@chatimize.com.”
However, if they haven’t joined the program yet, your next message could be something like:
“I understand! I will bring in someone from our team to help you with this. 💪.”
From here, you can assign the conversation to one of your sales agents, who can close the deal. To do that, click Next Step, then click +Actions, then click +Action again.
Now, choose the Live Chat option, and then click Mark conversation as Open.
Click on Live Chat again, and now choose Assign conversation to assign it to a specific team member.
After that, click +Action, Live Chat, and then Notify Assignees to send a notification to the team member.
And that’s how to create a Facebook chatbot that replies to comments and can also be used for retargeting. All that’s left to do now is click the Set Live button.
How To Auto Reply to Facebook Messages
Since we are promoting a program, it’s possible that people will have questions about it. Guess what? We can use a Facebook chatbot to answer these questions. To do that, click Automation and then click New Automation.
After that, you need to choose which questions you want to reply to. People can have a lot of different questions, but for all these examples, we chose payments. Some common questions about payment could be:
- What payment plans are available for the program?
- What payment methods are available?
To set up automatic responses, click New Trigger and choose the User sends a message option.
Now, choose the Detect specific words in message option.
Once you’ve done that, click +Keyword, enter “payment” as a keyword, and then click Create.
Once you have done that, click the Messenger option to add a new message.
In that message, you must reply to the question that the user is asking and need to make sure response protocols are set to within 24 hours. The response itself could be something like:
“You can pay for our program by using a credit card or Paypal. The program is available for a one-time payment of $199 or you can pay in three terms of $99.”
Now add another message that acts as a follow-up asking the users whether their question has been answered or not. Here, you also need to include two buttons.
If they say “Yes,” you can end or continue the conversation by sending a message similar to:
“Great! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask them here. 😊”
However, if their response is “No,” you can ask them whether they want to be connected to a support agent or not by saying:
“That’s a bummer… Shall I connect you to one of our customer support agents?”
If they want to be connected to a customer, you say something like, “We will now connect you with one of our support agents.” Then, you can mark the conversation as open, assign the conversation to one of your agents and notify the person that it’s assigned to.
However, if they don’t want the conversation to be assigned to a support agent, you can send them a message similar to this:
“Okay! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask them here 😊”
Once you’ve done that, click the Set Live button, and you’re good to go.
You can even replicate this automation for other questions coming to your Facebook inbox. If you want to learn more about automating responses to questions in your Facebook inbox, I have a complete course called Customer Support System. You can visit my website to learn more about the course.
Free Facebook Chatbot Template
And that’s how you can create a chatbot for Facebook!
Want to get started right away? Just fill in the form below and download my FREE template:
Your Next Steps
And that’s all it takes to create a Facebook chatbot.
Now I want to hear from you:
How do you plan on using Facebook chatbots?
Let me know in the comments below!
