The #1 Facebook Messenger Tactic You Should Be Using to Engage Your Followers (Without Spending a Cent on Ads)

This article originally appeared on Medium

If you’re lamenting about your organic reach on Facebook, then you should really consider adopting a Facebook Messenger chatbot.

The reason is simple — a Comment Post.

What’s a comment post? I hear you ask.

It’s a normal Facebook post, but it’s connected to a Facebook Messenger chatbot that fires up a conversation in Facebook Messenger when a user types a keyword in the comments section.

OK, why’s it so important, wise guy? I hear you ask.

Recently, I created a comment post for my client, who sells hot dog carts, and he posts every single day. He doesn’t run any Facebook Ads, or send any kind of traffic to his Facebook page.

When I created a Comment Post for his page, its engagement pushed it up to the second most user-engaged post on his Facebook page for the entire month (remember, he posts every single day!).

So let’s dive into how to create a Comment Post.

A Word on Widgets

First up, let’s talk about widgets. In ManyChat, you have many Growth Tool widgets. These include:

• An overlay on your blog or homepage (basically website pop-up)
• Messenger Ref URL can be on your email signature/ FBpage and as soon as someone clicks on it, activates sequence and they are subscribed.
• Facebook Comment Posts
• Customer Live Chat

Now we’re going to focus on one: Facebook Comments Post.

How to Set up a Facebook Comments Post

Note: Thank you to Cat Howell and the FATC Group for these screenshots

1.Navigate to Growth Tools in ManyChat, and click on the one that says “Facebook Comments”.

2. Head over to your Facebook page, and set up your page post but schedule it so no one sees it before it actually works (same for backdating) as you have to set up the comment post growth tool in ManyChat first.

I find this part a little annoying as now “Scheduled Posts” live in Creator Studio in Facebook, so you have to go there to create it, which is now an extra step.

In the post copy, make sure you say the trigger word (e.g. “discount” or “guide”) in the first sentence, and again in the post copy CTA.

Make sure people know they are speaking to a bot.

For example: “If you want access let me know in the comments, and we’ll give you more info via Facebook Messenger.”

Make it short and sweet.

3. Follow the steps to set up the comment post growth tool. Name it something handy so you know what the bot does. For example “Free Chatbot Guide Comment Post” would work so you can find it again.

4. Click “Select Post” to connect it to the bot (or comment growth tool).

5. When you’ve found your post, click “confirm” and turn on track first comments.

(This way the bot will not trigger based on any replies on conversations only words you need; however if you want the bot to trigger for everyone who comments, you can leave it turned off.)

Set your trigger to: Immediately.

Your keyword trigger works best for all words, so you leave that blank. You don't have to worry about filling out "only trigger for comments with this keywords".

Now, as soon they comment with the keyword in comments of your Facebook post, your bot will fire off the message to them in Facebook Messenger.

6. In your first message, make sure your users perform an action otherwise they won’t be subscribed to your bot.

For example, the first message your bot delivers is: “Hey, thanks for commenting on my post. I have some great stuff in Messenger, including this guide, so send me your favourite emoji so I can show it to you!”

7. Click “Next” to get to optin actions… Choose “Send to everyone who replies”.

8. Here’s where you can create a new flow to send users to, or you can select an existing flow — for example, if you’re delivering a free guide, you’d select that “free guide” flow here.

And that’s it! You’re done!

A Note on the Comment Growth Tool

1. It may not work 100% of the time. Things are glitchy. It happens. If it doesn’t work, go into ManyChat and in the backend click “help > refresh permissions” . Sometimes that helps.
2. When someone shares your post to their own personal page, comments left there won’t trigger the bot.
3. Leverage the share — use the JSON Growth Tool.

There you go — this is the #1 Messenger tactic that really well help engagement without forking out a dime on advertising. Try it!

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