Episode 70: Facebook Bots 101 With Surbhi Sinha

Have you heard about Facebook Bots yet? If not, now's your chance. It's a brand new feature that has come to Facebook in order to help market your business, while reducing the amount of time you're spending online! On this episode Bella speaks with Surbhi Sinha from PerfectingProfit.com. They discuss the in's and out's of this new technology including: What are bots? How can pet sitters use Facebook bots to their advantage? Surbhi Sinha - PerfectingProfit.com What happens to your bots if nobody messages your business's Facebook page? What is the success rate of Facebook bots? Why is it important that I implement bots NOW? How did this all start? Bella wanted a bot for the Jump Consulting Facebook page, so she searched her network and found Surbhi. She was able to create "Jumpy Bot" on the Jump Consulting Facebook page (go there now and test it out!), and got incredible responses from those who experienced it. So she thought she would have Surbhi on the show!   Surbhi Sinha is the owner of PerfectingProfit.com She provides done-for-you bots for online and offline entrepreneurs. DOWNLOADABLE OFFER: Check out Surbhi's free guide to increase your email open rate by SEVEN TIMES using bots in your funnel: http://perfectingprofit.com/bot-guide-2/ Little Extra: What you are seeing here is a broadcast I did to my network of subscribers on my Facebook bot. Within one hour, I had a 75% open ratio and a lot of them replied back to me. Bots can be so powerful in your business. Subscribe To The Show: Transcript: Bella:This is episode 70 of Bella in Your Business. Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready—Bella's got your chute. Let's jump. Welcome to Bella in Your Business. My name is Bella Vasta with Jump Consulting, and today I've got something really interesting for you, something that we've never had on the podcast before. And I'm so excited because I used it and it was amazing. But let me back up a little bit. I found myself at this amazing conference you may have heard me talk about before called Social Media Marketing World. And because of that, I loved them so much, became a member of their secret society, to which I posed a question about a month ago and I said, who knows about this bot thing? And how can it help me? And the incredible Amanda Bond reached out to me. If you don't know Amanda Bond, you should go Google her right now—she’s incredible, unbelievable. And she said, Bella, I have someone that might be the solution to your question. And I met my now awesome friend here, Serby. Serby:Thank you, Bella. Thank you so much. Bella:So I originally came to you a little bit doubting and not really understanding this whole bot thing. You know, I think it gets a bad connotation. You probably hear it all the time like, well, I don't want some automated thing and no one understands that. I checked out your blog that you did and I was laughing out loud. And we all know that people have to know, like, and trust us, and what a better way to do that than bots. Then you showed me all of these open rates and how they're like blowing email out of the water and all of this stuff. And I was just like, you have to come on my show and explain it to people. So let's start from the very beginning. Can you tell me, how did you get into it and start all of this? How long have you been doing it for? Serby:Okay, so it might come as a surprise to you. I started with the online business just about five months back, and I started with Messenger Bot. I have been in technology for about 10 years, working as a corporate consultant with multiple multinational companies. I had a lot of background in technology, but then somewhere down the road I had this daughter. Bella:That’s, I think, 50% of online stories—it starts with a kid. Serby:Exactly. I had a consulting job and I was like, I cannot travel so much with a kid. Every time I went on a trip, she was crying her heart out, and I was like, I cannot do this. So I started looking for options—what other career options were there? And I just stumbled upon this online world and thought, okay, let me check this out. And then I started getting into it and somehow stumbled upon Messenger Bots. It sounded really cool. I heard people talking about it and getting interested, so I decided to have a look. I wanted to get my feet wet with the online thing, so I did an online summit and used Messenger Bots in that. The response was amazing because summits can be boring and hard to get people to turn up for live videos, but I used bots to send notifications and get interaction. The results were amazing. I got consistent 30% open—not just open but engagement—rates. All the experts made sales, and I thought, this is really cool and super effective. So I started building Messenger Bots and getting clients, and that’s how it all began. Bella:Wow. Okay, so you realized that this thing is working amazingly. There are all these open rates. How did you pair up with Amanda? Serby:Okay, so I didn’t exactly pair up with Amanda. We both are part of a community called Screw the Nine to Five. It’s a membership community. We’re both in it, and because I had been sharing a little bit about bots and giving some masterclasses, people started identifying me as someone who knew about it. There aren’t many people doing this right now. Bella:Not a lot of people get it, and even if they get the tech part, they don’t really know how to strategically use it. So you got on Amanda’s radar. That’s pretty awesome. So let’s talk about that because I was at my wit’s end. I like to know what’s coming down the pipeline. That’s why I love Social Media Marketing World and their talk show. I’d heard them talk about bots, so I went to ManyChat myself—which is a free program, you guys—and started an account. And as Serby can tell you, I made a mess in there. People were messaging me on my Jump Consulting page, and this thing would pop up and make no sense. I didn’t know how to make it stop. I made the biggest mess trying to do the bot on my own. What really attracted me to you was that you weren’t just the technical side. You’re both the strategist and the technician—a double threat. People are usually one or the other. I went to your site, Perfecting Profit, and it educated me on what bots were. It sent me to a bot you created that had me laughing my butt off. So let’s talk more about why a business would want to have a bot. What kind of ROI or advantages would they have? Serby:There are two things. First, people aren’t into their emails so much these days. Email marketing is still big, but people spend more time on social media. Unless you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t check your emails that often. And with spam filters and promotion tabs, it’s hard for emails to get noticed. That’s where bots become powerful—they reach you where you are, on Facebook and social media. Bots make people read you. Second, because bots are so new, there’s excitement. People are opening them more. Even the best email copywriters get 30–35% open rates. As a newbie, my open rates with bots were always above 90%. Even if it goes down, it’s 80–90%. There’s no comparison. Click-through rates are as high as 30–50%. Engagement goes through the roof, and once you have engagement, sales come easier. Bella:So true. Let’s talk about Bot 2.0. Some people say, “I don’t have many people messaging my page, so why do I need a bot?” Serby:The bot doesn’t just stay on your business page. It’s on your website, on your web pages. You can integrate it everywhere. On my summit thank-you page, I had a button for the bot. As soon as people registered, it said, “If you want instant notifications for the summit, click this button.” About 70% did. You can also integrate bots with Facebook ads. I ran an ad where when people clicked, they got into my bot and had a conversation. You can show proof of concept right away, and it gives immense results. It’s hard to build the know-like-trust factor through Facebook ads alone, but bots make that possible. (Advertisement segment omitted for brevity.) Bella:So I want to share an example of how you and I worked together. We figured out the stories for my bot. When someone came in, I wanted to know if they were a solopreneur or had staff. Based on their answers, I gave free resources and videos, showing them how to get more dog-walking clients. It was interactive, and as people engaged, they subscribed to my bot. They could opt out anytime. Something we’re going to do soon is set up a Facebook post where people can type “I’m in” and the bot will send them something automatically. I can also see using it for thank-you messages after purchases—something like, “Our tails are wagging! Check out our top 10 guide to prepare your home for a pet sitter.” It’s such a great way to stand out. Serby:Exactly. Bots give you instant connection with your clients. If you’re coming out with a new plan or offering, you can broadcast it and everyone gets it on Facebook. It’s a big differentiating factor, and the sooner you start, the better. After a while, things saturate, but now people are still curious and excited. Bella:The reason why it’s so powerful is the actual messages come up on your phone like they’re from someone you know. When your phone goes off with that Facebook ping, it’s instant engagement. If it’s a business doing it the right way, it’s an opportunity. Serby:Yes, and I always tell people—don’t spam. It’s a powerful tool, but use it responsibly. Generate engagement, don’t overuse it. Make it funny and interactive. Bots give great market research too. You can see what people are clicking, what they want. Build engagement, not annoyance. Bella:That’s true across every platform. You can’t just say “hire me” everywhere. You’ve got to learn the flow,