If your are interested in marketing what you do, and especially if your business involves Instagram at all - have you clocked the recent announcements from Facebook about the Messenger API for Instagram?
In a nutshell, this announcement is about linking Instagram and Messenger and creating an environment that enables "conversational commerce".
In October 2020 Facebook first announced the “Messenger API for Instagram” available to selected businesses. It was going to be released in phases:
Phase 1 – released to Instagram accounts with follower counts of over 10,000 and under 100,000
Phase 2 – released to Instagram accounts with follower counts of between 1,000 and 100,000 (July 2021),
After that - remaining accounts coming online from September 2021.
Personally, I'm really excited about this, and how chatbots will now be able to hook into Instagram.
There are two announcement of particular note. It would be worth looking into this and understanding what it means for your business.
F8 Refresh 2021
F8 Refresh is Facebook's virtual developer conference, aiming at the community behind the development of the platform. If you are interested in marketing what you do, take a look at the video, and make your own opinion on "conversational commerce". I think this is a game-changer, and is going to become increasingly significant. Companies not investing in this could get left behind.
Messenger API for Instagram
You will be able to 'connect Instagram and Messenger' to enable brands to connect with customers on their preferred messaging channel.
These announcements will be hugely significant for businesses already leveraging Instagram.
If you are a business who is not yet taking advantage of the Messenger / Instagram platforms, this is a huge opportunity for you. With over a billion users on each platform (and growing), this represents a significant chunk of market potential. I think that if this is not a part of your digital marketing strategy, you are potentially leaving a significant opportunity on the table.
I will be describing this and what we can do with it in more depth in later blogs and on the website.
In a nutshell, what I do is “chatbot marketing and strategy”. This means automated sequences or chatbots in Facebook Messenger, and Instagram, and how this can fit into your marketing strategy and marketing eco-system.
DM me if you are interested in knowing more.