How to Build a Facebook Comment Bot

A Facebook comment bot is an essential tool for building your brand. Imagine having gone to the trouble of preparing beautiful product images or videos and announcing an exciting new offer or product on your Facebook account. Dozens of reader comments will usually follow actions like this, with users asking about the price, product specs, and delivery info or even just expressing their enthusiasm. 

Having someone monitor the comments and reply to them individually takes a lot of time. For the readers posting the comments it can be disappointing not to get an instant response while they are online and browsing your page.

That is why Private Replies is one of the most useful Facebook Messenger API endpoints. It allows us to send a direct message to users who comment on your Facebook page posts.

SnatchBot has used the Facebook Private Replies API feature to allow you to build a Facebook Comment bot, which can instantly provide useful information to your followers who have commented on your posts. It is a powerful way to generate leads from the post comment section of your Facebook page.

How does a Facebook Comment chatbot work?

After you set up the Facebook Autoreply feature on Snatchbot, followers (and non-followers) who comment on your posts will automatically get a pre-created message from Facebook Messenger. Once they reply to this message, they will become your bot subscribers, and you will be able to direct them to any interaction within your bot structure using our Global Connections feature.

What are the possible use cases for a Facebook Comment bot?

With the Autoreply feature and a smart chatbot, you can hold a conversation with the user about anything at all. This is especially important for lead generation. You can use a Facebook Comment bot to:
 

1. Inform users about your news or offers;
2. Motivate the people the bot is talking to, encouraging them to take the next step;
3. Motivate them to make a purchase;
4. Allow users to get in touch with live support or a sales agent;
5. …and much more. Whatever conversation you would like to have with your users, this is the way you can achieve it.

Facebook autoreply bots are used by businesses in the industries below in the following ways:

eCommerce

1. Providing product information when users ask for this in the comments;
2. Asking users to comment on the post and enter a prize-winning contest to popularize the page, generate leads or increase purchases;
3. Sharing discounts to users who comment on the posts;
4. Immediately contacting users who have expressed dissatisfaction in their comments to offer them cash returns, product replacements, or presents.

SaaS

1. Connecting users who request support in the comments with a live agent through the bot;
2. Sending users free trial credentials through the bot, to those who ask for them in the comments;
3. Setting the bot to reply to a particular concern mentioned in the comments and sending them a solution in a message;

Consultants, lawyers, coaches, therapists, etc.

1. Scheduling a consultation time for users who show interest via their comments;
2. Sharing a consultation calendar link in a message to users who show interest in meeting you via their comments;
3. Allowing users who commented that they can’t make an agreed meeting to edit the consultation specifics through the bot.

Service providers

1. Mediating with dissatisfied users who send negative comments;
2. Allowing users who ask for a price in the comments to request a quote and to leave their contact information in the bot.

Restaurants, bars, and clubs

1. Getting back to users who ask about ordering in Facebook comments, or want to book a table or order a takeaway within the bot.
2. Steering users to a relevant website or app link.

Cinemas, theatres, clubs, concert halls

1. Sharing with users who ask via the comments the current number of available seats or tickets and allowing them to book.

These are just some of the possibilities. The bottom line is that you can easily use the Autoreply feature in any industry for hold complex conversations with users, increasing their engagement, and leading them towards your sales or lead generation funnels.

How to get Autoreply for a Facebook comment

To get to the Autoreply feature, find your chatbot in My Bots and click on it. After that, click the "Channels" option in the main menu on the left. 

The Autoreply option is in the Facebook section, so click on Facebook, and then find the right tab in the section on the right. Autoreply is in on the end of the vertical tab list, so you will need to scroll right to the very end.

As a premium feature, the Facebook Autoreply is only available to users on the SnatchBot Pro Plan, so if you can't click on the "Add new rule" button, you need to upgrade your bot to Pro. Start by clicking the "Upgrade to PRO" button with the red icon in the main menu on the left, and follow the instructions.

If your bot is already subscribed to a Pro Plan, you can start creating your first rules.

How to create a rule for a Facebook Autoreply bot

Start by clicking the "Add new rule" button. You will see a form opening, and the first choice you need to make is whether you would like to send a message to users who comment on any post or just those to a specific post you choose.

The "All page posts" option is easy to set and understand. All users who comment on any post on your page will get the message. That is it.

If you choose the "A specific post" option, you will need to add the post's URL in the input field below. You can click the "Go to post" button to make sure you paste the right one. 

Extracting the post URL from the live feed is very easy. Navigate to the post in the feed and click on the time of posting below the page name. The post will open in the new tag of your browser, and you should copy the URL of this newly opened page (which leads directly to your post).

The next option you can choose in the rule form is whether you would like to send a message to all users who commented on a post or just those whose comments match the predefined keywords. Keyword matching is similar to the one you can see in any rule-based connection. In the "Keywords" input field, write the comment words, phrases, or sentences that should trigger the message.

For example, the keywords for comments asking for the product price can be: "price", "cost", "how much", "pricing", "quote".

Now let’s move to the message itself. You can send three types of messages. By choosing “Text” you are opting for the plain text message + emojis. That is all. Here’s how that looks on Snatchbot:

… And in the user’s inbox:

Of course, you can also add the image to the message. For this, you will need to choose the "Image" option. For example, if a user is asking for the product's price, it would be wise to add the product image to the message as well. Users often don't realize the connection between leaving the comment and getting a message from the page in their inbox. The familiar product image will serve as a good reminder. 

Here is the image message in the Facebook Autoreply section:

… And here it is, in the user’s inbox:

As you can see, the text you leave is within the gallery card title, so it looks bold compared to the one sent as plain text.

The last option is to send an audio file. It can be very attractive for users who comment to get a voice message from the company owner or a particular person associated with your Facebook page. A voice message is very personal and in the automated world of today, it can make a big difference in marketing and sales campaigns.

After you have finished with all these options, click save, and go to your Facebook page to test this tool. Facebook Autoreply works with boosted posts as well, making it an excellent choice for bonding with your followers and instantly providing helpful information.

A Facebook Comment Bot with NLP

By building your Facebook Comment bot on the SnatchBot platform in this way – and no coding is needed at all – you bring the power of all our features into play. In particular, we have our own proprietorial Natural Language Processing 

engine, which means you can provide your users with a sophisticated conversational experience. By all means, provide them with the quick responses and answers they are looking for, but with SnatchBot there’s no need to limit the conversation to user buttons.

Your users can speak freely to your chatbot and our full range of features can be brought into play to ensure that once someone has made a comment in response to one of your Facebook posts, you can engage with them as if you had a full team of staff constantly monitoring comments and providing immediate and relevant replies.

With powerful tools like this and with our beautifully intuitive chatbot-building platform, it’s no wonder that G2 users made us their top chatbot company for those wanting an easy-to-use chatbot option. And now you know how to harness that power to your Facebook page in a way that allows you to instantly reply to user comments!