How To Create A Chatbot On Facebook Messenger

Pretty soon, chatbot marketing is going to be like email. Everywhere. And one of the easiest ways to get started is by learning how to build a Facebook Messenger bot.

With over 1.3 billion monthly active users — a number that's rising sharply due to Messenger for Instagram introduced in late 2020 — building marketing chatbots on Messenger is a cakewalk with MobileMonkey's chatbot builder and chatbot training courses.

First adopters are calling Messenger bots their secret weapon as they get unprecedented ROI from 24/7 automated conversations and lead generation tools.

Ready to get started?

Here's how to build a chatbot for Facebook Messenger — the mobile app used by over a billion people — in under 5 minutes.

PS – Learn my favorite Facebook Messenger hacks and get started fast with Facebook Messenger templates. MobileMonkey has chatbot templates out of the box for multiple industries and use cases!

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We're going to create a "Monkey or Unicorn?" bot. Pick a door, any door! Will you get a monkey or a unicorn?

Give the bot a spin yourself here!

The journey of our Monkey or Unicorn bot takes us through the web's simplest free chatbot building workflow:

Create a dialogue
Add content with widgets
Add triggers
Test your bot

View a quick video tutorial of the chatbot builder here:

Step 1: How to Create a Chatbot Dialogue

In the Bot Builder, go to Dialogues and then add a folder. Name your folder.

Folders help you organize your bot messages. This bot is the dandy host of the Monkey or Unicorn game, so we name it as such:

From within the folder, click on + Add Dialogue, and again, give it a name that tells you what it is. In this case, the Dialogue is the first of multiple Dialogues, so we could name it "Game Intro" or something similar.

Step 2: Add Content with Widgets

Next, you'll be prompted to add your first chat widget to the Dialogue:

add content to your chatbot dialogue with chat widgets

MobileMonkey has a large selection of engaging chatbot widgets to choose from like:

Text
Video
Images
Image galleries
Messenger opt-in
Attachments and PDFs
Zapier Connections
GIFs
Forms
Email notifications
Navigation elements
Quick Questions

You can use any combination of chat widgets to create the content of the chatbot Dialogue.

Let's use a Quick Question to start off the game.

Click the widget you want to use, and in this case, type your question, pick from the Quick Question options: multiple choice, text field, and some other helpful contact info your bot can collect.

how to build a Facebook Messenger bot: Quick Question Chat Widget

One cool thing about chatbot conversion elements like Quick Questions, Forms, and Attribute tools is that these widgets collect data to your Messenger contacts customer profile.

Obviously, this is awesome for saving audience data like:

Ways to get in touch
How they heard about you
Their budget
Subscription status
Signups

A quick side note, multiple-choice options in Quick Question and Form widgets are awesome because:

They show up as interactive buttons in chat.
Buttons have minimal conversion friction.
Buttons can link to chat pages and website pages.
Buttons are so user friendly on mobile!

When you enter the multiple-choice selections, you have the option of connecting that selection to another chatbot Dialogue from a drop-down.

conversational dialogue with Facebook Messenger chatbot builder

Add a new Dialogue to your Folder. In this case, we added "Door 1."

From the drop-down, select the Dialogue you wish for your Messenger conversation to flow to. When you select the Dialogue, you'll see that conversation path appear in the chatbot builder.

In this game, I'm connecting each choice, or door, to a Dialogue that reveals the unicorn or monkey hiding behind the door.

With 5 doors to choose from, there are 5 multiple-choice options, each connected to a Dialogue with a monkey or a unicorn GIF from the Giphy-powered widget!

For Doors 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, click the GIF widget for the Dialogue. Then, start typing the word of whatever theme you're looking for, and click to add it to the Dialogue:

how to build a Facebook Messenger bot with GIFs Images Videos Text

You can add the text widget and more buttons that help keep the conversation going.

The "play again" button returns a player to the Game Intro chatbot page where they're given the option of Doors 1 to 5 again!

Another CTA (call-to-action) lets users sign up for chatbot goodness themselves.

At this point, the bot works!

You can do a Send to Messenger Facebook ads campaign, or get a link to the chatbot landing page using the HTML element lead magnet:

How to Build a Facebook Messenger Chatbot: get share link to chatbot dialogue

And you can set up the bot to trigger if a user says something…

Step 3: Add Triggers for the Page

Q&A Triggers are useful for assigning bots to your frequently asked questions.

If someone asks "directions" you can set up a bot that responds with the address and a link to a map.

If someone asks for "pricing" your bot answers back with pricing.

The FAQ answering possibilities are endless.

You can add Q&A triggers to your bot in two ways:

When you're in the page builder
From Q&A in the bot builder

To add a trigger as you're building the bot, select "Add Trigger" and type in the keyword:

You might add triggers like "pricing" or "directions" or "make an appointment" or any number of keywords to match your page to something a user is asking.

Another way add triggers to pages is by going to Q&A. Here you'll see all your saved triggers and can add to and edit them:

What you can do from here is:

Create a new trigger with "New Q&A".
Craft the bot's reply to the trigger, either a chat page or text. Add multiple answers to give the bot free reign to choose from any of the answers.
Add triggers you type in or choose from the drop-down that populates the most frequent unanswered questions.
See the most common unanswered questions and assign them to chatbots, if you'd like.

Step 4: Test the Bot

Before you launch, test the bot. You can do that by:

Triggering the bot in Messenger using your keyword.
Click "Test this Bot" from the chatbot content editor at any time!

When viewed in Messenger, we see what this content experience looks like on mobile:

how to build a Facebook Messenger chatbot

Check that all buttons work, look for broken connections or flow issues. If it's a conversion element, check that attributes are saved to your contact.

Now share and be merry!

By the way, did you get a monkey or unicorn?

Next Steps: Build a Facebook Messenger Bot

The best way to learn chatbot marketing is to do it! It's your turn to build a chatbot in under 5 minutes!

Here's one you'll need: use a Quick Question to build a bot that collects a visitor's email address.

After that, you'll be ready to start generating leads to your bot with lead magnets like comment guards, Messenger ads, and more.

What are Messenger ads? Glad you asked!

MobileMonkey has 8 powerful Facebook marketing lead magnets including Facebook Messenger ads that you can use right out of the box.

Join Today's Webinar with Larry Kim!

(Or Register for the Free Replay)

Learn all about NEW Tools from MobileMonkey to 10X Instagram Engagement with Messaging Automation.

How to Build a Facebook Messenger Bot: Next Steps

Important next steps:

Create your first chatbot today after you sign-up for MobileMonkey.
Talk and learn about chatbots with other enthusiasts. Join MobileMonkey Island, our Facebook group of 40K marketers and entrepreneurs who are ready to support you.
Advance your marketing performance with Chatbot University, a free chatbot tutorial and training area for chat marketers.