April - June 2017 •
The Lion King
• 51
FEATURE
The chatbots are coming
What do we get when brands realize
that most of the time we spend
online is spent on social networks
or in messaging apps? This piece of
insight, married with advancements
in Artificial Intelligence, has given birth
to a new way of hacking customer
experience: chatbots.
The logic of the chatbot is the moral
of a popular parable: if the mountain
will not come to meet Mohammed,
then Mohammed will go to meet the
mountain. Rather than pursue a largely
futile struggle against usage patterns
of what is in essence the customer
base of many services today, perhaps
it makes sense to instead develop
solutions that exploit these patterns.
Why create standalone apps when
you can simply integrate chatbots into
the platforms people already spend
their time on? Why? Already, millenials
generally tend to prefer self-service
over phone calls to resolve customer
service problems.
Chatbots can fulfil the mostly
routinized components of customer
engagement. Their intelligence
allows them handle routine customer
transactions
and
requests
in
conversation form, and you never
have to leave, say, the Facebook
Messenger on which you’re having a
very “lit” conversation with a friend.
Messaging platforms have realised this
potential of the chatbot and have
begun to launch APIs. Facebook
Messenger launched its API in April
2016. Skype and Twitter have also
jumped in the boat. When WhatsApp
inevitably comes aboard, expect
the chatbot to become mainstream
quickly.
Social Commerce
Themountain is still where themountain
is – which is fine. So, why not take the
market to the mountain? With social
media, brands can reach consumers
easier. Already, instant purchases are
available on Instagram. What remains
now is to improve upon the speed of
fulfilment, which will certainly happen.
Also, social media exerts a great deal
of influence on consumers majorly
because it’s like word of mouth raised
to the power of hundred. Knowing
this, brands are focused on engaging
consumers at an emotional level. It’s
that kind of connection that converts
consumers into crusaders.
Cutting out the fat between clicking
“buy” and receiving “order complete”
will continue to evolve. Throughout
the year, expect retailers to find
faster ways to make sales and limit
purchasing decisions.
Vanishing Content
Should content, like diamonds,
be forever? No. Not if you’re the
world’s biggest personalized content
platforms. Not if you’re trying to keep
things fresh.
With very limited time to view images
or videos that take hours to end, users
started to look out for better options
to share experiences. This is where
Snapchat initially stole the hearts of
billions of users. Instagram soon hipped
to the game. And from Instagram
it was a short hop to WhatsApp. In
the first quarter of 2017, WhatsApp
channelled its inner Snapchat and
launched its multimedia “Status”.
Where the status used to be some
cheesy text, users can now upload
images and videos (that stretch as
long as 45 seconds) that have a
24-hour shelf-life. Stories provide great
insights into personal experiences. It
narrows down to the very fact that –
we adore brief content.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Seeing AR on the list is likely no surprise.
It's already happening. That’s what
they call all the flowers sprouting from
the heads of people these days. The
Snapchat selfie popularised AR but
AR has been around in one form or
the other since the days of warp.
Pokémon Go (arguably a social
media app) turned it into a sensation.
In terms of video, if you follow the
right accounts on Snapchat, Twitter
and Instagram, you can already see
this trend spreading in a different
way, especially as a tool for comic
skits. So you can’t expect the other
social platforms to not jump on the
bandwagon in 2017. The use will
spread, as more social networks offer
them the tools to do so. Facebook, for
instance, has acquired Masquerade,
a live filter and selfie app.
Converged Social
Expect more social media acquisitions
in 2017. The race for the soul, body
and mind of the world is ‘hotting’
up and no quarters will be given.
Facebook has already acquired
Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus Rift,
Faciometrics, Infiniled, and several
other businesses in last few years.
Twitter acquired Periscope. Microsoft
acquired LinkedIn for a whopping
$26.2 billion. Expect that to continue
as startups look to cash out and go big
and the big players strive to broaden
their horizons.
In other news
It seems to be all about personalized
content with live video content
becoming even bigger with tons of
streaming platforms out there. A lot
of users out there nailing this strategy
across several use cases.
Theseare the top trends youmay come
across on your social media journey
this year. Get ready to experience the
newest innovations of social media
and make use of every enhanced
feature topromotea significant growth
in your engagement. Rather than
inundate users with straightforward
content, intelligent visual delight and
topics that speak to the consumer’s
interests and aspirations will still be
a crux of attracting, converting and
keeping content consumers.
Are you ready?
