Facebook is planning major updates to their business website plugin, which helps customers communicate with businesses via Facebook Messenger, allowing it to be accessed by users who are not already logged in to the Facebook platform. This will help companies to greatly expand their customer reach. A redesign of the plugin is also said to help make conversions easier.
The Facebook Chat Plugin was initially rolled out in 2017, providing a way for businesses to better communicate with their website visitors and customers outside of Facebook. However, this feature was only made accessible to those logged into the Facebook platform.
There are a number of reasons as to why requiring users to login presented an issue to businesses utilising the plugin on their website:
- Those using a shared computer or device may not want to provide their login credentials.
- Users may not want to spend time logging into Facebook in order to talk with a business.
- Not everybody uses Facebook or owns an account.
Whatever a customer’s reasoning for being unable to log in to Facebook, or even not wanting to, this issue will no longer prevent users from contacting a business via the Facebook Messenger plugin.
Users will still be presented with the opportunity to log in to Facebook if they wish to do so, otherwise, a ‘continue as guest’ choice will be made available.
Businesses with a live Facebook page are able to install the Facebook Chat plugin to their website at no cost with just a few simple steps:
- From your business Facebook page, select ‘settings’ and click to ‘messaging’.
- Locate the ‘Add Messenger to your Website’ option, click ‘Get Started’.
- Personalise the plugin with a customisable greeting message, theme colour, and typical response time.
- Provide the website domain that you would like to add the Messenger plugin to.
- Facebook will generate a code that can then be added to your webpage.
To learn more about how you can be using social media features as a way to reach your audience, check out our social media advertising services and discover what our experts can do to help your business grow.