Over the years, Facebook Messenger has evolved from a piece of the social network into a standalone commercial platform. This of course is a result of how the company has been pushing Messenger over the past few years (including forcing Facebook users to download the app to read messages). Last year, it was pretty much at the centre of Facebook F8 conference and wasn’t much outside the frame this year as well.

Over the past year or so, the focus has been not only to evolve Messenger as a social tool but also as a tool useful for businesses. Last year FB opened up the Messenger platform to allow chat bots into the app and many travel brands quickly jumped in with their ideas. Along with this, a Bot Engine was also announced to make those chat bots more useful. This year, Facebook is moving up to its Messenger Platform 2.0.

With the new platform, Facebook turns its focus on improving discovery. With the increasing number of chat bots on Messenger, Facebook is looking to put the right kind of bots in front of right kind of people. This will start with a new Discover tab which will list relevant bots. Taking another step in the same direction, Facebook is revising Messenger Codes. They are now easier to use and businesses can place them anywhere so that more users engage with their bot.

Adding a feature that would remind you of Allo, bots can now be accessed in conversations between people. Kayak and Uber are already jumping on this development to explore the feature. They have also introduced Smart Replies, an improved version of auto respond, to offer some useful information instead of a single preset message.

Facebook clearly wants to see Messenger in more places than it is right now. As more businesses and users find value in Messenger, it will also open up a potential advertising channel for Facebook.

The post Facebook Messenger continues to gain relevance for brands appeared first on TravHQ.

Flight metasearch engine Skyscanner has always been quick to adopt new trends, be it is a new marketing channel or a new technology. Earlier Skyscanner had made headlines with their innovative 24 hour Periscope campaign when Periscope was relatively new and gaining traction among users. Now, only a few weeks after Facebook opened up the Messenger platform for third party developers, Skyscanner has introduced a chat bot which allows travellers to look up and book flights with ease without having to search through the website.

As of now, the bot only offers flight search services although Skyscanner’s app offerings also include hotel search and car rentals. The bot is available in English only for now and the currencies are limited depending on the language (English US or UK).

The bot would ask you to provide your destination, source and dates of travel, essentially the data you would enter while searching for your flight on their website, without visiting the website or downloading the app. The bot also carries the ‘search everywhere’ feature from the Skyscanner website, so it will also recommend destinations depending on your source airport.

The bot is quick to respond to queries however, you have to keep them simple. Precise responses which are the direct answers to the bot’s questions will take you to your desired flight results but the bot isn’t able to process detailed inputs very well. For instance, when we adhered to the one or two word inputs, the bot offered the desired search results but as soon as we tried using a complicated phrase, including the source, destination and travel date, the responses weren’t as expected. The bot follows a hierarchy and you have to adhere to that for now.

Complicated phrases aren’t handled very well at this point

This could be because it is still a very young product and the functionality is limited at this point. Judging by how Skyscanner has previously embraced technology, we can safely assume that we will see lot more features being added to this Messenger bot. Skyscanner also offers hotels and car rentals and they might also offer these through the chat bot in near future.

Chat bots are being seen as the next big thing in travel industry, a fact that Skyscanner highlighted in their blog post. The recently introduced bot will not only open up a new sales channel for the brand but also help them position themselves as a tech savvy brand which is ready to adapt quickly to serve the customers better.

Apps were the hottest topic of conversation in the tech industry until a few years back but over time, the average number of apps an individual uses didn’t rise considerably. According to the data shared by Lee McCabe, Global Head of Travel, Facebook during Phocuswright India, the average time spent by users per month on apps increased significantly from around 23 hours to 37 hours from 2012 to 2014 but the average number of apps used continued to be almost the same. Most of the time is spent between a handful of apps, primarily social media apps and messaging services and that is where the brands want to be visible. With 900 million monthly active users on Messenger, it offers wide reach and unlike an app, a bot is available for use immediately without the time or storage requirement.

The Skyscanner bot is easily accessible through their Facebook account. You can head to m.me/skyscanner to take the bot for a spin.

Also read: Should travel brands start exploring chat bots immediately

The post How good is Skyscanner’s Facebook Messenger chat bot? appeared first on TravHQ.

Lee McCabe, Global Head of Travel at Facebook recently took the stage at Phocuswright India and talked about how smartphones are driving the digital revolution. The focal point of his keynote was how media consumption is changing and what businesses need to keep in mind to cater to mobile first consumers. Here are some key highlights:

Lee McCabe, Global Head of Travel, Facebook at Phocuswright India

Social isn’t just about the numbers

He highlighted the fact that some companies are still caught up in the race for likes and comments. It is time they accept that Facebook is a media platform with a huge audience that they can leverage to grow their brand. It is no longer about fan count and likes and it could be a game changer once these companies get that.

Mobile is a consumer behaviour

Smartphone have been adopted so widely that they have become a part of the consumer behaviour. People are spending their time across multiple devices and around 40 percent of the users use more than 3 devices. 60 percent of the users use their mobile devices as their primary source of internet access which means that brands strongly need to tailor the experience for mobile first users if they haven’t already.

New formats will grow rapidly

We have moved from text to images to videos and going forward, new formats like 360 videos and VR will gain traction. Each one of them offers a better experience than the one it follows. As consumers choose these new formats, brands should also adopt the new formats to connect with their audience.

Media consumption is stacking

Media consumption isn’t exactly shifting from one device to other but is stacking up between multiple devices. People often consume media from multiple screens at the same time. However there is a steep decline in the use of conventional media consumption channels like TV among the millennials.

Messaging platforms have huge potential

He shared that Facebook is bullish on Messenger because such platforms will be the game changer in travel industry. Messenger was very effective in connecting people to people and they observed that it can be just as effective in connecting businesses to people. Young people are ditching email and are prioritising messaging apps which makes them more promising.

Brands still need to ramp up mobile

Even after so much buzz about mobile, a large number of travel brands aren’t focussing their efforts on mobile. Going by the data shared during the keynote, last year out of the total $44 billion spent by travel brands in marketing, $8.2 billion was on digital out of which only $2.4 billion went towards mobile. This indicates that digital marketing and specially mobile is still untapped and offers plenty of headroom for growth.

The number of apps in use isn’t increasing

This usage pattern has been highlighted many time by various experts. Almost every other brand is trying to push an app into the mobile phone of consumer. However, even when the number of installed apps is increasing on the device of consumer, the average number of apps that are used continues to be almost the same. People are spending longer on apps but not on higher number of apps. According to the data Lee shared, the average time spent by users per month on apps increased significantly from around 23 hours to 37 hours but the average number of apps used continued to be similar.

We will be sharing more stories from Phocuswright India in the coming week. You can check them here.

The post Key highlights from the keynote of Facebook’s Lee McCabe at Phocuswright India appeared first on TravHQ.