Create your Facebook ChatBot with ITSALIVE.IO
By: Benjamin Merritt
Tags: Bots, Facebook Messenger, Chatbots, How To, Messaging

ItsAlive.io is a free new tool that enables everyone to easily create Facebook ChatBot in minutes without any previous coding experience.

[Edit Sept 2018 : itsAlive 2.0 is now available]

Step 1 — Name your bot

This way, you can recognize and differentiate your bots, if you decide to create several ones. You’ll be the only one to see this, Your public bot will have your Facebook name Page.

You can also give a bot description. Think of it as “the purpose of your bot”. What does it do? Why does it exist? If you don’t write anything, your public-default description will be your Facebook Page’s description.

Step 2— Add as many recipes you want

Recipes are the core feature of ItsAlive ChatBot. It enables you to automatically respond when your users use specific keywords or phrases. You can add as many recipes as you want and switch them ON/OFF when it pleases you.

Keep in mind your bot isn’t here to answer everything. Just the most important and recurrent questions.

Entry keywords : If your user says…

You can add as many keywords as you want to detect. Add synonyms, languages, expressions, plurals, explicit mistakes…

All the keywords inside a “Group of keywords” use an OR condition.

If necessary, you can also add another “group of keywords” to have more precision. It adds an AND condition between the words, meaning you need the two keywords to trigger the answer. Ex : (Hello OR Hi) AND (John OR James OR Ben).

… then your bot answers

If you have only one answer it can contain up to 320 characters of plain text.

You can also display your answer as “cards” by adding an Image, a title and up to 3 buttons. But the more options you add, the less characters you can use. Check the character counter, if it’s red you need to change things shorter.

Buttons enable you to call another recipe you’ve made (just type the recipe name) or link to any external URL.

Buttons are the key to a good conversational bot. Try to have at least one in order to drive your users in the right direction.

Display several answers as Facebook cards (Optionnal)

You can add as many replies as you want.

Facebook allows you to reply with up to 10 answers at once by displaying them as cards (you can add more but only show 10 at a time).

Tip : Display only one card at a time in shuffle mode. Every time your users will call your recipe they’ll have a different answer.

WebSummitBot country menu displaying 10 cards

Step 3 — Mandatory settings & recipes

Every Facebook Chatbot must have 3 specific settings.

Welcome message :When your users hit the message button of your Facebook page or contact you via Facebook Messenger their first action is tapping the “Get Started” button.

The Welcome message is the first message your bot will send to your users. They will only see this message once: the first time they interact with your ChatBot.

Tip: Explain what your bot does and show your users the first keyword/action they can use, a button that point to your most popular feature, a “how does it work” or “help” will also be appreciated.

Awwwards Chatbot sends you every day the WOTD

Unanswered messages: Your Chatbot can’t understand everything people say and honestly he’s not supposed to. Here, you can write all the different ways to say “I don’t understand” and direct your users in the right direction.

Tips : Add several messages and select shuffle mode so your users won’t be disappointed by seeing the same “I don’t understand” message every time.

Add buttons that point your users in the right direction, for example: a “help” button that suggests keywords to your users, a “menu” button that shows all the things your bot can do.

Persistent Menu : This is a little menu that is always available to users (at the bottom left in the picture). They’ll find it directly within the app where they usually type a message. This menu should contain top-level actions.

Tip : You can add up to 4 buttons, some of which should be : your most popular recipe, a “Help” button or a “Contact” button.

Step 4— Link your bot to Facebook

Once you’ve added at least one recipe you can either test your chatbot in Messenger or Link your bot to your Facebook Page.

Test your Chatbot within Messenger and share your friends

You can test your Chatbot directly within Facebook Messenger with our official bot tester.

Just send your “test:code” to our official bot tester : m.me/itsalivetestbot and you’ll have a direct access to your chatbot.

This is a great way to share it with your friends before making your bot live on your Official Facebook Page.

Link your Facebook ChatBot to your Facebook page

When you feel ready, link your ChatBot to your Facebook page by tapping the “Login with Facebook” button.

You’ll then have a list of all the Facebook Pages where you are the admin. Tap the “Link to my bot”

And… IT’S ALIVE !! Your bot is now living within your Facebook Page.

Check out the last bot created with It’s Alive

Web Summit Bot : Discover all the great Startups at WebSummit16 by industry and country

Bon Entendeur : The official ChatBot of Bon Entendeur, subscribe to their mixtapes or ask for music depending on your mood.

FastForwardNews : Every Morning, the news your shouldn’t have been missing.

Awwwards WOTD : The Website Of the Day winner, everyday in your Messenger.

We are looking for Feedback, please let us know what you think and share with us features you need with itsalive.io