The messaging market is massive and it's still growing. When the trends shifted, apps are also changing with them. As new types of monetization are created, marketers are even more capable to reach their audience where ever they are, with a more private approach.
Mobile messaging market have hundreds of millions of monthly active users (MAU), thanks to the falling data prices, and increasingly cheaper devices and improved features. And here, Kik, the popular among young Americans chat app, has a vision where it sees the future of mobile.
Kik is doing well already. But as it aims to improve, it's launching its own bot store, joining some other messaging apps already in the business like LINE, WeChat and others.
As an U.S.-based messaging app, Kik's move is ahead of Facebook which has Messenger sitting on top of the food chain. This is seen as an advantage because bots are becoming more effective in getting users to interact with the app and the brands their representing, more than just having the app to stand only as a messaging app with emojis or endless list of stickers.
"This is the first time we're putting a stake in the ground and creating a specific experience with bots front and center," said Kik's CEO and founder Ted Livingston.
What these bots do, is to deploy automated tasks (chats) and replies. At first, Kik is launching 16 bots from companies already using the chat app to engage their users, such as Funny Or Die, Sephora, and The Weather Channel.
As an example, at its launch, there's a bot that inserts relevant Vine videos into chats at users' request, similar to Giphy's Slack integration, Riffsy (which also powers Twitter's GIFs) has a bot for Kik to provide GIF within Kik on request.
Live chat is another example. It's one of the most valuable tools a brand or retailer can use.
Previously, the company has offered only selected brands the ability to use bots since 2014, but the April 5th, 2016 announcement means that it's opening the doors for any developers and businesses to build and use their own bots on the platform.
"Messengers are the new browsers and bots are the new websites," said Kik's Head of Mobile Development Michael Roberts.
Although Kik is not the first to implement bots in its platform, Kik's young demographic is putting it in a strong position. Younger generations tend to interact with messaging apps, and bots, a lot more than anyone else. This is seen when seeing the Kik's numbers: out of the company's 275 million registered users, roughly 70 percent of users are aged between 13 and 24, with about 40 percent of all U.S. teens using the app. On average, they're spending about 97 minutes using the app per week .
Until now, Kik's chat bots are largely focusing on news contents and publishers. By making developers and businesses in using their own bots, Kik is able to branch out to more places, including e-commerce.
And with Kik now opening its doors, it's hoping that developers will build more chat bots. Roberts explained the ease of process for new developers building chat bots. Kik is detailing the ways on the company's developer's page. And if a brand wants to help in building a bot, Kik can connect them with bot specialists.
The Bot Shop as the company calls it, is a bit like the usual app store we have, but only for chat bots. Kik will still approve each bot before it appears in the store.
To access the Bot Shop in Kik's app, users need to tap on the search magnifying glass, then "Find People." Users can also visit it by going to bots.kik.com on the web.
Chat Bots, The Next Focus For Interaction
Chat bots are great in assisting users with things, and this however has become a new trend in private messaging.
Kik's move is clearly showing the future path for messaging apps: they have evolved from a simple means of communication between friends and families, to become a fully-functional ecosystem that also serves as a marketplace.
Using bots for engagement is already popular in Asian countries. Providing live chat during shopping for example, provides a similar in-store experience to offline shopping but with more ease. Bots also give retailers the chance to cross-sell items and good, increasing their order value.
WeChat in China, KakaoTalk in South Korea, and LINE in Japan function as the platforms for all kinds of engagement between users and retailers.
"Look at what's happening in China. I walk up to a vending machine and I chat to get a coke or I walk up to a restaurant and I chat to order a burger. It's such a natural experience that unlocks so many daily behaviors which are totally offline today," said CEO Ted Livingston. "People are going to overestimate how quickly this will happen, but then underestimate the impact it will have once it does."
His vision is to push bots as the future instead of apps. He went so far as to describe a possible future scenario where a Kik user at a Blue Jays game could scan a code through a chat app, order drinks and food from their seat and pay online by bot, instead of downloading another, separate app specific to a stadium or sporting arena.
All this is possible because they are all opening their applications' APIs to retailers. With the chance to create their own bots, brands can have their own pages with different functions within the app. This will increase mobile engagement by making them available on the app that is already being used by millions of users.
If more chat apps are using bots to help brands, retailers and other businesses to conduct transaction, others that don't have these bots will probably be left behind. Given by the explosion in the popularity of bots, companies have the ability to shine more lights in a more meaningful way: in-person communication, anytime and anywhere.
Bots aren't getting this much popularity because of its effectiveness or advancements; it's the way that people increasingly use chat apps for their communication that matters. This is the reason why bots are having a bigger role as an efficient and powerful way for companies to engage and entertain their audience.
