What Happened
Kik added a new feature for its chatbots on Friday that allows users to invite their friends to try them out. The Canada-based messaging app launched its Bot Shop in April and has since accumulated over 70 available bots from various brands, publishers, and game-makers. The first bot to receive this invite feature is a game called Zombie Invasion, and Kik says it is working with other bot developers to widely roll out this feature.
Why Brands Should Care
This invite feature should be a handy tool for brands to spread the words about their Kik bots and we expect other messaging platforms to come out with similar features for their bots soon. Early adopting brands such as H&M and Yahoo have launched branded bots on Kik to reach users, and more should take advantage of this new feature to aid chatbot discovery. With eMarketer predicting that messaging apps will reach 80% of global smartphone users by 2018, brands would be smart to start experimenting with branded chat bots to reach customers on popular messaging apps.
To learn more about how brands can use chat bots to better serve customers via messaging apps, check out our Medium post on this topic.
Source: AdWeek
Header image courtesy of Kik’s official blog
