Getting started with social messaging

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Quick Look: Admin Center > Channels > Messaging and social > Messaging

Customers with Zendesk Support plans can add public social messaging channels only. See Setting up your public Facebook channel and Setting up your X (formerly Twitter) channel.
This article is a high-level walkthrough of the steps administrators need to take to get started using social messaging with their Zendesk accounts.

The steps in this article are specific to integrating third-party social messaging channels. If you are setting up Zendesk's own messaging capability in a Web Widget or mobile SDK, see Getting started with messaging for web and mobile.

This article includes the following topics:

Add your social channels

Give agents access to social messaging conversations

Set up your workflows

Prepare your agents

Add your social channels

You can connect your Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) public accounts and a number of private social media accounts. Because you complete the tasks in the social channel's settings, each one has its own set of instructions.

Public channels:

Facebook: A popular messaging app that allows you to post public messages, such as Facebook Wall posts and comments. See Setting up your public Facebook channel.

X: A popular messaging app formerly known as Twitter that allows you to send public messages called tweets, as well as make public mentions, replies, and likes to tweets. See Setting up your X (formerly Twitter) channel.

Private channels:

WhatsApp: A popular chat and voice messaging app with more than 1.5 billion users in over 180 countries. See Adding WhatsApp channels to the Zendesk Agent Workspace.

WeChat: A popular, China-based mobile text and voice messaging communication service. See Adding WeChat channels to the Zendesk Agent Workspace.

LINE: An all-in-one communications app for text, voice and video calls, moments, photo sharing, and games. See Adding LINE channels to the Zendesk Agent Workspace.

Facebook Messenger: A popular American messaging app that lets you send private messages through Facebook. See Adding Facebook Messenger channels to the Zendesk Agent Workspace.

X Direct Message (DM): A popular American messaging app formerly known as Twitter DM that lets you send private messages through X (formerly Twitter). See Adding X (formerly Twitter) DM channels to the Zendesk Agent Workspace.

Instagram Direct: Instagram's private messaging service that allows you to communicate directly with other users. See Enabling and using Instagram Direct.

Apple Messages for Business: Apple's service that allows your organization to directly message with your customers using the Messages app. See Adding and configuring the Apple Messages for Business channel.

Enterprise accounts can set this up in a sandbox to test it out before making it public. See Adding social messaging to your sandbox.

Note: Zendesk does not currently offer in-product integrations for some popular social channels, such as TikTok and Telegram. If your preferred social channel is not listed above, check the Zendesk Marketplace for third-party apps that can help you with an integration.

Give agents access to social messaging conversations

After you add a social messaging channel, you need to give access to each agent who will participate in social messaging conversations. To do so, you assign each agent a Chat Agent role. See Giving agents access to messaging.

Set up your workflows

Once your channels are added, you can configure the settings that will help your agents manage incoming requests, and help admins keep track of how things are working.

Configure conversation routing. Define whether incoming conversations go to specific agents or are available to all, and set up your notifications.

Enable automatic responses. Use the auto-responder to let end users know you received their messages, without relying on unavailable agents.

Let customers know how to contact you. Adding a Message Us button to your website, mobile app, or help center allows customers to discover and connect to your social channel. Additionally, you can also add social media buttons to your emails.

Request feedback from your end users. Turn on satisfaction surveys to see how the customers rate the service they received.

Prepare your agents

All agent-side messaging happens in the Agent Workspace. These resources can help your agents get started with social messaging:

Take our free training course, designed for administrators who are new to social messaging at Zendesk.

Learn how agents work with social channels, including responding to messages, reassigning tickets, and creating new messages.

Use the notifications list. Agents can juggle multiple conversations with ease and grace, and without creating cranky customers.