Social media has arguably been a driving force behind the popularity of U.S. President Barack Obama in the past decade.
Now, the Obama administration has once again tapped into the power of the medium to "meet the public where they are" — all with the help of the very first Facebook Messenger bot for the White House.
The president is said to read 10 messages (from snail mail to email to phone calls) from citizens all over the world as part of his everyday routine, something he looks forward to because, "It ends up being a powerful motivator for me," he relates.
Those interested in getting in touch with the leader of the free world can simply slip him a note, provided it doesn't get buried under the mounds of other messages he receives.
Since August, when President Obama set a presidential first by replying in public to a citizen's Facebook message, he has received more than 1.5 million messages over the platform.
Open-Sourcing The White House Chatbot
"We are open-sourcing a Drupal module, complete with easy steps and boiler plate code," writes Jason Goldman, chief digital officer of the White House, in an official blog post. "This will enable Drupal 8 developers to quickly launch a Facebook Messenger bot."
Why is the Obama administration open-sourcing this technology? It aims to encourage other government agencies and developers to open more lines of communication to the public.
The initiative will allow them to "foster similar connections with their citizens — with significantly less upfront investment."
"This new White House module," Goldman adds, "will allow non-developers to create bot interactions (with customized language and workflows)."
Those who wish to tinker with the module can deploy the demo_fb_messenger_bot folder as a starting point and just use their custom workflow to modify the fb_messenger_bot.workflow service.
Goldman's team notes on GitHub that it would like to see someone from the community spiffy up the code. The module currently supports text, button and video messages, following Facebook's API for sending a message.
How To Send A Message To White House With The Facebook Messenger Chatbot
There are six simple steps that message senders need to follow: visit the official Facebook page of the White House, click "Message," then "Let's Go," type the message, supply contact information then send.
