What's a chatbot for Telegram, and how can you create one?

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What's a chatbot for Telegram?

A Telegram chatbot is an application that runs on the Telegram messaging platform. It's set up to interact with users and automate specific tasks or provide information automatically when prompted.

Users can interact with these bots by sending commands or messages, and the bots respond accordingly. You can either use Telegram's own bot builder, the BotFather or the API to create bots.

Why are chatbots on Telegram so popular?

Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram is an open-source platform that supports the integration of third-party bots (similar to Discord). As a result, anybody who has fun building chatbots, can add a bot to the platform. This has led to a plethora of Telegram bots that can help users with a variety of tasks.

These range from getting automatic updates about cheap flights to checking your Gmail to translating messages in a chat. This makes it both easy and fun for people to use and engage with the bots, which has made Telegram chatbots so popular.

How to use a Telegram chatbot

The easiest way to use a Telegram bot is to search for an existing one on the platform, and activate it. You'll find game bots that you can use to play games with friends on Telegram, translation tools, and many more.

The best way to use a Telegram bot is to simply check out the ones you like, and try them out! If you don't know what bots even exist on Telegram, check out our overview of the coolest bots on Telegram right now.

Create and add a chatbot to Telegram

Every bot has a unique name. You can add an existing bot on Telegram by searching for its name, and then clicking on it. You'll then get an explanation of what the bot can do, and you can deploy it.

If you want to create a Telegram chatbot, the BotFather is actually the perfect starting point, as it's a chatbot designed to create other bots. Following the prompt /newbot, you can use this bot to help you design new ones. The BotFather guides you through the initial process.

Once you've set up your bot with a handle and a username, you can find some helpful commands under /help, and Telegram also offers tutorials, but it does take some developer skills to actually create a working bot.

If you're more advanced, you can also use Telegram's API to create a bot from scratch. This requires programming knowledge, but also gives you more freedom and options for designing exactly the bot you want.

How to add a Telegram chatbot to a group

Bots can be a great way to make your Telegram group more fun and engaging. And, if you have a very active group that requires moderators, bots can also take over some of the tedious admin tasks, such as recognizing offensive content.

As with the bots for your own use, for groups you can also either build your own bot through the API or use a bot builder tool like the BotFather.

For adding the bot, open your Telegram group and go to "members", and then select "add member", as if you were going to add a new member. Now, use the search function to look for the name of the bot you want to add. Once it shows up on the list, you can go ahead and add the bot to your group.

It might take a bit until Telegram has updated the group and added the bot. You and your members can then interact with the bot by tagging it (type "@" and then the name of the bot). Depending on the type of bot you added, you can now play games, ask it questions, or use the commands that are set up for other features.

For example, if you add a poll bot, you can start a new poll, see results, and end a poll by following the bot's menu prompts. Let's say you want to start a new poll, then you activate the bot first by typing "@PollBot" in the chat, and then selecting the command "/newpoll@PollBot". And if you want to see the results of a poll, you just type "@PollBot" and then "/results@PollBot", and can then see and also share the results with the group.

Examples of useful chatbots on Telegram

The following examples give you a good first impression of the full potential of Telegram bots, from fun to fancy, from beginner to business.

DropMail.me (@DropMailBot): disposable e-mail addresses

The DropMail bot is perfect if you need to provide an e-mail address, but don't want to share your private mail in order to avoid spam. The DropMail bot then sends you disposable email addresses that can are automatically deleted ten minutes after they're used.

Free ChatGPT chatbot for Telegram

Of course there's a way to add a ChatGPT bot to Telegram as well. Actually, there's several GPT bots on Telegram, such as the Plasma GPT AI bot or the ChatGPT & Midjourney bot that'll allow you to generate text and images on Telegram. These are some of the features the GPT tools offer:

generate information about an image
summing up content of a website or video
voice conversations

Keep in mind that more advanced features require the paid ChatGPT version.

For media publications, it's crucial to reach readers with the most important news as soon as possible. Especially with fast developing news, such as the war in Ukraine, doing this via e-mail isn't ideal.

First, sending out more than one e-mail per day, can be perceived as spam. Second, people don't check their e-mails that often, so you might not even be able to reach them with the news as they're happening. And third, in critical situations, people sometimes only have access to a few apps on their phone.

As a publisher, you also get the readers' full attention and can get news to them faster, especially when adding a bot.That's why, during the first months of the Ukraine war, The Washington Post used a Telegram chatbot to send out newsletters to their interested readers. Whenever there was a new development, The Post sent out an update. The bot handled the sign-up, and opt-in consent, and then automatically deployed the news stories.

Especially in the case of media companies where you'll be sending out a lot of push messages, the free Telegram bulk messages are more cost-efficient than, for example, the WhatsApp push notifications.

HolidayPirates UK: Vacation deals bot

Another interesting use of a Telegram bot in combination with marketing messages is the HolidayPirates' deal newsletter. If you're interested in receiving regular updates about travel discounts, you can just subscribe to these alerts.

In a first step, the bot asks you if you want to join the channel, and after your explicit consent, you get regular deals sent to your Telegram.

🔥Tip: With a professional messaging tool, you can create very specific target groups for these automated messaging campaigns. This helps you to send out more targeted deals, and increases the conversion rate.

Can you use a Telegram chatbot for your business?

If you're considering using a Telegram bot for your business, it's certainly possible to work with the BotFather or other bot building tools, and of course the API. However, this still requires you to have a good grasp on how to develop a bot, and there can be also concerns over security and data privacy.

Because Telegram doesn't offer a designated business version of its app like WhatsApp, we don't recommend just using the regular app. Unless you have IT and legal departments for support, you might run into technical and legal issues. Plus, without IT expertise, you won't be able to easily integrate payment solutions or your CRM systems that you probably want in combination with the bot.

For a scalable business solution that doesn't require a lot of resources, we therefore suggest using professional messaging platforms that offer specific Telegram features for companies. With Sinch Engage, for example, you get access to a professional business software that gives you easy and secure access to the most important messaging apps, including Telegram.

You can activate whichever messaging app you want to use for your business, simply by selecting a channel.