How to create a chatbot on Telegram

In this guide, we will see how to create your Telegram bot- the first steps to do, how to create it from start, and examples of things you can do with a chatbot.

Social media has been inundated with robots lately. Simple programs that allow you to interact with other users as if it were just another person. These are especially useful for corporate accounts that have a huge flow of customer interaction. With bots, you can immediately serve all these users.

Telegram is an instant messaging program that, in addition to protecting our privacy, has excellent use of the various bots existing on this platform. Thanks to them, we can download music from YouTube or have a chatbot in our account.

Despite this, many users do not know what robots are and how they work, so in this article, we will explain what robots are, what they are for, and how to create a chatbot for Telegram without programs. 

How to create a chatbot on Telegram

To say that the “world” of Telegram Bot is very vast. That’s why we decided to divide it into two parts. The first will be a tutorial in which we will explain how to create and run it.

Now we will explain step by step how to create a Bot. Using a BotFather we will have to create our bot.

1. The first thing you need to do is open Telegram and write “@BotFather”.
2. In response, you will receive a list of commands to manage bots.
3. Choose or type the command/newbot and send it.
4. Then the bot itself will ask you for the desired name for your bot. Importantly, it must end in Bot. Example- EalBot or Eal_Bot.
5. If everything is correct, it will verify the creation of your Bot.
6. Now it’s your turn to configure your bot’s privacy. We write “/ setprivacy”.
7. Bot created and ready to be customized.

The bot has been created, but for the moment it will do nothing but it will provide you with a token with which you can program it and activate the various functions- then save the token and do not show it to anyone.

But the creation of a bot does not end here since BotFather also simplifies the configuration of some aspects. We can change the bot image, a description, and the commands it can understand. The / help command with BotFather describes in detail the commands it can receive. It may seem difficult to understand, so let’s describe them all.

/ newbot – Create a new bot, it will ask you for the name and create it.

/ token- provides you with the HTTP token for an API you want to do, for example.

/ revoke – Remove token access to your bot.

/ setname – Change the name of your bot

/ setdescription – Change the description of your bot, very useful to present it, and explain what it does

/ setabouttext – Change the information about your bot.

/ setuserpic – Change the profile picture of your bot.

/ setinline – Allows you to change permissions related to integrated bots, whether you understand them or not.

/ setinlinefeedback – Configure replies to messages with integrated bots.

/ setcommands – Change the commands with which you can interact with your bot

/ setjoingroups – Enable or disable the option to add the bot to groups

/ setprivacy – Privacy settings, if the bot can see all messages or only those that mention it

/ deletebot – Delete a bot.

/ Cancel – cancel the current operation with BotFather 

Everything is based on an exchange of messages between BotFather and you, in this way you can configure your bot. Once all this is done, it’s time to customize it and give it the shape you want. For this, Manybot.io is used, which through a cheaper interface shows you everything you can do.

ManyBot is a tool for Telegram, a bot in reality, which allows you to change the operation of the bot without the need to program anything. All through a pleasant and easy to use interface.

The first thing to do is to allow ManyBot to configure your Bot. For this, the message we receive from the BotFather with the HTTP token, we forward it to ManyBot and you’re done. Now we will have to go back to our bot and write “/ start” or “Start”.

One of the most interesting options is to be able to interact with the bot itself. To do this we will use the commands and their responses. With Manybot, setting it up is easy. Even if you have to be patient if we want to do many commands.

Let’s go back to the main menu, here we follow the following steps:

1. Click Custom commands
2. Select Create command (here we can also select one that we must already modify)
3. We write the command accompanied by a “/”.
4. We write the answer or choose between the two options it offers- Add a question and Enable random message mode (You can create
5. a poll or bot choose from a list of messages you post)
6. Click save
7. Let’s go to the BotFather and type / setcommands
8. We choose the bot that we want to modify the commands
9. we write the name of the command, without “/”, and a brief description in the format that requires “command – description”
10. Command created and ready for use

Once this is done, our bot will respond to the commands we tell it. You can test it by sending the command or adding it to a group. Remember that, depending on the privacy you have established, you will have to mention it first or not. 

Also with Manybot we can add an RSS feed to our bot. In this way, we can publish news, posts, articles, and updates automatically in each group in which it is added or by each person who has opened it. By following these steps you can have your bot with feeds.

1. You access the settings in Manybot
2. Click on Autoposting
3. Choose the source from which to publish, in our case we have chosen RSS Feed and we have inserted that of TechVaz.com.
4. Once submitted, click Submit and you’re done.

In this way, our bot will automatically publish what looks like new in the feed that we have inserted. A good way to keep your followers or a group informed.

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg when you consider that chatbots are an almost infinite source of options. But this is only the basic knowledge to take the first steps to create a bot.