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Tag: whatsapp business

  • WhatsApp Business Sees Ten-Fold Growth

    WhatsApp Business Sees Ten-Fold Growth

    WhatsApp has reported it now has some 50 million users of its WhatsApp Business app.

    Facebook has been working to monetize WhatsApp to help offset the $19 billion it paid to acquire the messaging platform. It originally looked at offering ads in the app, a plan that was bitterly opposed by the WhatsApp founders. Facebook eventually shifted gears and decided to focus on business and finance as an alternative way to monetize the platform.

    WhatsApp Business is an example of these efforts, “providing tools to automate, sort and quickly respond to messages. It’s also intended to feel and work just like WhatsApp Messenger.”

    It seems the service is a big hit with small business, as some 50 million users have adopted the platform. Compared to numbers Facebook released a year ago, that represent a ten-fold increase.

    Rather than resting on its laurels, Facebook is adding additional features that will make WhatsApp Business even more appealing. One such feature is using QR codes to start a chat. By placing QR codes on products and packaging, it provides an easy way to encourage customers to reach out and start a chat for support, comments or sales.

    The company is also introducing catalog sharing via links. This will make it easier to share a link to a favorite catalog or individual item via WhatsApp, email, Facebook, Instagram and more.

    It looks like Facebook has discovered an excellent way to monetize WhatsApp, while keep the platform true to its original goals.

  • Whatsapp Will Start Running Ads in 2019, But How Will Advertisers Respond?

    Whatsapp Will Start Running Ads in 2019, But How Will Advertisers Respond?

    It’s been a long time coming, but ads will be making their way into WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging platform. Starting early next year, in-app ads will be placed in the Status feature, as confirmed during the 2018 third-quarter earnings call in October.

    The move to put advertisements on the private messaging app was among Facebook’s plans to make money on their $22 billion investment when it was acquired back in 2014. Compared to Instagram, an app which is also owned by the social networking behemoth, WhatsApp continued to be ad-free—but it seems not for long.

    Facebook pointed out that ads will only appear on WhatsApp Status, which is similar to Instagram’s Stories feature. Users can post images and videos that will only last for 24 hours until completely disappearing. Since it was launched in 2017, WhatsApp Status boasts 450 million daily users; more than the 400 million who use Instagram Stories every day.

    It’s not surprising that Facebook saw the potential of interspersing ads among user’s statuses. With this, advertisers can easily reach out to a larger base in marketing their products.  There are, however, caveats to this strategy because of WhatsApp’s real purpose.

    Unlike Instagram and Facebook, WhatsApp is primarily built for reliable, private communication between people who have a close relationship. It is not a platform made to discover entertainment and consume multimedia, so any form of breaching the purported privacy of end-to-end encryption through targeted ads might turn off some users.  

    Advertising experts agree with this, underscoring the need for tactful and relevant content on ads. What brands can do initially is to roll out test campaigns to better understand an unchartered, closed environment. Personalized content can be an ideal starting point for advertisers to engage with their customers, similar to conversing with a friend.

    Push advertising may not work in a highly private medium such as WhatsApp, unlike Snapchat or Instagram where meaningful, one-on-one interaction with brands is not necessary. Advertisers must find ways to slowly ease their ads in without interrupting personal conversations.

    Moreover, interactions of users and brands on WhatsApp are often restricted to customer service, and not lead generation. With the introduction of WhatsApp Business in January, small business owners can easily connect with their customers. It doesn’t, however, produce metrics to figure out what clicks with your target market, which is something advertisers have to consider as well.

    Despite the challenges of advertising on WhatsApp, many marketers remain interested in taking a risk with the app. Its uncluttered environment, compared to other social platforms, makes it enticing for smaller businesses to drum up awareness, and eventually engagement, on their brands.

    [Featured image via Pixabay]

  • As Predicted, Whatsapp Launches a New App for Business Users

    As Predicted, Whatsapp Launches a New App for Business Users

    In recent years, WhatsApp has been trying to monetize its more than 1.3 billion users by highlighting the messaging platform’s potential use in business. Last year, the Facebook-owned messaging app hinted that its thrust towards business users by introducing verified business accounts, which sparked speculations that the company was planning a business version of the app.

    It turns out that those speculations were correct after all. The company just officially launched the new WhatsApp Business app. However, the new business version of Whatsapp seems to be available only in select countries which include Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S. Meanwhile, the company promised that the new app will be available to the rest of the world in the coming weeks.

    WhatsApp Business app is packaged as the ideal communication tool for small businesses. As such, it contains the usual functions you may expect from a business app.

    For instance, business owners can create their business profiles that could increase their visibility. They can post on their profiles useful information such as the addresses of their physical stores, a link to their website, their email address as well as a description of their business.

    The new app also addresses the need for businesses to get in touch with their customers. With smart messaging tools, businesses can make quick replies which could be a pre-formatted response to frequently asked questions. According to the WhatsApp blog post, business owners can even send away messages to inform customers that staff is busy and can’t respond at the moment.

    In addition, a messaging statistics function is introduced as a way to measure which messaging strategy is working. For example, businesses can know how many of the intended recipients read the bulk messages they sent. The messaging app also functions on a desktop, which is a very convenient feature for handling multiple customers simultaneously.

    WhatsApp confirmed that the new app version will remain free for the long term. But of course, they are not discounting the possibility that they might introduce paid additional capabilities in the future.

    [Featured image via Pixabay]