In its most recent performance update, Meta noted that paid messaging will be a key opportunity for the company moving forward, particularly on WhatsApp, which, interestingly, is seeing big growth in North American usage.
That’s because social media interactions, overall, are changing. Where people used to share updates to their news feeds, in order to connect with as many people as possible, more people are now re-aligning their engagement to more enclosed message groups, a key trend which has seen both Facebook and Instagram look to re-focus the main feed on entertainment, as opposed to connection.
As Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained in August:
“Most people now use feeds to discover content and use messaging for deeper connections.”
In line with this, businesses also need to reconsider their approach, which may point to new opportunities for WhatsApp messaging within your process.
And to help with this, Meta has published a new overview of how to use WhatsApp for business.
The video covers all the key elements of utilizing the WhatsApp Business app, and how it can serve as a complimentary platform to your broader digital marketing process.
And again, that, increasingly, could become a more significant consideration over time.
As explained by Meta CFO David Wehner:
“We’re focused on bringing more utility to the WhatsApp platform through business messaging efforts. We know that consumers like to connect with businesses via messaging. We’ve seen that be a very good source of utility and value for consumers, and also it’s extremely valuable for businesses, and we’re building more tools to the WhatsApp Business platform to enable that.”
Again, Meta will be looking to evolve its business messaging tools over time, and with this in mind, along with the aforementioned changes in habitual sharing activity, now could be the best time to start exploring the potential opportunities of such within your strategy, and on WhatsApp specifically.
Worth noting, too, that Meta has also reported a significant increase in usage of its Click-to-WhatsApp ads of late (+80% YoY).
Could be worth considering in your process.
