Is WhatsApp the New Facebook?

Look Around… Everyone is ‘WhatsApping’. In my home, we have two WhatsApp lovers and I am not talking about my brother or sister. I am talking about my parents. They just love spending time on the WhatsApp. They are very enthusiastic people, they prefer typing to talking nowadays. Their phone is ringing all the time, even more than mine. They would just scout for the good messages to send them to my Uncles and Aunts. Sometimes, I think that they are going crazy or maybe I will soon. Now, I can relate to the frustration that they felt when I was a teenager and would not leave my phone for a second. Arghh...

I believe that the same can be seen in many houses. Two or three generations are using WhatsApp. In March 2016, active WhatsApp users crossed 1 Billion count. On an average, 28 minutes are spent on WhatsApp per day. The shocking fact continues, 30 billion messages are sent worldwide every day through WhatsApp.

What is it that makes WhatsApp so popular? One thing is for sure; one-to-one messaging provides an excellent opportunity to marketers. People can talk to each other or in groups without any interference. They have more control over the conversation. They can talk to the people who really matter to them, in place of announcing it to the whole world. The messaging is easy because we have mobile phones right in our pockets.

WhatsApp lovers are growing by the day. People prefer ‘WhatsApping’ to ‘Facebooking’ nowadays. They are still using Facebook, we are not saying that Facebook has lost its loyal users but WhatsApp is gaining users fast. While we will only talk about WhatsApp today, we really mean that messaging apps are the future of social media and WhatsApp is presently the King of the messaging apps.
WhatsApp Interactions

Let talk from marketer’s point of view. Growing WhatsApp following opens a gate for marketers to target their audiences better. There are three ways of using WhatsApp;

One-to-one messaging: Businesses can interact with their customers or potential leads by sending personalized messages. Many businesses are using this, e.g. Cab booking services, virtual wallets etc. When you have to contact their customer care, to complain or regarding any query, all you have to do is WhatsApp them. This is fast and convenient.

Group messaging: As the name suggests, if you know your target audiences and you do not have much time to approach them on a personal level, make a group and start sending messages to them at a time. This would not only help you deliver your message, your potential leads will interact with one another and that will contribute to the brand awareness.

Broadcasting: This is also convenient one like group messaging but different people of your lists will not know that the same message is sent to other people too. This is the thing that businesses need to exploit today. This is an excellent opportunity to deliver your message much like an advertisement.

Why is Facebook the Past?

Now, now… Why are we saying that Facebook has lived its days and it is no more the powerful outreaching platform that it used to be? Let us see some of the arguments in its favor.

Facebook is no more as interesting as it used to be a couple of years ago. The cool people, the trendsetters have moved on and many Facebook pages have become inactive.

With the overload of data, Facebook decides what needs to be shown to the audiences and what not. The kind of posts to which users showed interests are shown more often. Even if you are doing something creative every time, there are fewer chances that you make it to the newsfeed of your audiences. Getting organic traffic is nearly impossible. Facebook advertisements, however, are still powerful. They are more impactful than a TV ad.

Why should you use WhatsApp?

While email has been the most preferred means of communication but nothing beats the personal conversation. It helps to find the solution fast and brands can become more than a fancy name for its customers. Let us give you some more reasons for using WhatsApp.

It is free. You can contact with thousands of your customers for free. There is no set of rules either. Your message would be sent to people whom you want, ‘organic’ is at its peak. WhatsApp is not deciding which message to be sent or not.

People participate in messaging more enthusiastically. The push notifications have high performance and there are 70% chances that the message is opened, as a matter of fact; within minutes only.

While people are turning to private conversations and the idea of ‘announcing to the world’ is not as likable as it used to be; WhatsApp can connect you with your customers without invading their privacy.

Not many businesses are using WhatsApp today. The number is on the rise but if you hurry, you can still catch your audiences in an uncluttered environment and connect better.

If your outreach is influential and your product and services are world-class, WhatsApp opt-outs are negligible. The traffic and conversion metrics are the best; better than what you can get from the Facebook.

Only those people will add you to their lists who are genuinely interested in you. Thus, your target list would be more specific and qualitative. There are fewer chances of aiming at the wrong kind of audiences.

What are the challenges?

WhatsApp was not designed for marketers, the only intention was to connect people. It is a messaging platform and marketers have to go lengths to use it correctly. Let us see what challenges you can face while starting out on using WhatsApp.

WhatsApp means dedicated number. It is the biggest challenge of using WhatsApp as a marketing outreach strategy. Your WhatsApp cannot be accessed using another phone. With the introduction of WhatsApp desktop application, it can be accessed from computers at home or office too. Well, let us see how it turns out. It’s too soon to say anything.

User involvement is highly required. You have to convince your customers to add you to their contacts, then only the interaction is possible. This is a complicated task because it is very different from ‘liking’. You have to hold the user’s interest which is a tough cookie in this internet world of distractions.

It is not much of a challenge that can affect your decision of using WhatsApp. Only 256 people can be included in a broadcast list. If you have to target thousands of customers, you have to create multiple lists and then send the message. It requires some extra efforts to cover all of your audiences. For giant businesses, this may be inconvenient but doable, however.

The social monitoring of WhatsApp is hard. While many tools are available to measure the user-interaction on other social platforms, tools for WhatsApp are limited. As such manual monitoring is considered to be the best which requires time and manpower.

While sending the messages, sometimes the App crashes and the broadcast messages are not delivered to all intended people. As such you have to wait till all the messages of the first list are sent, to send the next batch.
A Ray of Hope

Messaging Apps really are the future. They are an excellent platform to showcase your content and interacting with audiences. If you know your small group of audiences who are interested in buying, you can serve them better.

We are not saying that WhatsApp is the best thing out there, it is growing, it is a teenager now. The organic data is still appreciated and targeting the right audiences is still possible but we do not know for how much time. When all the businesses would start using it and there would be content overload, developers would seize the opportunity to earn and then, nothing worth would come free. They also need to earn and when you will be connecting with your audiences better, it would be easy to spend some too.

As talking about today, WhatsApp is the new Facebook. Everyone is using it and they are happy. While it is proceeding on the path of Facebook, businesses should exploit it as much as possible now. Provide quality content to your audiences; show them the utility of your product. Make a path for them to reach to you. Steer clear of the ‘report spam’ and you are pretty much successful. Show some enthusiasm marketers.

Ting...ting... Oh, my phone rang.

No... that’s my Mom’s, a new WhatsApp!!