Meta is planning to make a major switch up with its business messaging after announcing its recurring notifications.
The innovative platform approach was unveiled at the ‘Conversations’ which was a messaging conference where the new functionality was put in the spotlight. The main aim was described to be related to users sending out automated texts that would help serve as a proactive mode of communication. But it would solely be related to those that have actually ticked off the feature from the list and hence would now be liable to getting them.
Hence, businesses can now send messages through the WhatsApp platform that will appear as recurring notifications. The exact frequency can be customized to preference too.
As far as the types of notifications are concerned, users will be allowed to select between sales, newsletters, or any other update that they would like others to be informed about. Moreover, the subscriptions can be selected to be received on a daily basis or per month.
This way, businesses will have the feasibility to reach out at any given point in time. But let’s not forget, that this is actually the opposite of how we’ve seen tech giant Meta run its policies on messaging platforms.
We’ve always seen a number of limitations being put on a business in terms of the frequency with which they can text their users, including those that have opted into the procedure.
As recently unveiled by Hootsuite, businesses could only be allowed to engage with a user after they got a message first. After that is received, you were provided with a 24 hours time frame to reply, and only after that, does Facebook allow firms to send out one text.
However, after March of 2020, that functionality was eliminated. And that meant the only way to reach out was most probably through a sponsored text. But again, the ads would only be restricted to conversations that already exist.
That is the same thing mentioned in Meta and Instagram’s policy.
See, the whole point was to prevent brands from serving as a constant nuisance to their customers because let’s face it, no one likes to be bothered all of the time. Moreover, you’re unlikely to even open up texts if you’re not interested.
In other words, the whole point was to put a halt to firms who felt like it was fine to overuse the messaging app and end up spamming notifications on the platform via their promotional activity.
But now, it seems that Meta is no longer worried about things like that. Instead, they’re keen on seeing brands flourish with their marketing skills by giving users the chance to select the frequency that they’d like to see such notifications pop up on their screen.
In case you’re wondering why Meta is so keen on even putting the effort in the first place, well, the answer is pretty straightforward. It’s all about money.
Remember, these recurring notifications are a premium feature that they soon plan on charging users for but as expected, it’s on a free-of-cost trial period at the moment.
They hope to see the results of their experiment and take users’ feedback into consideration. And in the end, that would serve as their guide for pricing strategies.
Meta is clearly in the search of monetizing tools that help to further fund its platform and this seems to be another one of its gimmicks.
For now, it’s still not clear how much they would end up charging and when actually the pricing model would be released. Hence, we’ll just need to keep an eye out for that.
In the meantime, we’ll just witness users getting the feel of it and before you know it, they’ll be developing a reliance on it too.
Read next: Meta To Provide Free And Secure Cloud Hosting For Businesses With The Launch Of Its Cloud API
The innovative platform approach was unveiled at the ‘Conversations’ which was a messaging conference where the new functionality was put in the spotlight. The main aim was described to be related to users sending out automated texts that would help serve as a proactive mode of communication. But it would solely be related to those that have actually ticked off the feature from the list and hence would now be liable to getting them.
Hence, businesses can now send messages through the WhatsApp platform that will appear as recurring notifications. The exact frequency can be customized to preference too.
As far as the types of notifications are concerned, users will be allowed to select between sales, newsletters, or any other update that they would like others to be informed about. Moreover, the subscriptions can be selected to be received on a daily basis or per month.
This way, businesses will have the feasibility to reach out at any given point in time. But let’s not forget, that this is actually the opposite of how we’ve seen tech giant Meta run its policies on messaging platforms.
We’ve always seen a number of limitations being put on a business in terms of the frequency with which they can text their users, including those that have opted into the procedure.
As recently unveiled by Hootsuite, businesses could only be allowed to engage with a user after they got a message first. After that is received, you were provided with a 24 hours time frame to reply, and only after that, does Facebook allow firms to send out one text.
However, after March of 2020, that functionality was eliminated. And that meant the only way to reach out was most probably through a sponsored text. But again, the ads would only be restricted to conversations that already exist.
That is the same thing mentioned in Meta and Instagram’s policy.
See, the whole point was to prevent brands from serving as a constant nuisance to their customers because let’s face it, no one likes to be bothered all of the time. Moreover, you’re unlikely to even open up texts if you’re not interested.
In other words, the whole point was to put a halt to firms who felt like it was fine to overuse the messaging app and end up spamming notifications on the platform via their promotional activity.
But now, it seems that Meta is no longer worried about things like that. Instead, they’re keen on seeing brands flourish with their marketing skills by giving users the chance to select the frequency that they’d like to see such notifications pop up on their screen.
In case you’re wondering why Meta is so keen on even putting the effort in the first place, well, the answer is pretty straightforward. It’s all about money.
Remember, these recurring notifications are a premium feature that they soon plan on charging users for but as expected, it’s on a free-of-cost trial period at the moment.
They hope to see the results of their experiment and take users’ feedback into consideration. And in the end, that would serve as their guide for pricing strategies.
Meta is clearly in the search of monetizing tools that help to further fund its platform and this seems to be another one of its gimmicks.
For now, it’s still not clear how much they would end up charging and when actually the pricing model would be released. Hence, we’ll just need to keep an eye out for that.
In the meantime, we’ll just witness users getting the feel of it and before you know it, they’ll be developing a reliance on it too.
Read next: Meta To Provide Free And Secure Cloud Hosting For Businesses With The Launch Of Its Cloud API
