Facebook is piecing together the business side
of WhatsApp in much the same way it did with Messenger.
In September, WhatsApp announced verified
profiles for businesses to establish their presence on the messaging service
that Facebook bought for $19 billion in 2014. Now, Facebook is giving
businesses a way to kick-start conversations with customers on WhatsApp.
Businesses can now add buttons to their ads
running on Facebook that link to their WhatsApp accounts, Facebook announced on
Wednesday. These buttons are effectively the WhatsApp-specific alternative to
the Messenger-linked buttons that Facebook introduced last year and expanded to
Instagram earlier this year.
“Many people already use WhatsApp to communicate
with small businesses. It’s a fast, convenient way to stay in touch. By adding
a click-to-WhatsApp button to Facebook ads, businesses can now make it even
easier for people to learn about their products, set up an appointment or use
their service,” said Facebook’s product marketing manager, Pancham Gajjar, in
an emailed statement.
The WhatsApp-enabled ads will only be shown to
people on Facebook who have WhatsApp installed on their phones. They will
resemble a standard News Feed ad but include a “Send Message” button that
features WhatsApp’s logo. Hitting the button will open WhatsApp to a
preformatted message designed by the business for a person to send to the
business. People will be able to edit the message’s text before sending it, and
the message will be delivered with an image of the initial Facebook ad so that
the brand can identify which ad is responsible for the incoming message.
By leveraging ads in Facebook’s news
feed, Facebook hopes to raise people’s level of awareness of and engagement
with businesses on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is said to appeal to a more international
audience of people who reside in areas where communicating with businesses
through the same service they use to chat with their friends is a more
established practice. Now that WhatsApp has opened to businesses, it’s time to
make its users aware that it is open for business.
Peterson, T. (2017, December
13). Facebook ads can now link to brands’ WhatsApp accounts. Retrieved
from Marketing Land:
https://marketingland.com/facebook-ads-can-now-link-brands-whatsapp-accounts-230156
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