Facebook Messenger for Business Introduces “Broadcast”

A new way to communicate with customers

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Published: December 19, 2017

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

Have you ever wished for a way that you could send messages to multiple customers at once?

Perhaps you want to let everyone in a Facebook group know that you’re about to launch an upcoming sale, or maybe you want to inform recent customers of a change in your terms and conditions. Thanks to a recent development by Facebook Messenger, businesses may soon be able to send out mass messages in an instant.

In the past, Facebook has been wary of adding new methods for monetisation into messenger. After all, they didn’t want to alienate the huge percentage of their audience that would rather avoid traditional marketing materials. However, in recent years the social company have been forced to embrace new ways of generating revenue, which prompted the development of everything from social media chatbots, to sponsored smart messages.

Introducing Facebook “Broadcast”

Though “Broadcast” isn’t available on a public scale yet, the organisation confirmed that it has been conducting an internal test of the new service, which was initially spotted on Twitter. The idea behind Broadcast is that it will allow brands to squeeze even more potential out of the 1.3-billion wide user-base by using self-service mass messaging to connect with entire customer segments at once.

Up to now, the details on exactly what we can expect from Broadcast remain somewhat limited, but it seems that companies should be able to use the features to design a welcoming message for new customers, along with promotional messages, and call-to-action prompts.

When used correctly, the Facebook Broadcast feature could work alongside other business solutions offered by the social brand to generate better conversions. You can even set your Broadcast up so that your customers can tap to talk to a bot instantly if they have any questions.

How Far Will Your Broadcast Go?

In previous Facebook marketing resources, users have had the opportunity to pay extra to enhance the potential reach of their messages. Although the exact specifics of how Broadcast will work have yet to be revealed, it could make sense to suggest that this new feature will include a similar functionality, where you’ll be able to optimise and enhance your connections, for a price.

In a conversation about the recently tested feature, a Facebook spokesperson acknowledged that the company is constantly testing new ideas and products to make it easier for businesses to develop stronger connections with their customers. This is certainly something we’ve seen with the introduction of the Facebook “M” assistant, and their chatbot strategies for automating repetitive tasks.

Facebook is committed to testing their new Broadcast functionality internally before they decide whether the feature should be released to the public.

Does Facebook Still Put Customers First?

Importantly, regardless of whether Broadcast turns out to be a “flop” or not, Facebook plans to maintain the policy that requires people to initiate their own conversations with companies, rather than allowing businesses to pursue clients en-masse. This means that your company will still have to convince new clients to message you before you can take advantage of the potential Messenger Broadcast.

As always, Facebook will need to be careful launching a new marketing product for their business customers. After all, if the system ends up feeling too spammy, then users might avoid working with Messenger altogether.

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