By Managing Director, Boost Social
Elisha Fiorentino
What’s new for Messenger?
Messenger has just got a whole lot cooler and we love the changes that are being rolled out. Messenger has become more than just a way to contact your mother to see what’s for dinner or find out the hidden meaning behind your BFF’s cryptic Facebook update. Messenger is becoming THE place to hangout.
Messenger has more than a billion users around the world and this is the social media giant’s equivalent to Google Hangouts, but in our opinion, this is soooo much better. While we were all concentrating on surviving COVID-19, the genius minds behind Messenger have been busy launching products and features that really add a lot more value. Could this see us moving away from the traditional news feeds we’ve been used to, and spending more time in small groups? It sure looks that way.
Some of the features like being able to pop into virtual rooms and watch movies together (If you’ve ever wanted to feel like you’re on Gogglebox, this is your chance!) were developed to help us feel connected when we are still social distancing. It’s like visiting IRL (that’s In Real Life for those of you who aren’t fluent in text abbreviations)
So let’s take a closer look at the new updates and what they mean for you, and how your business might be able to use the features to communicate with your clients.
Cross app communication
Cross-app communication means that friends and family across Instagram and Facebook Messenger can stay on their preferred social network and are able to send messages and join video calls. It’s being rolled out across different regions. Messenger will also powers conversations within Portal (Facebook’s answer to Alexa and Google Home) as well as Oculus (a brand of Facebook Technologies—VR headsets)
Personalise your chats
Messenger will soon be able to be customised to suit your mood or your favourite colours with new themes such as ‘love’ and tie-dyes for those of you with an affinity for the 1960s. (Useless trivia fact: Tie-Dye used to be known as protest art). In addition to new themes there are new selfie stickers coming and vanish mode—like the name suggests messages will disappear so you leave no chat history. We’re not sure how we feel about the vanish mode! It poses the question, do the messages really disappear and is that really opening a can of worms and making it easier for bullies to use Messenger for evil?
Selfie stickers are a unique hybrid of Boomerang, emojis, and selfies and a great way to communicate your feelings when words are simply not enough.
The other features that are being integrated are:
Forwarding
The ability to forward content with up to five groups or friends. If you’re a small business with a brand new product dropping, you have groups set up for your most loyal customers, it will speed up getting new products, news and updates to the customers that are more actively engaged.
Animation
Express yourself using animated effects which are integrated into your message.
Giving you the control
Messaging controls leaves you in the driver’s seat of who is allowed to direct message you and those you’d rather not hear from.
Reporting and Blocking
If you’re receiving threats or abuse via Messenger, you now have the ability to report a full conversation or single messengers when you add your accounts in the new Accounts Centre.
How will the new Messenger features help my business?
With the upgrades to Messenger, businesses are more easily able to control the conversations they have with their customers without having to navigate from Instagram to Facebook and vice versa. You’ll be able to share Facebook Watch and IGTV with clients and even watch it together so they can ask questions throughout the videos.
The stickers and customisable themes give you the flexibility to showcase your personality and be memorable. Customers like to know there’s a person behind the messages, that they’re not just talking to a chatbot.
Have you noticed any of the new features? What do you like best?
