Facebook open up Messenger to marketers

Facebook open up Messenger to marketers

By Vergil DAI

Over last few years, Facebook is trying to make it easier to get in touch with people over Messenger. Also Facebook has made no secret of its plans to open up Messenger to marketers. Recently, Facebook succeeded in providing a more convenient way to start chatting. Facebook unveiled three new features for its Messenger App including Messenger Codes, Messenger Usernames and Messenger Links.

For individuals, it means a more convenient way to find and chat with their friends. As Mark Zuckerberg said Messenger Codes contribute to “no more misspelled names or mistyped phone numbers”. Also it people will no longer have to ask for someone’s mobile number or add somebody as a friend before starting a chat.

The larger impact was on brands. Messenger Codes offers a new method of social media marketing. Tuten and Soloman (2015) identified nine social media marketing activities: voting features, syndicated content, and 3rd party social networking sites, blogs, user-generated content, RSS Feeds, Co-Hosted Online Communities, Micro-blogging and word of mouse. Now, this theory may need to add a new activity, which is direct conversation. Messenger Codes allow brands to display codes that can then be scanned by users in order to start up an instant conversation via the one-on-one messenger platform. With the use of the instant and direct conversation, brands could deal with customers’ queries and provide customer services. “It will provide an extra touchpoint to connect with consumers before buying a product and can have a positive impact on brand perception and loyalty,” says Emmanuel Arendarczyk, managing director UK and France at digital marketing agency NetBooster. Meanwhile Messenger Codes have huge impact on live marketing campaign and product package. Because Messenger Codes is a more convenient way for customers to communicate with brands, brands will be likely to include a code image in their live marketing campaigns. Also, some brands may also make adjustment of the package of their products especially for electronic products, as subsidiary of instruction book.

But Messenger Codes can also lead to negative impacts. Because direct conversation service is totally new, companies may not have enough employees and trainings to deal with consumer queries well. If they fail to understand complex consumer queries, it can lead to bad brand image.

Because social media is commonly used nowadays, proper social media marketing tend to be more and more important. Facebook’s Messenger platform now has more than 900 million active monthly users, and the number will be larger for Facebook and Twitter. Forbes (2013) conducted a survey on of recommendations and purchases, and the result shows that approximately 42% consumers purchased the item based on a recommendation of someone that they said they did not know very well. It means social media do Influence consumer buying behavior. Funk (2013) also figure out the major benefit for social media marketing is effective and efficient communication between brands and consumers.

Actually, China can be regard as the pioneer of social media marketing. The new tool in Facebook Messenger has already been used in Chinese social media WeChat three years ago. In China, even some small business such as restaurant and small shop make use of the QR code. With the use of Wechat QR code, consumers can have direct conversation with shops to answer questions or even make order and payment.

From what has been discussed above, it is essential for big brands to make use of Facebook Messenger new features, as a part of their social media marketing campaign. Meanwhile social media platform companies could learn from each other in order to provide a more convenient platform for marketers.

https://www.marketingweek.com/2016/04/07/facebook-opens-up-messenger-to-brands-as-it-launches-new-scannable-messenger-codes/

https://www.marketingweek.com/2016/04/13/what-brands-should-know-before-exploring-facebooksnewfeatures/

Tuten, T. L., & Solomon, M. R. (2015). Social media marketing (2nd ed.). London: SAGE Publications.

Forbes, L.P., (2013). Does Social Media Influence Consumer Buying Behavior? An Investigation Of Recommendations And Purchases. Journal of Business & Economics Research (Online), 11(2), pp. 107.

Funk, T. (2013). Advanced social media marketing (2013th ed.). DE: Apress.