Facebook’s Messenger has been steadily growing over the past year and has close to a billion users now.
Big Enough to be Monetised?
The updates made to the social media giant’s messaging platform refined it over time, made it better and easier to use. Some may argue that Facebook practically forced people to use Messenger due to the limitations of the mobile Facebook app. This could have led to the sudden rise in the number of Messenger users. Nevertheless, the Messenger is now big enough to attract the attention of advertisers.
New Sponsored Messages
The latest update to Facebook Messenger, version 1.3, brings with it new tools that will help developers present their content in a better way. Facebook is making sponsored messages available to all advertisers. Sponsored messages are basically advertisements sent to you as messages on Messenger.
Facebook was reportedly testing the sponsored messages 6 months ago with a small group of users and brand names. With ads the company will undoubtedly use your personal information to direct ads towards you. Earlier Facebook paused its data sharing between WhatsApp and Facebook in UK on the request of a data protection watchdog company.
Two Opposing Sides of the Same Coin
Even though on one side they claim to stop sharing data between Facebook and WhatsApp, on the other side they’re introducing this new version of Messenger which does the opposite. The “sponsored messages” sound very similar to the kind of advertisements we get as text messages on our phones on the daily. Rest assured, you will have control over them, unlike those “Beacon Qualified Teachers” messages which you can’t stop from coming.
You will only get messages from advertisers whom you shared a message thread with. Even if you were in a thread with that company and forgot about it, you can easily block them from sending you messages if you wish to.
Click to Message Ads
How can you get into a conversation with an advertiser? It can happen through a subscription you must have made or through the new click to message ads. These Click to Message ads are a new feature for Facebook’s News Feed which will let you message the company directly from the ad you see on the news feed. Now you can just communicate with them within Facebook instead of opening up another website and talking to them over there.
Some of the early adopters of the new ads include Tommy Hilfiger and Activision.
Via Tech Crunch
