Facebook’s latest mobile Messenger update has users amped that the social media giant is catching up with other similar apps. Snapchat stood its ground when denying the sell off of their app to Facebook, and what did Facebook do? Challenged it. Back in August, Instagram introduced “Instagram Stories“, which shared a striking similarity to Snapchat. When nobody was paying attention, Facebook decided to take advantage of the situation.
Launch
Facebook introduced its new snap-like feature in December of 2016, just in time for the holidays. It came with all of the bells and whistles that Snapchat offers: filters, stickers, drawing options and masks. There is also a search bar available for premade art for your images, filters and new text filters. Messenger, however, doesn’t offer the option to add your snapped photo or video onto a story feed like Snapchat and Instagram, but it currently provides the option to directly send it to another user. Sending photos and videos through Messenger has never been easier!
Video Group Chat
Another exciting addition to Messenger is the new video group chat feature. Snapchat offers video chat directly with one user, but not multiple. Since Snapchat has yet to release a group chat feature, Facebook scores major points. With this new Messenger feature, you can video chat with up to six people!
In addition, you can add filters and masks during your calls. Aside from all of the fun that comes with the new update, it can be a new form of communicating with your clients or coworkers at all once! Let’s admit it, we’re all guilty of missing an important work meeting or being tied up with other commitments.
According to Facebook, 245 million people make direct video calls on Messenger on a monthly basis! This statistic beats Facetime/iMessage, Google Duo and Snapchat. Make the use of Facebook Messenger the norm for your business. Your employees and clients will thank you!
Chatting
Messenger has always made communication with friends easy and simple. Messenger saves your chat history and you can always look back through your conversations unless archived or deleted. Although Snapchat lets you chat with friends, it makes it difficult to carry on with a long conversation. Why? Snapchat deletes your last sent message when the receiver opens to view it. Also, on Snapchat, you can’t open a message and wait to respond later since it will disappear after you’ve viewed and closed it.
Using Messenger’s chatting feature can be beneficial for your place of business since you can store messages customers submit. It also offers a “Mark as Unread” option if you plan to get to that message later.
What’s Next?
We ask ourselves this question each time knowing that something big in social media is probably in the works. Despite this, we do our homework and stay on top of new trends and features that involve anything digital marketing. Do you think your business may need help with its social media management? Contact our digital marketing agency in McAllen today for all of your social media needs!