Move Over Social Media, Messaging Apps Are Taking Over
Remember back when you used Facebook just to send a message to your friend? Ever get those memory posts, “on this day in 2008 you wrote: How are you? Hope you had a great vacation! Miss you.” Writing on someone’s wall was a form of communication, like sending an email or a text message. Nowadays the Facebook Wall is more for your own content, pictures, shares, etc… the old days of public social interaction are dwindling and messaging apps are taking over. It has been forecasted that by 2021 the world will hit 2.48 billion mobile messaging app users. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are already showing growth that is double Facebook itself, and WeChat is just behind them in popularity with 1 billion users worldwide. The rise in popularity of messaging applications has the world paying more attention to these apps than ever before.
The huge increase in the use of messaging apps has marketing professionals and analytics fiends on their toes. As people focus more and more on communicating through private messages, rather than public forums, marketers are seeing an increase in what is called Dark Marketing; channels of marketing that are hard to account for. When someone chooses to share a brand’s link with a friend through a messaging app (like on WhatsApp or through private message on Instagram or Facebook) instead of posting to a wall or sharing the link through their own account, it’s impossible to collect data because this interaction is private. Even if the friend clicks on the link, analytics programs cannot track the conversion. It’s the technological form of word-of-mouth and it makes it hard for marketers to strategize as there is almost no way to gain insight as to how well their efforts are working or not. This is why brands are starting to take advantage of the messaging apps associated with their marketing channels. Many businesses on Facebook now utilize robust chatbot capabilities in order to connect with their customers or page visitors through Messenger. Widespread ad campaigns can lead to personal conversations with an engaged audience member and this intimate form of interaction is working very well for companies.
Once telephones became ubiquitous the world of marketing discovered telemarketing. Likewise, as people start to prefer text messages over phone calls, SMS has started to become a marketing channel as well. For example, during the recent political campaigning season in the US, many received text messages supporting the different candidates.
The world is starting to recognize that text messaging is a better, more convenient, and unobtrusive way to reach an audience. People are more comfortable with text messages as it means they can respond on their own time. Many stores have taken to sending coupons through SMS as well. Companies, like Mobs, look to the messaging app structure as a potential for new platforms. It is familiar and intuitive for consumers to use as they already have the daily habit, thus a great jumping off point for a new app.
Companies, like Telegram, have also recognized the importance and potential of the messaging app structure. They built their messaging application with open source code. This means that companies who want to build a new messaging app don’t have to start from scratch, they can take a proven and successful application code and build on top of it. Telegram encourages other companies to use their open code for programming new applications and it puts them in a very good spot.
Mobs is taking advantage of the Telegram open source code opportunity. We are focused on bringing marketers and content creators together, and what better way to do so than with a messaging application? For all of the reasons we mentioned above, adding our blockchain-powered marketplace to what is essentially WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or WeChat, gives us a leg up in adaptability. Our users will know exactly how to use it from the first moment they are inside the app. This means that learning how the other features work will be more amenable and less overwhelming to a new user. This works in our favor immensely.
One of the most innovative features that we will be building on top of the Telegram foundation is an automatic video-editing tool that will be powered by AI. We will utilize a chat group structure to create amazing auto-produced videos. Friends who use a chat group to coordinate activity at an event or for a party, naturally communicate through the chat group as well as share videos and pictures. When the event is over people return to the chat in order to share thoughts, memories, and continue loading media for all the participants to enjoy and have access to. We’ve noticed that these chat logs, unintentionally, create a dynamic video script. With our tool, the chat log comes to life in a video memory for all.
The chat log naturally builds a timeline of the event. Leveraging this aspect and putting together all the pictures, videos, and messages in order according to the chat log, makes an engaging crowdsourced video keepsake for all involved.
Those who are used to the struggle of organizing people and their media will feel a weight lifted off their shoulders as the chat group is a great tool to get everyone interacting in one place. This means less time wrangling and more time creating great video. This is also an awesome tool for brands. Marketers trying to reach their audiences are given a tool for connection; a group setting that still maintains a level of intimacy with individuals. Furthermore, with all their audience in one place, it’s simple to ask for custom user-generated video submissions for their marketing campaigns. This is a new way to engage users on a deeper level and will be efficient and seamless for both sides.
With messaging apps on the rise, Mobs is hopping on the train and bringing innovative marketing tools and dynamic video creation to the masses. All aboard!
