With the news that Facebook is to merge its Messenger with arguably two of the other most popular social media platforms messaging services, we ask ourselves, is this good for content providers and brands?
The move is set to make communication between the three messaging systems that Facebook own easier and fluid. Obviously the security risk may pose as a real problem as WhatsApp messages are encrypted from end-to-end, whilst Instagram doesn’t offer anything and Facebook offers the feature if you turn on ‘secret conversation.’ So what happens if an Instagram user messages a WhatsApp user and vice versa? That aside, the real intrigue we believe is how this can help monetize WhatsApp, as has been documented that Facebook have had a hard time earning revenue off of its 1.5 billion users, due in part to the end-to-end encryption.
The key to all of this is data, and the collection of data for insight for the all important Ad analytics and revenue. With the impeding merge of these three services, does this mean content makers and brands will have to shift their marketing strategies?
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
