Running a WhatsApp community for an artist has always involved a certain amount of… bodging. Making a service do something it wasn’t really designed for, and working around limitations – like maximum group sizes for example.
In June we reported on the test-launch of a new ‘Channels’ feature that had promise to solve those issues, providing a way to send out ‘one-to-many’ messages, photos, videos, stickers and polls.
Now WhatsApp Channels are rolling out globally to more than 150 countries, announced by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in – where else? – his new WhatsApp channel.
“Channels are separate from your chats, and who you choose to follow is not visible to other followers,” noted the company in its own announcement post. “We also protect the personal information of both admins and followers.”
Channels will sit in their own section of the app, and there will be a directory of channels to follow.
The screenshot in the blog post shows channels from Olivia Rodrigo, David Guetta and Billboard, so music is clearly one area that could benefit from the new feature.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools :: Wyng
Through Music Ally’s internal marketing campaign tracking, we’ve recently discovered an interesting website by the…