7 Tips for using WhatsApp for Business

Is WhatsApp useful for business?

What social media channels do you use to promote your business? LinkedIn? Facebook? Twitter? WhatsApp? 'Hold on, WhatsApp? That's not a social media platform!'

Yes it is! And it's undervalued and underrated by most.

I'm sure like me if you're on Whatsapp you are making use of or are a member of a group conversation. Maybe it's with your family, maybe it's a group of particular friends, maybe it's a group for a local club or maybe for the school PTA.

Groups are a great start for conversations to keep people connected in business, perhaps the internal team, or smaller teams within the business, but it can also be useful for staying connected to other businesses to support one another or for staying in touch with clients and suppliers.

Beyond groups there is the functionality of Broadcast lists where you can list your colleague, your customers, your friends or family - whatever list really - then use this list to type one message and send to each person individually.

Whatsapp Business also allows you to create a profile listing your services, your work hours, email address, website and more!

If you’re thinking it could be a great place to build an audience, it’s not as easy as you would think — after all, WhatsApp currently doesn’t serve ads and its encrypted messaging system means targeting would be very limited anyway.

Lately, though, smart companies have been discovering effective ways of reaching customers on WhatsApp. The messaging app has proven very useful for customer service, one-on-one communications and even unconventional marketing campaigns.

When it comes to messaging apps, there are only 25 countries in the world where WhatsApp is not the market leader, so if you’re keen to connect worldwide via messaging, then you really need to be utilising WhatsApp.

Bringing it down to the UK stats according to Statista (2020), WhatsApp is the most used Messaging platform, ahead of even Facebook Messenger. More than this it also beats other social media networks in app popularity including Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, Google Maps and many others.

There is so much to WhatsApp that people are missing out on, so here’s

7 ways you can improve your use of WhatsApp For Business

1. Develop your business profile
Keep your details up to date: business description; opening hours; contact details; website and more.

2. Showcase your products and services on the Catalog Feature
You can also share these listed products and services individually with contacts when needed which may save you time explaining what you offer in each conversation.

3. Share your WhatsApp QR Code on other social networks and your website
Customers or contacts can scan this cose to start a chat with you. Alternatively, you can use the Shortlink to share your WhatsApp details.

4. Utilise the Messaging tools
Should you be away from work, on leave or otherwise indisposed you can set an ‘Away Message’. There’s also a ‘Greeting Message’ option that is sent to new customers automatically. You can set Quick Replies for commonly used responses, as well as labelling chats for follow up, for example ‘New Customer’, ‘New Order’, ‘To Invoice’, ‘Order Complete’ or any other label you want to create.

5. Set up Internal Team Group Chats
This can be useful for pushing projects and work forwards, but also for building positive and engaged employees.

6. Customer Communication
If you do your followups on WhatsApp instead of direct phone calls, you will achieve a higher response rate. No one appreciates phone calls from unknown numbers but we are more likely to respond to personal messages. Also, as mentioned earlier, WhatsApp can be great for Broadcasting a message to multiple recipients such as a service update or a product launch.

7. Marketing & Promotion
With being able to send audio, graphic, video and other files across WhatsApp, it caqn be a great tool to get content in front of your customers who may not see everything you share on your other socials or website.

WhatsApp has potential to do so much more than meets the eye and is constantly evolving. While this may all seem like a lot of work for your thumbs on your phone, tools such as the WhatsApp Web/Desktop can make this much more manageable.

Apart from using it for personal communication, you can use WhatsApp for your business in various ways to suit your offering. It is cost effective, you can get it started quickly and improve your communications in a range of contexts.