Who has 1 Billion users and is about to overtake Facebook? It’s not Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn. It’s a company that most people in the West don’t know. That, however, is set to change, with the explosive growth of China’s Tencent and its mobile messaging app WeChat…
Source: WorldOfCEOs, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, Bloomberg & company announcement
On November 13th, Snapchat rejected the $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook. These are all signs that tell us that the battle for social dominance is going to take place via mobile chat apps. Brands however are finding it difficult to reach their audience through these apps as most of them don’t allow in app advertising. This has lead to creation of experimental campaigns as seen on WhatsApp from Klick Chocolate and Absolut Vodka.
Now BlackBerry has announced that it is bringing BBM Channels into open beta. BBM Channels is going to be a separate part of their BBM app where users will be able to follow and converse with their favorite brands and businesses. Users will be able to like, comment and share content posted by a BBM Channel, or enter a one-to-one private chat session with the owner or manager of the page. It will also be possible to subscribe to a BBM Channel and receive notifications when new content is uploaded.
The update is available as of yesterday on handsets running BlackBerry OS 5 and above. It will hit iOS and Android in the coming months.
I think this will simplify things drastically for brands, as reaching and engaging with the target audience in their favorite chat app will help them achieve a top of mind presence. This for sure will spur on the competitors like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat etc. 😎
UPDATE
