Izabela Pieta
May 6
Instant messengers - table of contents:
What applications do you use most often, and why instant messengers are likely to be some of them? WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Discord are just a few examples of applications that are part of many people’s daily lives. Some of them also offer solutions that can help you reach your target audience, engage with customers, build brand awareness, or increase sales. But which instant messenger should you choose to achieve this? Let’s analyze the options.
How instant messengers works?
An instant messenger is a program that allows you to send messages between two or more devices in a quick and easy way. It can be used by your customers, as well as colleagues, contractors, friends or family. Instant messenger is a program that allows you to quickly send messages between two or more devices. It can be used by your customers as well as colleagues, contractors, friends, or family. Applications can therefore be used to enrich a company’s marketing strategy and build brand awareness, as well as directly or indirectly increase sales.
Most instant messengers have the following features:
- sending text messages;
- making voice or video calls;
- creating group chats.
Each application may offer additional features, which we will discuss below using specific examples.
The popularity of instant messaging continues to grow. According to a report by the Radicati Group, there are currently 9.3 billion accounts created worldwide, with more than three billion people actively using instant messengers. The most popular ones are WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat.
Most popular instant messengers
The number of instant messengers available on the market is huge, so we will focus on discussing six popular applications: their features, statistics, and solutions for businesses.
- voice calls and video calls;
- group conversations and communities (communities are groups of people with specific interests/topics);
- channels used by individuals or organizations to broadcast current information and news;
- status, which is a feature for sharing photos, gifs, text, or video that disappears after 24 hours,;
- shopping — business accounts can create a catalog to showcase their products/services.
- WhatsApp Business App — for small businesses that want to interact with customers and create a company profile;
- WhatsApp Business Platform — for medium and large businesses that want more features, including automating messages and creating chatbots.
- service account — recommended and chosen by most companies. It allows you to publish four posts per month (with notifications for followers) and has unique features, including a CRM tool and paid advertising;
- subscription account — it lets you publish one post per day, but followers don’t receive a notification. This option is great for media, individuals, bloggers, or journalists.
- Facebook Messenger
- watching movies, TV shows, and videos together with friends;
- chat themes that allow you to personalize chats with available templates or colors;
- unlocking the app using your fingerprint or facial recognition (only available on iOS devices);
- messages to companies— users can contact a particular company directly using Messenger;
- community chats created for Facebook groups that let you have an ongoing conversation with members of a particular group (the option is not available in all groups);
- group chats, or the ability to have a conversation with more than one person at a time.
- Discord
- Friend server — for a small group of friends;
- Community server — for a club or community – only users who have received an invitation can join.
- Telegram
- Signal
According to data from January 2024, Whatsupp ranks third (on par with Instagram) in terms of monthly active users. The app is used by more than two billion people from over 180 countries. Whatsupp can be used for free on a wide range of devices – the app is available in web, smartphone, tablet, and desktop versions.
WhatsApp has been part of Facebook since 2014. Initially, the instant messengers was created as an alternative to SMS. Today, in addition to sending private messages, it has a number of other features:
WhatsApp provides two solutions for businesses:
Who uses Whatsupp? The largest group of users in the US are people between 26 and 35 years old (20%), followed by those aged 36-45 years old (20%), 15-25 years old (19%), 46-55 years old (17%), and over 56 years old (13%). When it comes to gender, approximately 53% are male and 47% female.
WeChat comes sixth in the ranking of the most popular social media platforms. It is a Chinese instant messenger, which is an example of a super app. Apart from its messaging and voice calling features, it also allows users to make purchases, payments, and hotel reservations.
The app is used by more than 1.3 billion people worldwide. As with WhatsApp, about 53% of users are male. Most users are under 24 years old (33.5%). This is followed by users in the following age groups: 25-30 years old (25%), over 41 years old (19.1%), 31-35 years old (13.8%), and 36-40 years old (8.6%).
Nearly 50% of users are from China, but the app is also used by residents of other countries, mainly: Malaysia, India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, United States, Indonesia, and Mexico.
Companies should consider creating an official account on the WeChat platform, especially if they want to increase their brand’s visibility in the Chinese market:
Both accounts help business owners increase brand awareness, reach target audiences, build customer relationships, and increase sales.
Facebook Messenger is the seventh most popular social networking platform in the world. It now has more than 1 billion active users. As its name suggests, it is an application that is owned by Meta (formerly Facebook).
Who uses Messenger? The majority of users are in the 25-34 age group (32.2%), followed by 18-24 (22.1%), 35-44 (19.5%), and over 65 (3.9%). In the United States, more women (55.6%) than men (44.4%) use the service.
The primary feature of the application is the ability to communicate with other users via text messages, voice and video calls. However, Messenger also has other options:
If you live in the European Economic Area (EEA), you can create a new Messenger account without using Facebook. However, you may not be able to use all the features.
Facebook Messenger makes it easier for businesses to build lasting relationships with customers through direct communication, and to reach new audiences with targeted ads (more on this later in the article).
Discord is another instant messaging application that allows for text, video, and voice conversations. Initially, the application was used by gamers to communicate with each other during a game. Nowadays, the communicator is also used for other purposes: personal, professional, or educational.
What features does Discord offer? First of all, you can join or create a server to communicate with other members. There are two types of servers:
On Discord, you can also create text or voice channels. In the case of a voice channel, you don’t have to call anyone. All you have to do is enter the channel so that other members can see that you are there and join you.
How many people are using Discord? The messenger has approximately 200 million monthly active users worldwide. The largest group is made up of 25-34 year olds (42,2%). This is followed by users aged16-24 (22.2%), 35-44 (20.5%), and over 45 (14.9%). 65,5% of users are women and 34,5% are men.
Discord doesn’t offer any special features for businesses. However, more and more teams are choosing to move their communications there. Brands can also use servers in their startegy to reach people with specific interests and get to know their target audience better.
Telegram is another instant messenger that ranks among the top ten most popular social media platforms. It has more than 800 million monthly active users. 58% of them are men, 42% are women. The dominant age group comprises individuals aged 25-34 (30.6%), followed by those aged 18-24 (21.9%), 35-44 (21.3%), 45-64 (18.5%), and below 17 (7.7%).
Through the application, users can send messages, photos, files, and videos. It’s also possible to create groups with up to two hundred members or channels with an unlimited number of members. Telegram stands out from other messengers by being cloud-based, which means it takes up less space on the device.
To automate work, Telegram introduced Telegram Bot, which operates within the application. This tool speeds up many processes and tasks, such as responding to customer inquiries or sending notifications. Thanks to the API, the program can be integrated with other tools for managing contact databases, data, etc. Additionally, Telegram Bot can be customized for specific business needs.
Signal is an encrypted messaging app used for sending messages. In practice, this means that when you send a message from your device to another, only that specific device can receive it. Since Signal doesn’t keep a record of messages, nobody except the sender and receiver has access to them.
Signal functions similarly to other messaging apps. You can send messages, make voice/video calls, and have group chats. You can also schedule messages, share disappearing stories, take notes, and customize chat colors.
According to data from 2022, the Signal app had 40 million active users, primarily from Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Due to its focus on security and privacy, Signal doesn’t store user data, and therefore doesn’t keep statistics.
The Signal Foundation supporting the app is a non-profit organization. It means that it doesn’t collaborate with advertisers or investors and relies on user donations to operate.
Using instant messengers for promoting businesses
Each app supports businesses differently in promoting their ventures. To help you decide which messaging app to include in your brand’s marketing strategy, we’ve made a comparison chart.
| Number of active users | 2 billion |
|---|---|
| The most popular age group | 26-35 years |
| Business tools |
Product/service catalog – will be displayed on your company profile. Customers can browse and share it with others, as well as contact the company. The paid version – Business Platform – offers more features, including:
|
| Advertising tools | Ads through Meta – ads displayed on Facebook and Instagram, directing users to chat with your brand on WhatsApp. This way, you can generate valuable leads and, consequently, increase your customer base. |
| Number of active users | 1,3 billion |
|---|---|
| The most popular age group | below 24 years |
| Business tools | The official WeChat account (service or subscription) is the equivalent of a Facebook page – you can gather followers, send them notifications, and redirect them to your website. A WeChat mini-program is a sub-app with features for e-commerce, virtual store tours, and more. |
| Advertising tools |
WeChat Moments are ads that appear on the timeline. Foreign companies (outside of China) must submit a relevant application to launch such ads. Banner ads — this feature is mainly available to companies registered in China. Foreign companies, however, need to submit the appropriate application. Collaboration with influencers who will post on their official account. |
Facebook Messenger
| Number of active users | over 1 billion |
|---|---|
| The most popular age group | 25-34 years |
| Narzędzia biznesowe | The company’s inbox in the Messenger application facilitates direct communication with customers, building trust, and responding to their current questions. The inbox has additional features, including:
|
| Advertising tools |
Meta Ads Manager allows selecting ad placement within the Messenger app. Users will see it on the Chats tab. You can set it up so that clicking on the ad starts a chat with your company or redirects to a website. Messenger Stories – are full-screen ads that boost campaign reach on Instagram and Facebook Stories. Ads redirecting from Facebook and Instagram to Messenger -are a way to encourage audiences to engage directly with your company through chat. This allows brands to acquire contacts and engage in more personal interactions with users. |
Discord
| Number of active users | 200 million |
|---|---|
| The most popular age group | 25-34 years |
| Business and advertising tools |
Discord doesn’t provide advertisers with an ads manager like other platforms. However, you can promote your brand organically by building and engaging your community. To accomplish this, create a community server linked to your company’s activities with dedicated topic channels. Then, promote the server across other social media platforms. With your own Discord community, you can share updates about your product/service, news, and direct users to other websites. You can also join other servers where your target audience is present, then engage in conversations and discussions, or even direct them to valuable content on your blog. |
Telegram
| Number of active users | 800 million |
|---|---|
| The most popular age group | 25-34 years |
| Business tools | Telegram Business – this solution offers businesses numerous practical features. Since the app operates via the cloud, employees can use Telegram across multiple devices, even when they’re out of the office. Telegram Cloud – it offers free and unlimited cloud storage. Telegram Business API – it allows businesses to independently add the integrations they need, such as CRM tools. Entrepreneurs can also verify their business accounts and obtain a special badge. |
| Advertising tools |
Telegram group – it lets you add up to two hundred thousand users and send them messages and files. Telegram channels – they resemble a virtual bulletin board. The number of channel members is unlimited. It lets you send messages and updates to subscribers of a particular channel. Telegram ad platform – an advertising platform allowing advertisers to promote their company. Ads are displayed as sponsored messages on public channels with over 1000 subscribers. The message can have a maximum of 160 characters. |
Signal
As mentioned above, Signal does not store or sell data, so it does not rely on fees from investors or advertisers. Therefore, entrepreneurs can’t advertise on the app. So what can businesses use Signal for? The only use is simply to communicate. If you care about the security and confidentiality of the messages you send, you should consider using this instant messenger. This way, you can be sure that a given message has only been shared with a selected recipient.
Summary
Internet instant messengers are part of our daily lives and can be a valuable tool for promoting your company, reaching your audience, and boosting sales. Many apps offer features to support businesses in their marketing efforts. Consider using these tools in your marketing strategy.
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Author: Izabela Pieta
Marketing & Social Media Specialist
In her work, she navigates the ever-changing marketing trends and innovations across various industries, including HR, e-commerce, and IT. She leverages this knowledge and observations to develop creative solutions for effective marketing strategies.
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