In this insight, we look at some of the many ways you can use ‘WhatsApp Business’ to boost your marketing and connect with customers to provide a more personalised service.

What Is WhatsApp Business? 

WhatsApp Business is a version of the popular encrypted app that was introduced in January 2018 which is specifically focused on the needs of business and is designed for small and medium business owners.  It’s free to download use the app but if you want the free WhatsApp Messenger app (which many businesspeople already use) and the Business version on the same phone, you will need to use and verify a separate phone number, e.g. a virtual number.

For larger businesses (50+ users) WhatsApp offers a premium, paid-for Enterprise version – WhatsApp Cloud.

The Key Benefits of Using WhatsApp Business For Your Business Communications

Some of the key benefits of using WhatsApp Business for business communications include:

– It’s cost-effective, i.e. it’s free for small businesses to use and therefore reduces costs related to customer service phone calls and traditional SMS.

– It offers businesses a platform to have real-time, direct conversations with customers and has global reach (180+ countries).

– It has end-to-end encryption, meaning it’s secure and private between the business and the customer.

– You can share many different kinds of media (rich media), e.g. images, videos, documents, and other media to provide product details, answer queries, or offer support.

– Conversations with customers (and other stakeholders) are organised in chats that can be easily categorised and filtered.

– It enables automated greetings, away messages, and quick replies, thereby allowing businesses to respond promptly, even when not actively managing the account.

– A dedicated business profile provides customers with essential details such as business hours, location, and website.

– Businesses can receive a green verified badge, assuring customers they’re communicating with a genuine business.

– It can be integrated with CRM tools and other business systems to streamline your operations.

Personalised Service Is Valued By Customers 

WhatsApp Business enables a more personalised services and there are many studies showing that consumers / customers value a more personalised service.  For example:

– Epsilon’s “The Power of Me” Study (2018) revealed that 80 per cent of customers said they’re more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalised experiences.

– SmarterHQ’s Privacy & Personalisation Report (2019) showed that 72 per cent of consumers said they only engage with marketing messages that are tailored to their interests, i.e. people may be concerned about privacy but they still value personalisation.

– Salesforce’s “State of the Connected Customer” Report (2020/2021) where 66 per cent of customers said they expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations, and 52 per cent said they expect offers to always be personalised.

What’s Different About WhatsApp Business? 

Some of the key features and their benefits that WhatsApp Business offers that the normal free version doesn’t include:

– A Business Profile that allows companies to present professional information such as business name, description, address, phone number, and website, enhancing trust and credibility.

– Automated messages, which enable timely communication with customers by scheduling greetings or responses, enhancing customer experience and reducing manual work.

– Quick replies, thereby facilitating faster response times for common queries, (enhancing customer service efficiency).

– WhatsApp Web with landline phone number, thereby offering the flexibility to communicate from a desktop even without a mobile phone (catering to businesses’ varied communication needs).

– Chatbot integration. With AI now playing a key role in many businesses, this feature enables businesses to instantly respond even outside business hours or during peak times, effectively allowing continuous customer support.

– Label conversation, which, as previously mentioned, assists in organising and segmenting contacts for better tracking and targeted communication.

– QR Codes and short links. QR codes are now so useful and widely used that most of us have a QR code app on our phone, and they’re tipped to totally replace bar codes in retail. This feature simplifies the customer’s process of initiating contact, promoting ease of access.

– The Broadcast feature gives businesses the ability to send out mass messages for updates or promotions, thereby facilitating efficient communication with larger audiences.

– Catalog provides a way to showcase products and services directly within the app, streamlining the purchase process and providing detailed information.

– The WhatsApp Business API allows larger businesses to integrate WhatsApp with their existing systems, thereby offering personalised messaging, chatbots, and analytics.

Examples of Ways To Use WhatsApp Business For Your Business 

Here are a few simple examples of ways you can use the various WhatsApp Business features to improve your relationship with customers (and other stakeholders) with a view to boosting profits:

– With Group Chat you can facilitate team discussions, event organisation, and information dissemination.

– Making good use of One-to-One Chat can be a way to help build and maintain strong relationships with individual clients or customers.

– As mentioned previously, using the Broadcast Message feature can allow you to efficiently send news or announcements to a broad audience without recipients knowing who else received it.

– Videos and voice calls offer cost-effective real-time communication and are especially beneficial for international business relations.

– Being able to present a complete business profile can enhance your business credibility and trust.

– Using QR codes or clickable links can be a way to direct customers to the business’s WhatsApp.

– Auto-response enables you to address customer queries even when offline, preventing long waiting times.

– WhatsApp Business enable you to engage after a sale and foster loyalty by sending personalised product recommendations.

– The CRM Integration allows you to provide even more highly personalised services (which are valued by customers) by understanding the customer better.

– Collecting feedback through WhatsApp can provide valuable insights which can help businesses improve and grow.

– Promptly addressing customer concerns and handling questions establishes professionalism for your business in the minds of customers.

– Using notifications can keep customers updated on promotions and offers.

– By sharing content, you can establish authority in the industry, e.g. by sharing insightful content, thereby fostering trust.

Using the WhatsApp Business API 

Using the WhatsApp API, which is essentially a tool for large-scale business communication using automated messages, chatbots, and templates can bring the benefits of cost-effective communication, the use of pre-approved templates, automated responses through chatbots, and enhanced customer engagement.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

In essence, WhatsApp Business offers various tools that businesses can leverage to enhance their communication, foster relationships, and personalise customer interactions, which in turn can lead to improved customer satisfaction and business growth.

WhatsApp Business is more than just another communication tool, it’s a paradigm shift for small businesses. Customers today want to feel valued, not just as a transaction, but as partners in a shared ‘journey’ so by offering real-time interactions, businesses can create experiences that are more genuine and resonant.

One of the platform’s most important implications is in its democratisation of marketing. For example, traditional advertising avenues can be costly and often out of reach for smaller businesses. WhatsApp Business provides an avenue for these businesses to connect directly with their customer base.

In a digital environment full of risks and scams, trust has become a pivotal currency in today’s market and because businesses and customers are now often separated by screens, establishing genuine trust, therefore, can be challenging. WhatsApp Business, with its direct communication and verification features, can bridge this gap and signal to customers that behind the digital storefront is a genuine business, and one that listens, cares, and values the relationship.

WhatsApp Business, therefore, provides and effective and efficient way for small businesses approach communication, marketing, and relationship-building.

It’s been reported that some schools, in the UK (as well as Israel and the US) have advised Jewish parents to delete social media apps from their children’s phones over fears that they may see distressing hostage videos or videos of civilians being killed in the Israel-Hamas-Gaza conflict.

In Israel 

In Israel, schools and parents are reported to have been asking children to delete their social media apps over fears that they may see images and videos, made and posted online by Hamas, showing Israeli citizens being shot (e.g. at the Tribe of Nova Festival near the Gaza-Israel border), children being abducted, and captives of Hamas pleading for their lives. The fear is that children could be subjected to psychological terror and long-lasting psychological damage by witnessing the videos and images, which it’s been reported have been shared on Instagram, ‘X’ (Twitter), and TikTok, and forwarded on WhatsApp.

In the US 

In the US, it’s been reported that a New Jersey school emailed parents, asking them to tell their children to delete their social media apps, and that another New York school advised parents to monitor their children’s social media usage, and to talk to them about what action to take if/when they encounter such images or videos.

In The UK

A similar approach is being taken in the UK with Jewish schools asking parents to ask their children to delete social media apps and/or talk to their children about the kind of content they are seeing.

Social Media 

Social media’s role generally over the Israel-Gaza conflict is now under the spotlight, particularly over how it has been used to spread misinformation (false or incorrect information shared without harmful intent), disinformation (false information shared with the specific intent to deceive), and confusion, and to fan hatred. For example:

– A misleading video was shared across platforms, wrongly connecting a 2015 Guatemala event to Hamas (a video of a girl being set on fire by a mob).

– A Hamas leader recently reacted to a fake news story from an Israeli TV channel.

– False claims that Qatar had threatened to cut off gas exports.

– Allegations that Hamas “beheaded babies” which was even published on tabloid front pages, and was referenced by President Joe Biden in a speech.

With factors like mistrust of mainstream media allowing falsehoods to be spread instantly by social media, a surge in the amount of falsehoods being spread, challenges in verifying and fact checking, a lack of moderation guardrails on some platforms, intense emotions about the conflict, and third-party agendas, social media is playing a part not just in shaping opinion, but also perhaps affecting the thinking, attitudes, and decisions of key players in the war.

Facing Criticism and Investigations 

Examples of how the social media platforms and secure apps are facing scrutiny in relation to the conflict include:

– X, Telegram, and TikTok being criticised by regulators for not doing enough to stop the deluge of misleading information being spread via their platforms.

– The EU launching an investigation into ‘X’ (Twitter) over the spread of disinformation and violent content relating to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

– The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab reporting that Telegram is the primary means of communication for disseminating statements by Hamas to its supporters.

– The UK’s technology secretary (Michelle Donelan) holding a virtual meeting with bosses at Google, Meta, X, TikTok, and Snapchat and asking the platforms to clearly set out what action they were taking to remove illegal material that breaches their terms and conditions.

What Are The Social Media Platforms Doing To Help? 

Examples of what some of the main things social media platforms are doing, e.g. to tackle distressing videos and images from the conflict, misinformation, and disinformation being posted on their platforms include:

– X (Twitter) has emphasised its commitment to tackling misinformation and has implemented stricter rules about misleading information. X says it’s using a combination of technology and human review to flag and, if necessary, remove false or misleading content about the Israel-Gaza conflict, and they’re adding warning labels to potentially distressing or graphic content and offer users the choice to view or skip such posts.

– It’s been reported that Meta has established a special operations centre (with experts, including fluent Hebrew and Arabic) dedicated to the Israel-Gaza situation, focusing on detecting and removing harmful content more rapidly, and leveraging third-party fact-checkers to assess the accuracy of potentially misleading posts. Meta has also enhanced its measures to reduce the spread of graphic videos and images of the conflict and has introduced “sensitivity screens” which blur out potentially distressing content until a user chooses to view it.

– TikTok has reinforced its community guidelines that prohibit content promoting hate or misinformation and is reported to be working with experts and fact-checkers to identify and combat false narratives about the conflict. Although the platform has (since Musk took ownership) very much touted its ‘free speech’ approach, it’s now reported to have implemented a stronger content moderation system to quickly detect and restrict the spread of graphic videos related to the conflict. X is also reported to be using warning labels and restricting the reach of videos that may not violate their policies but could be distressing to some users.

– Although Snapchat focuses on content from trusted news outlets through its ‘Discover’ feature, it’s reported to have enhanced its moderation guidelines for user-generated content regarding the conflict, especially content that is graphic in nature. Snapchat uses both automated systems and human reviewers to monitor and, when necessary, remove certain such content and labels have been introduced for stories or snaps that may contain distressing imagery.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

With Hamas reportedly using Telegram as their main means of communication with supporters and with anyone on any side able to upload and share videos and images on social media platforms, plus use encrypted apps like WhatsApp to share content, this conflict is a moderation nightmare for social media companies and a source of real concern for parents and schools.

Even though social media platforms are facing investigations and questions and have introduced some measures to help, as the advice from schools shows, perhaps the only sure and trusted way to protect children is to delete social medias apps together.

This story highlights how in conflicts such as Russia’s war on Ukraine and now the conflict in Gaza, social media channels are not just sources of information but can be used as a tool in information warfare and as a tool to deliberately terrorise and horrify people. Being vulnerable and inquisitive, alongside not having the capacity to cope with the many images of war, children are particularly at risk of distress and psychological damage.

It’s not surprising therefore, that schools and parents are seeking to take time to talk to children about what’s happening and their feelings and questions about it, plus reason with them about parental monitoring of what children are looking at and of the advantages of deleting their much-valued social media apps.

This story also highlights why many feel that social media platforms still have such a long way to go in protecting people (particularly their youngest users) from online threats and perhaps provides some vindication to governments and critics who have called for (and supported the introduction of) protective laws, e.g. the Online Safety Bill, and how these may force social media companies to be more socially responsible.

For the social media companies, issues that arrive in conflicts are a reminder of the difficulties of maintaining a balance between free speech and preventing harm and influence from bad actors. With a ground invasion by Israel apparently imminent, the situation for those directly affected in the Middle East only looks like getting worse, as do the worries for parents and the challenges for social media companies.

Human content writers have surged in demand recently, as part of a broader effect, where ‘prompt engineers’ have seen salaries of $300,000.

LinkedIn’s figures show that job posts in English with references to “GPT” or “ChatGPT” have increased 21-fold since November 2022. Interestingly, after almost a year of generative AI and predictions that it could largely replace human creative and content writers, Freelancer.com’s quarterly report shows an increase in demand for ‘human’ freelance writing jobs.

ChatGPT 

Since ChatGPT was quietly released in November last year and quickly became the fastest-growing consumer app in history by February this year, generative AI products have been integrated into search engines and major platforms, e.g., Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Bard, and Duet AI. Multiple AI image generators and other AI products have also now been introduced with businesses discovering (and quickly adopting) and leveraging the power of generative AI to boost productivity, meet their content and creative needs, and to link together and leverage the power of apps like never before.

With chatbots like ChatGPT seemingly able to produce quality content at scale, on-demand, in a fraction of the time and for a fraction of the cost of human writers, many thought that freelancers would struggle to find work with their skills effectively being replaced by AI.

Strong Growth

However, according to Australian online job marketplace Freelancer.com’s quarterly report on jobs posted in its marketplace, jobs related to writing, content creation and marketing have been the fastest growing freelance jobs by percentage growth in Q3 of this year. For example, it reports that compared to Q2, copy typing jobs rose by 28.7 per cent, Microsoft Word projects rose by 24.7 per cent, search engine marketing was up by 24.1 per cent, and copywriting and ghostwriting both rose by more than 23 per cent.

This trend has also been echoed in data from US-based, worldwide employment website ‘Indeed,’ which reports that generative AI-related jobs posted on its platform increased by almost 250 per cent from July 2021 to July 2023.

Why? 

Tech and employment commentators are suggesting that the main reasons for this trend include:

– Small business may have seen and realised the power and potential of AI, but small business owners are time-poor, and need skilled freelancers to carry out the AI work for their projects.

– With businesses looking for ways to integrate AI into their business platforms, and with many freelancers being quick to learn and utilise AI tools to boost their productivity and skill base, businesses are seeking the support and help from these skilled freelance developers.

Opportunity To Become “Superskilled” 

Far from the automation of AI taking away their work, tech and employment commentators have noted how many freelancers have been able to learn, harness, and leverage generative AI tools to the point where they it has effectively made them ‘superskilled.’ For example, leveraging generative AI tools (e.g. chatbots and image AI image generators) has enabled freelancers to become expert-level in copywriting and creativity (images and videos), dramatically broadening their skill-base and capabilities, increasing their value in the market, and elevating them to now having some of the most in-demand skills. For example, in July, jobs for ‘Prompt Engineers’ were reported to have salaries of up to $300,000 attached.

It’s worth noting here, however, that to some extent, freelancers finding their AI skills in high demand may be at the expense of some in creative professions, such as artists, who are currently involved in legal battles to protect their skills and work over copyright issues relating to AI tools like image generators.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

The considerable increase in demand for human freelance AI skills reflects how AI is changing the tech job market. With time-poor businesses owners looking for help and support in leveraging AI in a value-adding way, freelancers who have up-skilled themselves and boosted their productivity by learning how to use AI tools now find themselves able to meet that demand and be well positioned for the future growth of AI.

For example, a recent (US) LinkedIn survey of executives found that 44 per cent intend to expand their use of AI technologies in the next year, with 47 per cent believing it will improve their productivity. Even though many tech freelancers may already have related degrees or experience, learning the new AI concepts and tools is now an important way that tech professionals can advance their careers.

That said, although freelancers can learn how to use AI tools, they will still need to know and to demonstrate how to use the technology in the right way in order to get work on a particular project. It’s also important to look at the sheer speed of developments in generative AI and how rapidly the market and tech jobs are changing to realise that we’re still really at the beginning, and that there’s a lot more to learn and more changes to come as AI alters the employment landscape all the way up the value chain.

October 10, 2023 : “A Thousand-Year Name Extension”

Around a thousand years before electronics, a monk called Poppo was asked to prove his faith, because Sweyn Forkbeard was having doubts about his baptism. Legend has it that Poppo proved his faith by holding a red-hot metal glove, yet he remained unharmed.

Sweyn Forkbeard’s father (King Harald Blátǫnn Gormsson) had already converted from paganism to Christianity although his conversion wasn’t what he was famous for. His place in the history books had been assured by uniting Norway and Denmark in AD 958, quite possibly giving him cause to smile.

If you’d seen his smile, you may have noticed that he had an off-colour dead-tooth which the sagas say were stained from eating blueberries, for Blátǫnn is old norse for “Blue-Tooth”.

A couple of weeks ago on 10th October, Denmark officially authorised the creators of Bluetooth technology to use the name and symbol of the aforementioned Danish King Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson for a period of 1,000 years.

The modern technological version of Bluetooth was devised and named in 1996 when, in a spirit of collaboration, Intel, Ericcson and Nokia held a meeting to standardise short-range radio communications between electronic devices. The name was only supposed to be temporary until their marketing departments came up with another.

Intel’s Jim Kardach said “King Harald Bluetooth was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link.”

Three Business Take-Aways That Spring To Mind :

1 – Collaboration. Cooperation between related businesses means that synergy from the collective can be more productive than the sum of the parts.

2 – Vision. The inventors of Bluetooth had a clear goal : a wireless communication protocol that could connect devices across different industries, brands, and functionalities.

3 – Branding. If the name sticks, use it! In this case, they’re good for the next thousand years, so there’s no rush to change it now.

As an aside, the Bluetooth logo is derived from Viking runes and it’s a bind-rune merging “Hagall” (associated with the forces of nature and the universe, symbolizing disruption, change, and challenges) and “Bjarkan” (associated with growth, rebirth, and new beginnings). Both runes correspond to the initials of the 10th-century Danish king.

That’s something to think about next time you’re going around in circles, trying to connect devices and not going mad.

As featured in a recent Wall Street Journal report, iPhone thieves are exploiting a security setting called the ‘recovery key’ to permanently lock owners out of their own iPhones and gain access to their financial apps.

The method, however, hinges first upon ‘shoulder surfing’, i.e. looking over the iPhone user’s shoulder to get the passcode, or finding a way to make the device’s owner share their passcode. Once the passcode has been obtained, the thief uses it to change the device’s Apple ID, turns off “Find my iPhone” and resets the 28-digit recovery code (which was intended to be a security measure), thereby locking the owner out of their own device.

The advice to iPhone owners is to use Face ID or Touch ID when unlocking the phone in public, set up an alphanumeric passcode that would be very difficult for thieves to figure out, consider using the iPhone’s Screen Time setting to set up a secondary password, and to regularly back up your iPhone via iCloud or iTunes.