WhatsApp has become quite an important part of our daily life not only it keeps our friends and family connected but it is also used for business purposes.
And with WhatsApp for business now being released, there are so many new features that we are going to see in future. The possibilities are endless.
WhatsApp offers so many features that are quite useful in so many different use cases.
For example, a WhatsApp group, let’s people come together in the form of a group of friends or family in Housing Society or anything where a bunch of people can chat and exchange information in a single chat window.
There is also a less known feature called Broadcast, which enables anyone to create a broadcast list, where they can select contacts from their contact book and then send one message which is delivered to every contact in that broadcast list.
So you might think both the features are quite similar since both of them let you interact with a group of people all at once. But there are few key differences between both the features you should know about. So that you can pick the best one for your use case.
What happens in the chat window
There are obviously a lot more use cases for WhatsApp groups then there are for broadcast.
You can make a group about anything, in fact, I have used this feature to create a Personal Notebook for myself for exchanging notes between my phone and PC (you can find more WhatsApp tips and tricks here).
The chat window of a group is more of an interactive chat window where all the group members can participate. Though, there is a new option that has rolled out for group admins who can now restrict the participation of all other members, so that only admin can post.
Enabling which can make the WhatsApp group behave pretty much like the broadcast feature, where only one person can send messages.
Using WhatsApp Group as a Broadcast list
There are few minute details you should know about when you want to use WhatsApp group as a broadcast list.
It is easier for the admins to add participants in a group by simply creating a unique URL. So the URL is shared with the people who want to participate, and typing on the URL add them to the group.
You can also delete the unique URL whenever you want to.
But if you have to create a broadcast list, you will need to have that number added manually to your contact list.
And not only that, Only the people who have got your number saved in their contact list, will be able to receive your text message.
Which makes it pretty ineffective if the person has lost their phone or does not have your contact on their list.
They could be some privacy issues to use WhatsApp group as a broadcast list.
Since all the group members can view the members of other group members, even if the numbers are not saved in their contact list.
Also, there is a limit to the number of participants that can be added to a WhatsApp group, currently the number is 256, and maybe it will go up in your future.
Replies are handled differently.
If you have kept the participation of other group members enabled in a WhatsApp group, then the replies to your messages from anyone would be visible in a single chat window, while if someone replies to your Broadcast message the replies would come in individual chat windows.
And if you have kept the participation of other group members disabled in a WhatsApp group, then they will have to type on your name and send you a message, but this method does not notify you if it’s a reply for your message in the group.
This could be quiet a chaotic experience if you have a high number of group members.
Managing is easier with multiple admins
One thing that can make your life easier, is by adding additional admins for doing the broadcast to WhatsApp group members while you can still see and evaluate what is being fed to the group members.
Should you use WhatsApp group to Broadcast message to your fans our customers.
Using the WhatsApp group as a newsletter subscription wouldn’t be a great idea even with this new feature of disabling participation of other members.
And I think you should stick to a Broadcast list if you have got a bigger list and you don’t want to mess with the privacy of your members for leaking their phone numbers to others.