How BILD is building a community with WhatsApp
Nice to have you with us for the Social Media Best Practice Newsletter.
My topic today: What works with WhatsApp?
Publishers and organisations like to remember the time a few years ago when they could collect lots of subscribers and fantastic open rates with WhatsApp newsletters. That is long gone. Today, anyone who uses WhatsApp for Business has to pay.
What opportunities do publishers still have with WhatsApp today? In this newsletter you will find out:
How BILD builds a community with WhatsApp
How I can check whether this is also an option for me
What free features WhatsApp currently offers (with an assessment by Matt Navarra, the world's best-known social media news expert)
What WhatsApp is planning for the future
(Hier klicken für die deutsche Version (Abre numa nova janela))
I recently discovered an interesting tip at BILD: under all articles about 1. FC Köln there is a link to a WhatsApp channel where only news about the club is shared. I asked Anne Liebknecht what the strategy is for the channel. Anne is Head of New Platform on the business side at BILD.
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The Case
To coincide with the start of the 2023 Bundesliga season, BILD has launched a WhatsApp channel for 1. FC Köln, thus creating a news format that does not yet exist in this form. Subscribers receive insights on the "Effzeh" in the form of texts, photos, videos and audio in real time directly on the lock screen of their smartphone.
The special feature: Links are rather the exception. "WhatsApp is a Family&Friends channel. That's why we deliberately decided against a newsletter that only links to articles and instead rely on personal impressions from our reporters that our users only get on WhatsApp," Anne-Kathrin explains to me in conversation.
The Topic
Why a football club? "We chose 1. FC Köln as our club because we believe that FC, with its loyal fanbase AND our on-site reporters who are at every training session, every match and every press conference, makes the perfect serve for WhatsApp. Thanks to our reporters Uli and Mirko, our users are not only live at training, but can also experience coach Steffen Baumgart at the carnival, for example."
The application
The service will be advertised with references under every article about 1. FC Köln on BILD.de (Abre numa nova janela) - including a link and QR code that lead directly to WhatsApp (see photo). The QR codes will also be printed in the newspaper - on the regional BILD page on 1. FC Köln. In addition, BILD uses "Click to WhatsApp" ads on Facebook/Instagram as well as its organic social reach to promote the service.
How it started
After the launch in mid-January, several thousand people signed up for the service within a few weeks. "In addition, we are happy about open rates of over 90 per cent. That is a special feature that is only possible via messenger services," says Anne.
There is also a great response rate: many subscribers send questions, photos or videos. "So the willingness of users to communicate with their trusted brands is also there on WhatsApp."
The technical setup / the costs
To send the messages, BILD works with the service provider 360dialog, which is an official WhatsApp Business API partner.
The message dispatch differs from WhatsApp newsletters a few years ago, when messages could be sent free of charge to any number of users. Now, between 6 and 11 cents are charged per contact for a 24hour session in which unlimited messages can be sent and received.
How high the costs are depends on whether the conversation was initiated by the user or the company. In addition, there is a quota of free messages per month.
The challenge
"The fact that sending the messages is not free of charge presents us with the challenge of finding a business model that is self-sustaining. While we are currently still working on building the community and optimising the service together with 360dialog (for example by integrating interactivity elements such as live voting), the next step will be to monetise the service." There are two options for the future here:
- The WhatsApp channel pays into the reach of BILD.de (Abre numa nova janela) and the BILDplus tunnel.
- The channel is marketed.
Are there further WhatsApp plans at BILD?
"One option for us is to launch more personalised channels," Anne explains, adding: "So maybe soon you'll be able to receive the latest news from reporters via WhatsApp."
Can I do the same?
If you're wondering if you can start such a case as well, I'd recommend keeping these points in mind:
Content-wise: is there a topic on which you can add exclusive value and transmit proximity from reporters on a regular basis to an intimate environment like WhatsApp?
On the business side: calculate whether it is worth it:
What costs will I incur per month with 1000 subscribers?
How many of the subscribers can I convert into a subscription? What is the costumer lifetime value of a subscriber?
Alternatively, can I market the newsletter profitably?
Don't forget the soft effects: can I make people aware of other offers of mine such as apps and email newsletters?
Tip (independent of WhatsApp): It is worth printing a QR code in the newspaper that leads to the newsletter or WhatsApp offer.
If you have not yet subscribed to this newsletter, you can register for free on this page:
Example 2: WhatsApp communities
In November, WhatsApp introduced communities. They offer the possibility of combining groups in one place (explanatory video).
The advantage of Commuities: There are "announcement groups". Actually, up to 5000 members can be added here, currently a maximum of 2000. With "normal" groups there is a maximum of 1024.
The case:
Matt Navarra is regarded worldwide as the social media news expert par excellence. He has started an announcement group on WhatsApp with "Geekout News Alert", which has more than 4000 members. Here he posts the latest social media news. He created the group in WhatsApp communities.
Free communities for publishers
I asked Matt whether WhatsApp communities can also be interesting for publishers.
"Due to the limited number of members, it depends on the size of the publisher.The potential of a community is of course clearly limited with a maximum of 2000 or 5000 members." What remains is the possibility of creating several communities. However, this makes administration difficult. So anyone who wants to scale has a hard time at the moment.
Nevertheless, he sees WhatsApp as a very interesting channel: "With WhatsApp, you are in a very personal space without algorithms. That makes the app very valuable for publishers. With that comes a lot of responsibility."
The big advantage of WhatsApp is that while on any other platform I am constantly fighting against the algorithm, on WhatsApp I reach users directly in a private environment.
WhatsaApp Communities for Paid?
There is currently no payment tool for WhatsApp. If you want to sell your subscription model, you have to go through the classic WhatsApp links that lead to a paywall.
My assessment: To get a feeling for the service, I would always try things out on a small scale rather than not doing them.
Matt is currently developing his distribution model via WhatsApp communities. He is now introducing a paid model ("Geekout PRO") for his service, where a closed WhatsApp group also plays a role.
Newsletter plans at WhatsApp
It's quite possible that WhatsApp will drill down on the newsletter theme in the future. WhatsApp is said to be currently working on a newsletter feature, as webatainfo reported in early February. This would make it possible to send messages to an undefined number of recipients.
The next Social Media Best Practice Newsletter with examples of successful social media formats will reach you on Wednesday, 19 April.
Best regards
Andreas
About me: I am a trained journalist and advise companies and media houses on social media and digital communication. Previously, I was Director of Digital Growth / Social Media at BILD, among others.
I also founded the local start-up „Verliebt in Köln“ (Abre numa nova janela), which is about local news and stories from Cologne. Verliebt in Köln has 125,000 subscribers on Facebook (Abre numa nova janela), 150,000 people in thematic Facebook groups and a newsletter that goes 3x/week to 21,500 subscribers. In addition, there are around 200 paying subscribers.
Requests for workshops & seminars: post@andreasrickmann.de (Abre numa nova janela)
Invitation: Follow me on my Instagram channel (Abre numa nova janela) or on Linkedin (Abre numa nova janela). There I regularly share opinions, thoughts and discoveries from the social media context.
Podcast tip: Majena von Cappeln is a social media expert (for TikTok, among others) and regularly shares the latest news and assessments on Instagram, TikTok & Co in her podcast (german): You can listen in and subscribe to the podcast here (Abre numa nova janela).
Advertising in the newsletter: The Social Media Best Practice newsletter now reaches a large social media audience. If you are interested in placing an ad in this environment, send me an email.
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