WhatsApp is like the first thing the majority check on whenever they wake up in the morning. In fact. it's more becoming a habit; and the reason may not be far-fetched. Owned by Facebook and shares family-ties with Instagram, WhatsApp now has over 1.5 billion users across 180 countries, and it's arguably the most used messenger app you will see around. The messaging platform users (which include you) send over 2 billion messages every month, and as many statuses are being updated daily and/or on an interval basis. WhatsApp Status alone has over 450 million daily active users to top Facebook Stories' 300 million and Snapchat's 186 million daily active users. WhatsApp also allows messaging groups of contact up to 256 at a time. With this figure, there's vast opportunity for you as a businessperson or an enthusiast. But what are they and how do you maximize the opportunities this messaging platform presents us?

• Traffic
• Marketing
• Communication
• Organization
• Automation

These above are just bullet points but present scope of what you can make of WhatsApp, more so, the scope I will be covering in this note.  

GAME OF NUMBER

With that number of users and messages sent on WhatsApp, WhatsApp presents you with a platform on which you can reach out to as many people as possible. Huge traffic in spite does not determine your reach and success, but your own number (of contacts/followers) and game on the platform. If for instance, you have 20 active contacts/followers on WhatsApp, your (business) reach may only be limited to 20 people only. Perhaps that does it for some businesses whose clients pay in million dollars, but for rising business or one that targets the general public to make a significant gain, numbers may well matter for reach, impacts, and sales.

Getting the number

Depends on your business type/niche, your audience may not be the general public or the majority per se, but if you are someone who is into the business of number such as sales (of essential goods/everyday things), mentorship/influencer, media, essential services among the likes, then (targeting) the majority still remained the real deal. Now you may want to consider what your business represents and whom it serves. Even at that, the target audience rule still applies. The fact that the majority consume food doesn't mean your audience is everybody. There are still some who will not buy your food ('cause it's not just their thing), so now you know the number that counts is what really counts. But the vital point here is to be able to recognize your business potential for attraction in terms of numbers.  

WhatsApp Link to chat

If you're reading this, you must have come about our web solution that generates a direct URL/link to WhatsApp. The concept basically presents you with a means (specifically a weblink) through which your prospects can easily reach you on the WhatsApp messaging platform. This may be the first step to provide for, in order to connect with new prospects. If you're still looking for a way to create a direct link to your WhatsApp number/DM, you may want to click on this link to do just that. Whereas, you may also further customise your prospect's experience; such that your contacts can message you with a default message whenever they click on your WhatsApp link, click to do just that here    

Create referral points/ lead/ funnels

Now your prospects don't just find you or start messaging you out of the blue, but via a medium, they get to initiate conversations. Web/blog (pages/blogposts), social media are the top but vital medium from which one can drive traffic to WhatsApp. But this may not come on the platter of gold.

Digital Content marketing

Content is a form of strategy you use to drive traffic to WhatsApp. Many of you get to read this note, thanks to my content (on the web). Bu this same approach I've used to drive traffic to WhatsApp and other platforms or initiatives. When you share values on the internet; web or pages of social media, people take interest in your person or brand. And this is where you capitalize on funnels by infusing your click to action (CTA) to drive the audience to your end target, in this case, WhatsApp. Ultimately this is where you use the link you earlier created earlier. In case you have not generated a working link to your WhatsApp by now, you may want to take a moment to do just that here. The above point mostly applies to organic traffic to Whatsapp. If you run paid advert on social media or other media, you may rather buy your way or audience by having them link to your offer. If you've been running Facebook/Instagram ad, you may opt for the campaign which objective is to link to your business WhatsApp. There then, your prospect directly gets in touch by messaging you regarding your advertised offer(s). Howbeit, either paid or organic, the quality of your content will always determine your number/traffic and ultimately result. Personally, I do create content on the web (through the blog) which had engaged as many populations of the internet community. What I do is to also provide a web-link through which I can be contacted either by email, WhatsApp, social media, into blogposts for the possibility that readers may reach out to me. Due to the scheme of some content I rollout, a number of my readers may have questions, comments, other business. Here are more tips on content and marketing   Look for industry trends Now and then, people are talking about a trending happening in your industry/ business niche.   Join the conversation Opinions (on trending issues) are rampant on the pages of social media, and this is where you join the conversation. As a web publisher/blogger, you also create posts on trending issues (on Google search). Use Google trends to follow trending activities on the search engine.   Consciously create / create anyway This is where you remain valuable (evergreen). Irrespective of gossip and gist going round, you stick to the cause of dishing values anyway. No, content is not restricted to the Media industry/niche. Perhaps you are wondering how you go about this as shoe seller, makeup artist, others. The good news is there's hardly an industry that content cannot market. It all depends on how you go about it. Perhaps you're not good at content writing for marketing and branding, you may outsource that part to a professional, far from a writer but the ones who understand digital marketing, web, social media/web.    

Leveraging content for more

Plus, it may be high time you create a blog for your business thoughts and have the web/blog optimized for Google search. Many of you reading this get to find me through the Google search, while at it, people have contacted me regarding one solution, clarity, or others, based on my content scope. By this, I've had contacts who were just looking for clarity on a topic of interest, from where conversation dragged to the services I offer. Thence, I've been able to work with a number of contacts for whom I've helped branded their business (through graphic design, prints/production services). Whereas, for others, I've either helped develop a website, managed social media, helped optimized web for the search engine; SEO, being one of my strong points: These among others. Bottom line WhatsApp now plays a key role as a digital marketing platform. This is not news, but using WhatsApp takes intelligence from the point of attraction to relationships/communication with your prospects.    

HOW TO STAY ORGANIZED AND COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY

WhatsApp Business provides you with a medium to stay organized and communicate effectively.  

WhatsApp as a means of communication for business

Businesses now prefer WhatsApp over other means of communication, particularly the email.

• WhatsApp is fast
• It's easily accessible/user friendly
• Message open rate is higher
• Response is at fingertip
• Human behavioral/psychological factor

Here's a tip to getting the best of WhatsApp for communication Encourage new contact to add you up Supposing the purpose of you driving traffic to WhatsApp is to expand your follower-base, this is why you should encourage your contact to add your WhatsApp number to their phone contact, even as you add theirs. This ensures you are able to identify them and them, you, while also (two end contact addition) would ensure your communication status is visible to them. Personalise your follower's experience You or your messages tend to lose relevance when your messages are becoming nonsuited to your audience/or a part of your audience. For instance, you run a fashion business that serves both male and female, the best way to go about your messages is to filter those who are male from the female /or filter those contacts whose interest align with female fashion from the ones who are for male. This makes your messages to be peculiar to your readers/viewers/followers, and this tends to increase your engagement/reach or marketing purpose. Not many men want to see you shove women fashion to their faces now and then. If that happens, they may unfriend you/remove your contact, or stop opening your messages or stop viewing your status, and this may ultimately hurt your reach and marketing purpose. Personally, there are some people's messages/status I don't even bother to open/view on Whatsapp any longer, 'cause their messages have proved to be invaluable to me over time. Perhaps you too could have contacts like that on your WhatsApp list. So now you know why you won't like to be like them.  

How to personalize your audience experience

My approach When I add up a new contact, I try as much to label them at the point of addition. Let's say you got to know my business through the digital marketing branch of my business, and your name is Tobi, I save your contact as “Sam DM TD’ (identifies as Sam Digital marketing, TobiDigital). This is just a mark for me to be able to easily classify and subsequently identify you and your likes from the crowd. If we knew through web design..., your name may be saved as Sam WD TD. How is this essential? Sometimes, you want to filter your message to a set of people/audiences, either through the broadcast message (BC) or your status update. As WhatsApp is becoming another social media platform and your phone contact/WhatsApp followers is becoming bigger, the need to be able to distinguish your contacts could be vital for your message correspondence and branding/image. In practice, if you have an offer which message is central on female fashion, you may want to channel this very message to your followers/clients/or customers who followed you for the purpose of female fashion. This was what I meant by "personalising message to an audience" moment ago.        

Using status privacy

Depends on your targets, there are status updates you may want to filter to suit a particular audience/type, but this is where contact markup comes into play. You can easily recognize your female fashion audience if you were able to classify your contact to a category, say Name FF TD (denoting Name of contact female fashion tobidigital) By this you can easily go to status privacy >> Only share with > tap on the search bar and enter "ff td" >> every contact you've marked as your female fashion followers will enlist, there you can easily mark them up and save your settings. By this, any status you update there and then will only be visible to your female fashion audience.            

Use of labels

Labeling is another way of distinguishing your contacts, albeit mostly for the purpose of sorting, broadcast, and more. Label ensures you can organise your contact based on funnel and business they have with you. Label ensures you can send a broadcast message to your contacts based on interest and deals. For instance, the ones who placed an order can be distinguished from the ones who are awaiting, depending on how you want to classify your contacts based on deals.       Making use of Label              

WHATSAPP AUTOMATION

WhatsApp also offers an application program interface (API). WA-API ensures you can automate your customer experience/interaction with your business, In fact, WA-API alone can provide service/ or attend to your customers based on their needs without much hassle. Banks, travel agencies, eCommerce companies are using automation to attend to their customer's needs such that someone can open a bank account, take a loan among other financial transactions, file a complaint and have it automatically sorted, book a flight, place order among others. This is the whole different level that WhatsApp can take your business, and you may also want to consider subscribing to the service, for your business to make your customer's experience, even yours, a very much seamless and interesting one. WA_API offers: Customer Service Platform for customer supports on issues ranging from services, requests, complaints, and questions. The platform can handle sophisticated requests and proffer automated solutions based on your business offering to customers. Whatsapp verification (such which your WhatsApp will be branded with a green tick     and a message that your contact has been verified by WhatsApp as the official account for your business). Autoreply & Chatbot: Save you the stress and let the system help with automatic replies. Chatbot replies when contacts text your business WhatsApp, attending to your customers 24/7. Reminder Message; reminds your customer(s) of offers, services, and more. Notification Message: ensures our business can directly reach customers through WhatsApp notifications. Should customers be inactive on WhatsApp, WA-API is still able to reach them via SMS. More information anout the WA-API can be found on this web page. You may want to contact authorized companies that offer the WA-API service. TobiDigital is a top solution provider for WhatsApp business and our WA-API service is cost-effective, offers flexibility, is all-round robust, and up to any task, and our service covers anywhere worldwide. But then, how do you even achieve all these in the first place. Although this piece is about to end, let's take you to the beginning. Download WhatsApp for business (WAB) to start.