Earlier this week the NY Times reported that Facebook plans to integrate the 3 messaging platforms it currently manages.  The applications will continue to operate separately, but the technical infrastructure behind the scenes will be changed.

That will bring together three of the world’s largest messaging networks, which between them have more than 2.6 billion users, allowing people to communicate across the platforms for the first time.

The changes are planned to be implemented by the end of 2019 or early 2020.  A big push in this update is to allow for end to end encryption of messaging and to protect users privacy.

MobileMonkey reported on the news by publishing 8 Things You Should Know About the Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Integration
.  The most interesting of the MobileMonkey news is :

2. The integration’s a massive opportunity for businesses to reach a bigger and more diverse audience

Together the 3 platforms boast 2.6 Billion users!  For those of us using Facebook Messenger to connect with customers this will be a huge jump in our audience!  Chatbots are going to see a huge boost in usefulness.  Not only will we be able to reach the 25-60 age group that Facebook is already popular among, but we will also be able to reach the 16-24 year olds that are utilizing Instagram and WhatsApp.

With benchmark rates for email campaigns having an open rate of only 20%, there has never been a better time to get started using Facebook Messenger for business.  Building a bot now will allow you to reach those other audiences when the integration is complete.  This is an amazing piece of news for those of us who understand the power of conversational marketing and using Facebook Messenger Bots.

If you would like more information on Facebook Messenger and how it can integrate into your business click on over to our Facebook Messenger Marketing page.  Or just use our site chat in the lower right hand corner of the site to reach out and get a demo.