What’s New and What You Need to Know
Facebook have tightened the way they are managing “broadcasts” over Facebook Messenger. You used to be able to do it with programs like Many Chat, but Facebook now requires businesses to apply for “Subscription Permission” if they want to send non-promotional broadcasts. Promotional Broadcasts can’t be sent at all without paying for them as a sponsored message. Here is everything you need to know about the changes and how it’s going to affect you and your business.
1. What does Subscription Permission mean?
Standard Messaging practices follow the “24+1 Rule”, which allows you to send both promotional and non-promotional material to customers who have interacted with your chatbot in the past 24 hours, plus another 24 hours.
However, if you wish to continue messaging after this time frame has passed, here’s a little tip! Facebook has 17 Message Tags that allow you to send messages to people outside of the 24-hour window allowed.
One of these tags is the Non-Promotional Subscription Tag that lets you broadcast messages from your page for use cases of News, Productivity, or Personal Tracking. You only have access to this tag if you have Subscription Permission, unlike the other 16, which you can use without applying (NB – they are integrated in to your messaging software).
2. How to Apply for Subscription Messaging?
Good news, it’s easy! In just two simple steps, you can apply for Subscription Messaging.
- Submit a request: From your page, click on “Settings” and then “Messenger Platform” on the left. Then scroll down to “Advanced Messaging Features” and click “Request”.
- Fill out the application: Choose which category your page falls under: News, Productivity, or Personal Tracking. You then need to provide additional details of the kind of messages you will be sending and give examples. Make sure the examples provide helpful information instead of promoting something.
REMINDER on Facebook Policy: “Using tags to send promotional content (ex: daily deals, coupons and discounts, or sale announcements) is against policy”.
And that’s it! If your application gets approved you’ll get a green check next to “Subscription Messaging”.
3. What are the best strategies and practices to adopt to take advantage of these changes to Subscription Messaging?
- Build a multi-channel strategy for your bot to effectively communicate with your customers. Have opportunities for your customers to engage with you via Messenger in multiple locations – on Facebook, your website, via email etc.
- Max out 24+1 in a more effective way. The 24+1 rule means that after 24 hours of a user no longer engaging with your bot, you get one more promotional message to try and re-engage them. If they do, your 24 hours gets refreshed. During this window, it’s important to experiment with different types of content that will keep the conversation going without being spammy. Things like quizzes, contests, flash sales, etc. help your users to renew your 24+1.
- Use your paid messages to re-engage subscribers. If a subscriber doesn’t engage during your 24+1, send a sponsored message with a limited time offer or a special discount to get them back. It’s proven to help rebuild engagement and is easy and cost-effective.
- Make valuable content.
- Determine what tags to use. Remember the 17 Message Tags? Find out which ones work best for what broadcast you want to send out. They are mainly surrounding updates – event reminders etc. You can see a full list here.
- Focus on your warm audience. Warm audiences already know about your brand. It’s more cost-effective to send ads to them rather than pursuing cold leads. Create engaging and organic sequences for them and focus on their user experience so your relationship and community grows.
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