Facebook will soon be rolling out two new ways for businesses to communicate with customers via messaging and groups.
Receive Instagram DMs in Facebook Messenger
Facebook is going to make it possible for businesses to receive and respond to customer messages using the same service.
Instagram direct messages will be integrated with the Facebook page inbox. So DMs sent through Instagram can be read and responded to using Facebook.
This will give businesses the ability to respond faster while ensuring they never miss a message from a customer.
According to Instagram internal data, 150 million people on Instagram have a conversation with a business every month.
Facebook’s latest quarterly report revealed that 10 billion messages are sent between people and businesses every month on FB Messenger.
This feature is said to roll out over the coming weeks to businesses in the US and Brazil.
To be clear, this feature will only be available for business pages, not personal accounts.
There has been talk lately of Facebook combining Messenger with Instagram and WhatsApp, but that’s not what is happening here.
Facebook Pages Can Participate in Groups
Facebook pages will soon be able to communicate with customers in group discussions.
Currently, pages can create groups but they cannot post content in the group as the page itself.
Of course, representatives from a Facebook page can participate in groups with their personal accounts.
But that’s not quite the same as communicating directly with the business page.
This change is also rolling out in the coming weeks.