Instant Messaging 101
WhatsApp rules the west, Tencent owns China and Facebook is pimping up Messenger to rival them both. Instant Messenger marketing is the new social media and your brand is ready for it, right? Just in case you’re not fighting fit We Are Social is holding an event on Wednesday the 22nd of April in London called Instant Messaging 101 to get you up to speed. Here’s a snapshot of what we’ll be talking about.
Over the last couple of years use of instant messaging apps has risen dramatically. Consumers use platforms like WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook Messenger to talk to friends play games, shop and even do a spot of internet dating.
Facebook remains the most popular social platform globally but messaging apps are also a force to be reckoned with. China-based QQ is the second biggest social platform worldwide, and Facebook-owned WhatsApp is third.
Tencent owned QQ is the emperor of Chinese IM and has 829m active monthly users. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest number of simultaneous online users on an instant messaging program with 210,212,085 users online on 3rd July 2014.
WhatsApp is the second most popular IM platform, with 700m active monthly users. It’s growing at a rate of around 800,000 users per a day with users sending 30 billion messages daily. Tencent’s WeChat dominates mobile messaging in APAC. There are more official accounts created on WeChat each day in China than there are websites brought online.
Mark Zuckerberg announced during Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference in San Francisco that developers can now add a Messenger button to third-party apps so content like personalised music, message, videos and GIFs can be pushed out to friends. ESPN and The Weather Channel are among the 40 apps that now support Facebook Messenger.
It’s clear that IM is big, and it’s not going anywhere. So, here at We Are Social in London we are holding an event called Instant Messaging 101 that will tell you all you need to know about the rise and rise of instant messaging platforms, what the social thinking is behind their success and what your brand needs to do right now.
Agenda:
- An Introduction to brands using Instant Messaging – We Are Social
- Tom Bowman, BBC – Zero to 1 Million LINE users in 4 months
- Anthony Green, Kik – The Race to Become the WeChat of the West
- What do Millennials actually want from brands on IM? A panel of students from Ravensbourne college will take questions from the room on how they use Instant Messaging and Social
Time – 6.30 pm 22nd of April
Venue – We Are Social, 1 St John’s Square, London EC1M 4PN
If you would like to come to this event please email [email protected]