In our age of hyper-communication and hyper-connectivity, it is hard to imagine our lives without the convenience of instant messaging communication. It is also evident that there has been an increase in the usage of instant messaging applications during the midst of, and emerging from, the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to a study conducted at the beginning of 2022, it has been observed that the frequency of messages being sent during the beginning of the pandemic back in 2020 is 2.58 times higher than the average number of messages sent per day pre-Covid times. Even now, people are still opting to use instant messaging to contact not only their family and friends, but also businesses.
We have searched on the commonly used messaging applications out there and understand why they are used by a lot of users.
Whatsapp is one of the most popular messaging applications that has approximately 2 Billion users in 150 countries. Whatsapp application allows its users to send messages, photos, videos, and files to their contacts. Whatsapp also allows businesses to have their own official Whatsapp Business Account where businesses can create profiles, communicate with their guests, and send automated messages. In a study conducted and released in 2022 by Meta, more than 1 billion people interact with a business over WhatsApp PER WEEK.
Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger is the next messaging application that follows after Whatsapp with registered users of around 1.3 billion worldwide. Same as Whatsapp, you can send messages, videos, files, and other multimedia files that you want to send to other users. Businesses have also integrated their digital marketing strategy into Facebook Messenger due to its average open rate of 70-80% which is significantly higher compared to emails.
Originating in China, Wechat is the social platform that not only connects most Chinese people across China but also because of its gaining popularity, connects a million users outside of China. It is what you call a “multi-purpose app” as you can do so many things in the application from making payments to online shopping. On top of the fact that WeChat is the de facto social media platform in China. Most of its users are from China and have around 1.2 billion active users per month.
Line
Line is known to be the most popular and widely used messaging application in Japan and Taiwan. Back in 2011, when Japan was hit by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake followed by a tsunami, this application was developed to be used as an alternative to the telecommunications network that was damaged. Line has around 178 million active users per month.
Viber
Another popular messaging application worldwide is Viber which was founded in Israel and bought by the Japanese company, Rakuten. It gained popularity due to its secret chat feature, and encryption. You can send messages, photos, videos, and voice calls in this app, and even allows businesses to create their own “Public Account” to communicate to their customers. They have around 260 million active users per month.
Telegram
Telegram is fairly new to the messaging application market as compared to its competitors, but it continues to have more users registering to its platform. You can also send messages, voice and video calls, photos, videos, and other files. It also has a feature called “self-destruct” for messages and files where you can set a time after they have been opened or read by the receiver. They have around 200 million active users per month, and its popularity is in certain European countries, but growing globally due to its emphasis on security and privacy.
About Glowing.io
If you want to utilize messaging as a mode of communication for your customers or clients, then platforms such as Glowing.io provide an opportunity for your business to directly communicate with your clients across all of the popular messaging platforms we have mentioned in this article.
Glowing.io aims to provide an easy, yet impactful solution for any business to help drive engagement, and loyalty with ultimate impact on both the top and bottom lines. Glowing.io’s platform will make communication with your clients easy, simple, and personalized, as communication starts with each guest’ preferred messaging platform, from which there are many.
Authored by: Anjanette Rosauro
Glowing, Inc. is a leading US-based software company that specializes in AI-enhanced omni-channel guest engagement solutions. We provide some of the world’s leading brands in hospitality and other verticals an intelligent and unified platform to overcome the complexity of in-the-moment messaging and enhance guest experience–helping them win guest satisfaction and loyalty.