Facebook begins internally testing Messenger Broadcast for businesses to send marketing ads to users

Social media giant Facebook, which has approximately 1.3 billion people using its chat messaging app Messenger, is now working on a new interface to cater to businesses.[caption id="attachment_4200395" align="alignleft" width="380"]

Facebook Messenger logo. Image: Facebook[/caption]Named Messenger Broadcast, a report by TechCrunch explains that the new interface will be a "self-serve mass messaging interface" that will allow businesses to send marketing oriented messages to users. However, the feature is still being tested only internally and is yet to be tested on the public to gauge its response.Though one cannot confirm the features until the public beta is out, according to the TechCrunch report, the interface will require businesses to design a welcome message, message title and subtitle. This included a call to action to the user such as visiting the business’ website, prompting a Messenger bot or tapping to send a preset reply written by the business. Companies are then allowed to preview their message within the Messenger Broadcast interface or on Messenger itself.Messenger Broadcast was first shared on Twitter by Matt Navarra who revealed images of how Facebook intends on making the interface function. In terms of reachability of messages sent through the platform, businesses will be able to reach a certain preset number of users free of cost.

Facebook who has been trying to push ads into its Messenger platform over the past year, does want to do it the right way rather than randomly showing ads to users. Facebook has a policy of requiring people to start a chat thread with a business, for the business to send ads. This is something that it plans on maintaining regardless of whether Facebook Broadcast eventually takes off or not.