WhatsApp Group vs WhatsApp Broadcast for Business

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By Iaroslav Kudritskiy

If you've read our Ultimate Guide to WhatsApp Business, you already know a little bit about a WhatsApp Broadcast. This article will help you understand when you should use a WhatsApp Business Broadcast and when you should use a WhatsApp Business Group. The article is broken up into the following sections:

What is a WhatsApp Business Group?
When to use a WhatsApp Business Group
How to create a WhatsApp Business Group
Managing a WhatsApp Business Group
What is a WhatsApp Business Broadcast?
When to Use a WhatsApp Business Broadcast
How to create a WhatsApp Business Broadcast
WhatsApp Group vs WhatsApp Broadcast

What is a WhatsApp Business Group?

You might be asking yourself what a WhatsApp Business Group is? Is there such a thing? In short, yes. Although you won't find it on the WhatsApp Business website, WhatsApp Business Group is just a name people use when they are talking about WhatsApp groups created in the WhatsApp Business App.

If you use WhatsApp, you're already familiar with a WhatsApp Group. It is a place where you can invite people, and everyone can chat. A WhatsApp group is a great place to arrange events, plan a night out or have a discussion with colleagues.

WhatsApp groups do have a user limit though. You're only allowed to have up to 256 people in a WhatsApp Group Chat.

When To Use A WhatsApp Business Group?

The critical element that makes a WhatsApp Group special is that everybody can chat in the group. Therefore, the best time to use a WhatsApp Group for Business is when you are looking to get input from everybody.

In our experience, we've seen two situations when WhatsApp can be useful in business. When you're working with a client, and you need multiple team members to be involved in the chat. Alternatively, when you are working on a project internally, that requires many conversations, and you want to make sure everyone on the team is on the same page.

Open a WhatsApp Group With An Important Client

The beauty of a WhatsApp Business Group with a client is that it makes it easy to deliver timely and authentic conversation. It allows you to give your customers a super personalized level of support and build the relationship.

WhatsApp Groups tend to make communication quicker. It's easy to ignore an email that comes in at 8 pm because responding to an email is such a hassle. Chats are a lot easier to deal with, sometimes a client is fighting a deadline that they need to know how to do something straightforward. Responding to a chat is the ideal solution.

If you have too many WhatsApp Business Groups they can be challenging to manage. With a problematic client, sometimes even one WhatsApp Group can be challenging to manage. On the flip side, an excessive number of messages can harm your client rather than improve their experience. The most important thing about WhatsApp Business Groups is that you create them sparingly. Ideally, only for your most important clients.

Create a WhatsApp Group Chat Marketing Campaign

Agent Provocateur used WhatsApp Groups for their The Ménage à Trois Campaign. The lingerie brand used WhatsApp groups to help women decide which lingerie was best from their "Naughty or Nice" Christmas collection. Customers were encouraged to start a group chat with their partners, and an Agent Provocateur Agent to help them decide which items from their shop best matched their personality.

The Ménage à Trois WhatsApp Campaign

In short, this WhatsApp marketing campaign was a massive success in the UK: 112 conversations took place in the app, 31% of the chats resulted in physical store visits, and 61% of the chats converted into substantial website traffic – and the campaign only ran for ten hours a day from December 6th to 9th and December 13th to 16th.

If you'd like to learn more about WhatsApp Marketing check out our article about WhatsApp Campaigns.

Use A WhatsApp Group For An Internal Team

Last but not least, WhatsApp groups can be used for internal teams. However, we do recommend this as a last-ditch effort. Because Slack, Google Chat & Microsoft Teams are so much better optimized to work internally.

However, if you don't have any of those apps available at your company, try a WhatsApp group if you need that extra level of collaboration.

How To Create A WhatsApp Business Group

Creating a WhatsApp Business Group in WhatsApp Business App is just like creating a WhatsApp group in your personal WhatsApp account.

Creating a WhatsApp Business Group

Press the three dots in the top right corner. Select New Group. Select the people you would like to add to the group. Add a Group Name, and you're done.

Managing A WhatsApp Business Group

There is a chance that your WhatsApp group may get out of hand. Not to fear! WhatsApp has provided some tools you can use to manage your WhatsApp Group.

WhatsApp Group Organisation Features

In a WhatsApp group, especially if you're dealing with a high volume of messages, it is critical to stay organized. WhatsApp groups have two features that can help you with this.

The Group Description will do its part to help you, and everyone else in the group stays on track. Unfortunately, to see the group description people will need to click into group info. Rest assured, they will do that sooner or later if they want to find some photos that were shared a long while ago.

Adding a Group Description in a WhatsApp Business Group

To create a group description, you'll need to go to the action menu on the top right. Navigate to group info, then click on the description. As long as you have permission to edit the group info, you'll be able to do so here.

Search helps to find information that sent hundreds of messages ago. Once you press search, you'll be able to search for text. The beauty of WhatsApp search is that it will search in reverse chronological order, so you'll be able to start with chats that mention your search term recently and go back in time to older conversations that mention the same text.

Searching In WhatsApp Business Group

To search through your WhatsApp group, you'll need to go the action menu on the top right and press search. Once you're in the search interface, you can type some text then press the search button on the bottom right to find. The up and down arrows on the top right will let you move up and down the conversation where your search term appears.

Group Media is something no one ever mentions but can be extremely useful in a chat that has lasted thousands of messages. Remember that pdf that someone sent you six months ago? You have no idea what the name of it was? Group media can help you with that. It will separate documents or even those super hard to find links that someone shared with you ages ago and give them to you in a nice list.

Finding Group Media in a WhatsApp Business Group

To check out your group media, open the action menu on the top right, and select group media. Once there, you can move between media, documents, and links. Here you'll find all the documents and links shared in the conversation. With links you can even go back to the part of the conversation where the link was sent.

WhatsApp Group Productivity Features

One of the least known features about WhatsApp Business Groups is group calling and video calling. Sometimes, a group call is just what you need to figure things out, but did you know you can even video call with up to 4 people in a WhatsApp Business Group?

Starting a Call in WhatsApp Business Group

To start a call, press the phone + icon at the top of your WhatsApp Business Group. Once pressed, you can select your participants at the bottom of the screen and choose between a voice call or a video call.

Inviting users via link is a handy feature if you're using your WhatsApp group for reporting something. You could post the link somewhere on your works internal website or share it in another group. With the invite link, anyone who uses it can join the group.

If the group is no longer used, you'll be able to revoke the link later so no new contacts can join your WhatsApp Group.

To create an invite link open the actions menu on the top right and enter the group info panel. Then scroll down to participants and click the invite via link button. Once in the invite link panel, you'll have a few options with how to share the link.

WhatsApp Group Permissions Settings

Sometimes it's not enough to have one person manage the group. Perhaps the person who created the group is not that active anymore and you need someone else to add and remove people from the group. To help achieve this WhatsApp has quite a few permissions settings.

Edit Group Admins allows you to add and remove admins. By default admins are allowed to add and remove people from the group and change the group info.

Edit Admins in a WhatsApp Business Group

To access the admin settings you open the action menu on the top right and open group info. Once there you can open group settings then edit group admins.

Edit Group Info allows you to take away privileges from regular group members. By default every one can edit the group info. This settings allows you to make it so that only admins can edit the group info.

Editing Admin Privileges in a WhatsApp Business Group

To access this setting open open the action menu on the top right and open group info. Once there you can open group settings then edit group info.

Send messages allows you to take away the messages privileges from regular group members. In a way this turns your WhatsApp group into something akin to a telegram channel. Just a way for admins to share information to everyone in the group.

Editing Who Can Send Messages in a WhatsApp Business Group

To access this setting open the action menu on the top right and open group info. Once there you can open group settings then send messages.

WhatsApp Group Sanity Features

We're calling these features the sanity features because they help you stay sane. For those that have had tons of WhatsApp groups before, you know the pain of a group that has a new message every 10 seconds or so.

Mute Notifications allows you to mute notifications for any WhatsApp group for 8 hours, one day or one week. This feature is excellent if you have one group that is blowing up and you need a break from it for a while.

One unusual item though is that there is a checkbox where you can press show notifications. Why would you want to show notifications if you are muting notifications? When clicking that option, you'll be able to see that WhatsApp Business App icon in your top bar, when there is an unread message, but you will not see the down pop preview of what the message is as usual.

Muting Notifications in a WhatsApp Business Group

To mute notifications open the action menu on the top right, then press mute notifications. Then you'll be able to select how long you want to mute the notifications for. To unmute notifications, you can go back to the same menu.

Custom Notifications are the exact opposite of muting notifications. Instead of muting the group, this setting will allow you to create a special notification so that you can easily separate which WhatsApp Business Group requires your attention.

This can be useful when you have many conversations or groups in your WhatsApp Business App, and you need to be able to give special attention to one WhatsApp group or a few WhatsApp groups.

Custom Notifications in a WhatsApp Business Group

To create a custom notification open the action menu in the top right, open group info then select custom notifications. There you will be able to choose a custom ring tone, a long or short vibration pattern, if you receive a preview of the message and the color of your notification light.

Adding a Shortcut to your home screen is another way of giving this WhatsApp Business Group priority over others. This is something you can do if your WhatsApp Business App is completely cluttered with conversations, and you'd like to get quick access to some groups.

Adding a Home Screen Shortcut to your WhatsApp Business Group

To create a shortcut to the WhatsApp Group open the action menu in the top right, press more, then select Add shortcut. Then you'll be asked where you would like to place the shortcut on your panel(s).

What Is A WhatsApp Business Broadcast?

A WhatsApp broadcast or some call it WhatsApp Business Broadcast is a feature only available in the WhatsApp Business App. It is similar to WhatsApp group chats in the same way that it allows you to quickly communicate with many people.

The key difference in a broadcast is that it sends the message to each person individually. So when that contact replies to your broadcast, they reply in a private chat where none of your other WhatsApp contacts can see it.

Why should you create a WhatsApp Broadcast Message?

A WhatsApp Business broadcast can be used in a similar way to an email news letter. You can use your WhatsApp broadcast to inform people about new products or services that you offer, outages of your services and many many more things.

How to Create a WhatsApp Broadcast Message

To create a WhatsApp broadcast message, go to the Chats screen > More options (usually represented with three vertical dots) > New broadcast. Tap + or type in contact names to choose recipients from your contact list. Tap Done, tap Create.

There are two ways you can send a broadcast. You can select all the contacts you wish to send a broadcast to and send it, or you can organize your contacts with labels and then send a broadcast to one or more set of labeled Contacts.

Creating a WhatsApp Business Broadcast in the WhatsApp Business App

For a detailed step-by-step guide on how to make a WhatsApp broadcast read our Ultimate Guide to WhatsApp for Business.

WhatsApp Business Group vs WhatsApp Business Broadcast

When should you use a WhatsApp Business Broadcast and when should you use a WhatsApp Business Group?

WhatsApp Business Groups are all about collaboration. When you want to send out a messaging and you would like a community response that grows and develops as each person gives their feedback use a WhatsApp Group.

WhatsApp Business Broadcasts are all about mass messaging in one direction. If there is a critical piece of information you would like to deliver to many contacts use a WhatsApp Broadcast. Using a WhatsApp Business Broadcast means your contacts can still give feedback on the information you've sent, but they will do so on an individual basis.