Will Facebook allow businesses to advertise to users through WhatsApp?

Remember when Facebook acquired WhatsApp? The social networking company says they’re considering allowing businesses to contact users through the messaging service.

Facebook has already been testing a business-to-consumer interaction service, where marketers would have to pay for those interactions. But, it’s possible that WhatsApp could use some of those features. However, Facebook would probably have to let consumers turn that off on their side of the app, as the social networking company could quickly lose a lot of users in doing that.

“We think that enabling that B2C messaging has good business potential for us,” David Wehner, Facebook’s chief financial officer, said yesterday. “As we learn those things, I think there’s going to be opportunities to bring some of those things to WhatsApp, but that’s more longer-term than the near-term.”

It’s not a service Facebook is going to be integrating right away. But, it’s certainly an idea they’re throwing around in the planning stages. Aside from the e-commerce and games Facebook has added to WhatsApp, it’d bring the company an excellent revenue stream, which is something Facebook hasn’t been able to do with WhatsApp just yet.

What do you think of business-to-consumer messaging in apps like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp? Would that just frustrate you? Let us know in the comments.

source: Bloomberg

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