The administrator of your Facebook page – whether yourself or another member of your team - needs to be aware that new changes are coming soon. According to official information, Facebook pages won’t be able to send promotional messages to users unless they are approved for subscription permissions.
Prepare for the changes in advance and learn everything you need to know about the upcoming updates from this post.
What is Facebook subscription messaging?
Subscription messaging is one of the messaging features developed by Facebook. Mostly, it provides subscribed users with notifications about news and updates published on the particular page.
Facebook claims that this messaging has been designed for:
- All kinds of news, including weather, sports, politics, traffic, business and finance, etc.
- Personal purposes, such as self-monitoring in terms of fitness, health, etc.
- Managing of users’ activity, including calendars, reminders, bills, etc.
Initially, subscription messaging was not created as a promotional tool, however, business pages were actively using them to inform subscribed customers about news related to their services.
Unfortunately, Facebook discourages any messaging that include information about discounts, sales, deals, and all similar announcements.
How is sending subscription messages good for your business?
Facebook is one of the strongest promotional channels today. Millions use it regularly to find products and services. The number of clicks via Facebook and Messenger in particular are ten times larger than the number of clicks made in email. This is a valuable marketing tool that business owners shouldn’t ignore.
What’s more, with Facebook, your audience becomes more targeted and interested in your product. Think about it: when someone subscribes to your page, it means that he or she would like to keep in touch with you and are interested in your business. Subscribed users want to know about the updates you are going to offer.
This type of business-customer relations is the strongest one allowing you to communicate with them on professional, emotional, and intellectual levels. As you know, engaged customers are everything in the world of online business.
How to start using this feature?
If you believe that subscription messaging can work for your business, you should apply for it. Here is how:
- Visit your page and go to Page Settings > Messaging Platform
- Choose Advanced Messaging Features and press Request - After you do so, the app will ask you some questions: type of messages you are going to send (news, personal tracker, managing); additional info about the services your chat bot offers; examples of your messages. The last one is the most confusing.
Things you need to know:
- Your request will be reviewed by a person
- Make sure that the examples of the messages fully correspond to the messaging type you mention in the first answer
- Avoid any promotional tags
Your aim is to make your application look like an informational one, not promotional. Considering the fact that a real person will evaluate it, you should be careful when choosing words and phrases.
Request declines
Many marketers fail to pass the application process since their pages have obvious marketing purposes. The good news is if your first application was denied, you can always make a second one, and a third one and on and on. Fortunately, the number of applications you can send to Facebook is unlimited.
You can apply again and again as many times as you may need until you nail a message they’ll accept. Try choosing different messaging types and change the tone of your messages. Remember, un-promotional subscriptions include:
- Community alerts
- Pairing updates
- Events
- Account updates
- Application updates
- Shipping updates
- Problem resolutions
- Reservation updates
- Ticket updates
- And more!
Of course, your business may not be related to most types listed above, however, you can still find a way to qualify.
What if you don’t get approved for the subscription messaging feature?
You won’t be able to send the subscription messages to your customers starting from the 1st of January, 2019. Business pages need permission to send messages to their audience via Messenger and inform them about the service updates, new arrivals, discounts, etc.
It’s extremely beneficial to use Facebook Messenger for your marketing due to convenient interface, push notifications, and incredible level of trust and engagement. Look into the 2019 changes so you won’t get left behind.
About the Author
Jennifer Pauli graduated from Corvinus School of Management and finished the faculty of Journalism at Corvinus University of Budapest. Currently, she is an editor, business writer, and copywriter, working with EssaySpirit.com and other well-known companies, blogs, and personalities. Follow her on Twitter, G+ and read the personal blog.
