Messenger Broadcast: Social’s tactics to achieving GDPR compliance

Facebook has confirmed that it is privately testing a new platform called Broadcast, which will allow brands to send automated messages en masse to consumers via Messenger. Whilst the promise of being able to reach the platform’s two billion users may be enticing, marketers need to consider several factors before siphoning 2018’s budgets for the service. From the outset, it may seem as if Facebook is missing the mark with this latest offering. In 2017, Mailjet commissioned a piece of research to evaluate the main communication updates in development among social media and digital marketing providers, and discovered that just 2% of consumers want to use chatbots to communicate with brands. Unlike bots however, Broadcast is set to allow brands to send messages without being asked a question by the customer first, but only to users who have initiated conversation in the past. By putting consent first, Broadcast can be seen by the wider industry as considering the impending arrival of GDPR, for itself and the brands that place budget behind the network.