Driving Millions of Page Views: How Reach is Empowering Publishers with WhatsApp

Driving Millions of Page Views: How Reach is Empowering Publishers with WhatsApp

As Whatsapp rolls out a new service for publishers called Channels, Press Gazette found out how Reach is already driving millions of page views through the Meta-owned messaging app.

Press Gazette also reveals how, some three weeks after Channels was launched globally, UK news publishers have already gained hundreds of thousands of followers on the service.

Reach won the innovation prize at the Press Gazette Future of Media Awards in September for its work on Whatsapp Communities which began earlier this year.

Wheras Channels is a new way for publications to broadcast articles to any Whatsapp readers who subscribe to their feed via new section of the app, Communities is an existing function on the app which allows publishers to interact with readers more closely by setting up groups (which are limited to 2,000 members).

For Reach, Whatsapp is seen as a way of making up for waning referral traffic from Facebook and Twitter.

At the time of writing Reach has 80 Whatsapp Communities with around 100,000 subscribers delivering several million pages views per month and additional in-app video views.

The open rate for messages shared via Whatsapp Communities is, according to Reach engagement director Daniel Russell, around 90%.

Source: Pressgazette.co.uk