WhatsApp recently announced a new Communities feature that will allow groups to organize themselves under one umbrella with new tools for admins. This is a major evolution of WhatsApp’s offerings that will change how people use the app. Here are some key questions and answers about what this new feature means:
What are WhatsApp Communities?
WhatsApp Communities are a new way for WhatsApp groups to organize themselves and connect. Community admins will be able to link groups together under one umbrella category, like a neighborhood or workplace. This will allow for easier communication between related groups.
How will Communities work?
With Communities, admins will be able create a top-level Community with several related sub-groups underneath. For example, a neighborhood Community could have groups for different streets, apartment buildings, events, etc. Members can receive updates sent to the entire Community through an Announcement group.
What features will Communities have?
Features for Communities include:
- Announcement groups – Send important updates to the entire Community
- Control for admins – Admins can delete inappropriate or abusive content in any group
- 32 person video calls – Up from 8 person calls currently
- File sharing up to 2GB – Increased from 100MB currently
In the future, WhatsApp plans to build out more features like reactions and improved group chat admin tools.
Benefits
Better Communication
One major benefit of Communities is that they will enable better communication between related groups and organizations. Important messages can be broadcast to the entire Community through announcement groups. This streamlines getting information to the right people.
Improved Organization
With sub-groups linked together under a Community topic, information and discussions can be better organized. This reduces duplication across groups and helps people engage with the most relevant conversations. Members can opt-in to the groups most interesting to them.
More Engagement
By improving the discovery of relevant sub-groups, Communities make it easier for members to engage in topics they care about. Less irrelevant content means members can focus on participating in the most meaningful discussions. This leads to increased member engagement within Communities.
Enhanced Admin Controls
To help keep Communities civil and pleasant, admins are getting more tools. These include the ability to delete posts from any sub-group, as well as improved analytics to monitor activity. Together, these tools will help admins maintain constructive discussions.
Use Cases
Here are some examples of how Communities could be used:
Neighborhoods
Neighbors could have sub-groups for different streets, apartment buildings, social events, local alerts, recommendations, neighborhood watch, and more. Announcements could be sent about community events or safety issues.
Workplaces
Employees could have Communities with groups for individual teams, social events, announcements, mentorship programs, remote workers, and more. Company news could be shared through an announcements channel.
Schools
Teachers could create Communities with sub-groups for classes, grades, clubs, sports teams, parent groups, events, and announcements. Important school news and updates could be shared through an announcements channel.
Support Groups
Support groups like new parents could form Communities around related topics like parenting infants, dealing with postpartum depression, mothers groups, play dates, and more. Community announcements could share group events or resources.
Recreation
Recreational Communities could form around hobbies like sports teams, gaming clans, outdoors clubs, or motor enthusiast groups. Each could have their own sub-groups and announcements.
WhatsApp Community Usage
Here is a table visualizing potential WhatsApp Community usage statistics:
Community Type | Potential Size | Example Use Cases |
---|---|---|
Neighborhoods | 50-5000 members | Groups for different streets, events, recommendations, alerts |
Workplaces | 50-5000 members | Groups for teams, events, announcements, remote workers |
Schools | 100-5000 members | Groups for grades, classes, clubs, parent groups |
Support Groups | 50-2000 members | Groups for related support topics and events |
Recreation | 50-2000 members | Groups for sports teams, gaming clans, hobbyist groups |
As you can see from the table, WhatsApp expects Communities to be used by organizations and users ranging in size from tens to thousands of members. Smaller communities are likely to form organically, while larger ones may require active management.
Comparison to Competitors
Telegram
Telegram has offered similar Community features since 2020. However, Telegram’s focus is much more on large public broadcast channels rather than close-knit neighborhood groups. Telegram Communities have unlimited size and lack admin controls.
Facebook Groups
Facebook Groups can reach very large audiences and have sophisticated admin tools, but lack deeper integration with messaging. Switching between discussion and coordination is clunky. WhatsApp Communities embed groups directly into messaging.
NextDoor
NextDoor focuses specifically on hyperlocal neighborhood groups. However, it is not built into a popular messaging platform like WhatsApp and has scaled issues in very dense urban areas. WhatsApp offers wider use cases and adoption.
Slack Connect
Slack Connect allows linking between related Slack workspaces. However, Slack is primarily focused on business team collaboration rather than local community messaging. WhatsApp is used more widely globally across all use cases.
Overall, WhatsApp Communities strike a balance of providing community messaging capabilities beyond competitors while integrating into a platform with broad existing use.
Challenges
While WhatsApp Communities introduce many new opportunities, there are also challenges to consider:
Moderation
The larger groups enabled by Communities will put more burden on admins to monitor conversations and moderate effectively. Proactive moderation will be required to avoid misinformation and abuse.
User Experience
Navigating many groups within a Community could become confusing for users. WhatsApp will need to provide intuitive interfaces and notifications to highlight the most relevant conversations.
Misinformation
With public Community announcements, there is risk that fake news and harmful rumors could reach a wider audience. Fact checking methods may need to be employed.
Spam
The broader reach of Communities creates potential for more spam messages. Tools to limit forwarding and allow user reporting of spam will need to be robust.
Privacy
Users may not want certain messages shared across an entire Community. Granular controls over privacy and audience targeting will be important to address this.
Conclusion
The introduction of WhatsApp Communities represents a major evolution of the platform that aims to connect related groups and boost engagement. For neighborhood organizations, workplaces, schools, and interest groups, Communities will enable improved communication and coordination.
However, to be successful, WhatsApp will need to invest in moderation tools, user experience, misinformation controls, spam prevention, and privacy features. If executed thoughtfully, Communities have the potential to increase participation in local groups and access to important information. But care will need to be taken to prevent some of the downsides that often emerge in large messaging channels.
Overall, Communities represent an ambitious undertaking by WhatsApp to enable messaging not just between individuals and businesses, but amongst collections of common-interest groups. The coming months will reveal how well WhatsApp navigates the opportunities and challenges of this expansion into more public community messaging.