Today, over 2 billion people across more than 180 countries use WhatsApp to connect with friends and family, making it probably the world’s most widely used private messaging service.
And now, people are using WhatsApp for more than just messaging friends and family. Introduced last year, WhatsApp Channels is a new feature that gives people an easy way to get updates and information straight from the individuals and organisations that matter to them.
Whether you’re into keeping up with football clubs, content creators, or celebrities, you can now do it on WhatsApp Channels. If you’re new to WhatsApp Channels, here are four things you should know:
1. Easily find your favourites
You can find Channels to follow that are automatically filtered based on your country. You can also filter Channels by those that are new, most active, and popular.
2. Separate from your personal chats
WhatsApp Channels can be found in a new tab called Updates – separate from your personal chats with friends and family. Anyone can choose to follow a Channel by browsing and following the Channels they’re interested in.
3. Simple and user friendly:
Find and follow your favourite creators, celebrities and organisations and stay up to date with updates, shared as text, photos, videos, stickers, voice messages and even polls. As a follower, you can react to Channel updates using emojis to give feedback and see a count of how others reacted too. How you react will not be shown to other followers.
4.. Private by design
WhatsApp Channels come with strong privacy protections that people expect from WhatsApp. As a WhatsApp Channel admin, your phone number and profile photo are kept private from followers. Similarly, when you follow a Channel, your phone number is not visible to the admin or other followers.
Adedapo Adesanya