New Delhi: If you are baffled at the speed at which jokes, videos and GIFs reach your WhatsApp account from groups or friends almost at the same time, remember that such posts are being planned and executed by teams sitting in some corner of the country to bombard the maximum number accounts at one go.With 160 million users in India, the Facebook-owned mobile messaging app has become a top choice among marketers, social influencers and certain groups to reach them via jokes, videos and GIFs whenever there is a breaking news, a major announcement, a tongue-in-cheek celebrity statement or even a festival, say experts.

“WhatsApp is emerging as a highly susceptible channel for propaganda, misinformation, fake news as well as highly influenceable from the targeted marketing message or advertisement perspective, i.e., digital word-of-mouth,” Neil Shah, Research Director (Devices & Ecosystems) at the market research firm Counterpoint Research.
In India, WhatsApp has the highest penetration among any “social-centric” web/app platform available on the nearly 260 million active smartphone users.Social media or digital marketing agencies work behind the content marketing strategies to make stories viral and shareable on WhatsApp.”Several FMCG companies, major political parties and politicians have their in-house sponsored team of social media warriors to generate and share such content or hashtags on various social media platforms,” Mishra noted.According to Shah, among several social media platforms, WhatsApp has a clear edge because of its user-friendly approach which has put the platform in a strong (as well as vulnerable position) for flow of both good and bad news or information or any content across the platform.

“Since the degree of separation among different WhatsApp users is theoretically lower, there is a high chance for any information to go viral Owing to its “no ads” DNA, WhatsApp has so far been resistant to a direct engagement-driven revenue model. However, with Facebook connecting WhatsApp to its social graph, it unlocks potential for Facebook to work with marketers who, in turn, work with influencers to build a robust value chain.”Right now with WhatsApp its much more unorganised and influencers are earning directly from the marketers without any Facebook or Whatsapp intervention, unlike the Facebook or Instagram platforms,” said Shah.
According to Mishra, the content is being prepared by digital marketing agencies with some earning prospects.

“But the reality is that more than 80 per cent of the images or videos shared among the WhatsApp groups are downloaded from websites without any personal revenue benefits excepts some blogging sites which are paying their members for posts, comments, likes or to share contentson linked social profiles,” Mishra said.

On August 25, WhatsApp made extensive changes to its privacy policy, announcing it would and could share users’ personal information, including their phone numbers, with its parent company Facebook — a move that drew sharp criticism from privacy activists and the Delhi High Court in India.

The move was touted as the first step towards monetising WhatsApp since Facebook acquired it for $19 billion in 2014.

“Right now, WhatsApp is quite fragmented and unorganised compared to Facebook. We believe this will change fast as Facebook tries to indirectly monetise the power of WhatsApp as a ‘content sharing and targeting’ platform,” Shah added.