WhatsApp has rolled out a new feature that lets you gather groups together under umbrella ‘Communities’.
Once a set of groups is added to a community, admins will be able to send announcements to everyone in all the groups at once.
WhatsApp parent company Meta said the feature aims to connect groups into neighbourhood, schools or workplace communities.
Welcome to Communities 👋
Now admins can bring related groups together in one place to keep conversations organized.
Organized. Private. Connected 🤝 pic.twitter.com/u7ZSmrs7Ys
— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) November 3, 2022
While admins will be able to speak to entire communities at once, conversations within the groups themselves will remain private.
Meta hopes the new feature will allow it to compete with communication platforms and networks like Slack and Discord.
It is banking on being able to leverage the popularity of WhatsApp, which is already used by two billion people and has the advantage of end-to-end encryption, to make a splash in the area.
WhatsApp Communities update. Image: WhatsAppWhile many of the features associated with Communities were revealed back in April, today’s announcement includes some new updates.
Firstly, video calls can now include up to 32 people and secondly the maximum number of users in a group is being doubled to 1,024.
WhatsApp Communities update. Image: WhatsAppMeanwhile, polls and Zoom-style shareable call links are also being rolled out.
WhatsApp users should be able to see the communities tab in the app from today – at the top of your chats for Android and the bottom on IOS.
From there, you can make a new community from scratch or from a selection of your existing groups.
