WhatsApp’s asking what’s up- okay, time to be serious. WhatsApp has recently added some new chat elements to help improve engagement and contextual understanding, which could also see people interacting in new ways via message. With more interactions shifting to messaging, this potentially helps WhatsApp further lead in the space.
Lets Vote!
To start, WhatsApp’s rolling out single-vote polls, which will allow users to restrict the number of responses that each chat participant can provide to a poll question. That does sound logical. Here’s how WhatsApp describes it:
“For when you need a definitive answer, we’re introducing the option for poll creators to allow people to vote only once. Simply turn off ‘allow multiple answers’ when creating a poll.”
We understand that this may appear like only a minor tweak, but it can possibly make for some more interesting and indicative poll responses, which could help to clarify debates in group chats. Not that everyone who’s on WhatsApp is after intellectual clashing, but it does have its merit, especially if you consider the impact that global discourse, even on various topics, has. On top of this, users can now also search for polls within a chat, by filtering messages by polls, in the same way, that you can for photos or videos.
“On the ‘Chats’ screen, press ‘Search’ and then ‘Polls’ to find a list of all results.”
So, now, users can also go back to their old single-response poll and resurface it when they need receipts. WhatsApp’s also updating its sharing options for images with captions, giving users the option to either keep, delete or rewrite a caption when they share an image. You’ll now also be able to add a caption to photos and videos when you forward them, which could help to provide more context when distributing posts in your chats.
Finally, users can now also add captions when they share documents in chat. That should make it a bit easier to manage shared items in-stream, especially in group chats, where the explanation can sometimes get lost in the shuffle.
The Wrap
Despite the minor-sounding impact, these are some fairly handy updates that could help streamline your WhatsApp interactions, potentially providing a range of ways to improve communications between brands and customers as well in the app. More direct explainers will make it much easier for people to stay on top of each element. It’ll be worth considering how these new options could clarify things for your process. WhatsApp says that all these new elements will be globally rolled out to all users starting May 4th and will gradually become available to everyone ‘over the coming weeks’.
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