Decoded: How the same joke or video floods your WhatsApp account

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 goWith 160 million users in India the Facebookowned 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 tongueincheek celebrity statement or even a festival say expertsWhatsApp 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 ie digital wordofmouth Neil Shah Research Director Devices amp Ecosystems at the market research firm Counterpoint Research told IANSIn India WhatsApp has the highest penetration among any socialcentric webapp platform available on the nearly 260 million active smartphone usersSeveral marketers are leveraging an infantry of smart or influential folks to develop and spread targeted and viralnatured content I believe the viral messages developed and spread are not by a single source but many individuals and firms working on this behind the scenes Shah addedThere are ways to populate the sharing of such viral content but it can be defined in two parts content and objectiveWhile objectives and the purposes could be anything one can easily relate these with driving mass awareness creating social buzz dragging public attention on political or public issues or making fun among friends or sharing memes or news Anoop Mishra one of the nations leading social media experts told IANSSocial media or digital marketing agencies work behind the content marketing strategies to make stories viral and shareable on WhatsAppSeveral FMCG companies major political parties and politicians have their inhouse sponsored team of social media warriors to generate and share such content or hashtags on various social media platforms Mishra notedAccording to Shah among several social media platforms WhatsApp has a clear edge because of its userfriendly 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 platformSince the degree of separation among different WhatsApp users is theoretically lower there is a high chance for any information to go viral faster than any other social media platform or even wordofmouth said ShahWith some 150 million active users in India Facebook is the secondmost used social media platform and can also act as a catalyst for proliferation of viral content due to a broader sharing and a greater engagement with the contentHowever Facebook is quite curated and controlled via an algorithm according to a persons social graph and Facebooks advertising engine and hence potentially less viral than Whatsapp Shah pointed outFacebooks third property Instagram is also quickly rising to become a popular platform from the perspective of social media influencers to drive rich content for marketers and mainly target millennialsIs there a revenue model in there for those making posts viral Absolutely wherever there is a greater reach and high engagement for any platform a potential revenue model certainly exists Shah statedOwing to its no ads DNA WhatsApp has so far been resistant to a direct engagementdriven 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 chainRight 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 Shah told IANSAccording to Mishra the content is being prepared by digital marketing agencies with some earning prospectsBut 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 told IANSOn 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 IndiaThe move was touted as the first step towards monetising WhatsApp since Facebook acquired it for 19 billion in 2014Right 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