Viber offers more perks for brand managers

With 800 million active users, Viber is seeking to attract more businesses to its messaging service.

This week, the app company announced Public Accounts, a feature that will allow brands to broadcast marketing messages and communicate one-on-one with users. The brand is pushing its Public Accounts’ potential for customer service interactions, marketing and sales.

On the marketing and sales side, Viber is extending its API to allow companies to plug in to the service through their customer relationship management tools.

Here’s what Viber’s Michael Shmilov told a crowd at Web Summit:

We are, of course, aware of what’s going on in our field, but we take pride in crafting the best possible solution based on what we believe is the most suitable experience for people using Viber.

Previously, the company released Viber for Business, which encouraged brand managers to build a presence on the platform. Public Accounts will allow users to connect to brands through human or bot interactions.

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Viber created an account for a fake restaurant’s called “Violet’s Kitchen” to show how it will work:

This play is an effort to further compete against rivals like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

For now, Public Accounts is free, but TechCrunch reports that it will likely move toward a freemium model—and brands will have to pay for certain features.

How might you use Viber in your marketing efforts, PR Daily readers?

from PR Daily News Feed http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/20df3143-59c0-492f-8f78-c8593825db42.aspx