Some WhatsApp users can already check that they have the possibility of creating a community available, one of the latest functions that have been incorporated into the Meta instant messaging application. Although the vast majority do not yet have them, it is worth becoming familiar with them and knowing what WhatsApp communities are , because their incorporation will be gradual on all devices in the coming weeks.
The communities seek to be a solution so that the groups do not end up becoming a chaotic ecosystem in which it is impossible to find the desired information. In this way, within a community it will be possible to structure smaller subgroups that allow better organization of the content of each one.
As you can see in the image, communities are a very useful alternative to organize the parents of a school or for the director of a company to communicate directly and efficiently with each department of the same. In the same way, users will be able to choose which community groups to be in in order to avoid inconsequential messages, something that is still quite common in groups today.
How to create a WhatsApp community
You are probably intrigued about how to create a WhatsApp community after seeing what the initial idea with which this new feature has been launched is. If you are one of the lucky ones who can already create them, you will only have to open the WhatsApp application and click on the icon with three points that you will find in the upper right. There you should see the option ‘New community’. You can also do it by clicking on the ‘New chat’ icon in the lower right and choosing the ‘New community’ option, as well as on the ‘Communities’ tab that will appear progressively in the latest WhatsApp updates .
Once the first step has been taken, you can now customize your WhatsApp community with the name (it has a limit of 24 characters), your profile picture and a description that shows what the theme of it is.
If you click on ‘Next’, you can start creating groups or add groups that already existed previously in your WhatsApp account. The administrators of a community will be able to create up to 10 new groups and add a total of 50 groups , in addition to the warning group (messages that reach all members of the community). The maximum user limit will be 5,000, and by being part of a community, they will be able to access the groups they want.
What differentiates a community from a WhatsApp group
As explained at the beginning of the article, the possibility of optimizing and categorizing information more efficiently is the key that explains what differentiates a community from a WhatsApp group , thus preventing them from ending up in chaos. As indicated in the official WhatsApp blog , the target audience of the communities are the administrators of educational institutions, companies or sports clubs, which can also be considered an intermediate step between the common WhatsApp accounts and those of WhatsApp Business, focused on to companies.
This way of compartmentalizing information has also been carried out in the past in other social networks. Facebook groups are perhaps the oldest, and in recent months Twitter communities have also emerged. With the 5,000 user limit, WhatsApp communities are likely to end up becoming something similar to Discord servers , where different categories are structured into threads rather than groups.