Published by Jeremy. Last Updated on January 27, 2025.
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For the longest time, I was reluctant to start a Broadcast Channel on Facebook and Instagram. My notifications were already blowing up from too many accounts starting broadcast channels, and I, quite honestly, just found it all very annoying that I ignored it completely.
It wasn't until seeing a post from a blogger in a private Facebook group I'm in hailing the success of broadcast channels (on Facebook, specifically) that my interest was piqued, and I decided to give it a go.
So in this one, we thought we'd share a few misconceptions about what Broadcast Channels are, and why you may want to consider starting one.
Note: I primarily use Broadcast Channels on my Facebook page; however, they also exist on Instagram. This article primarily focuses on my Facebook experience even if the ideas are similar on both.
What Are Broadcast Channels?
Meta advertises Broadcast Channels as a means to “go deeper with your audience” and effectively gives you a direct way to communicate with your followers via sharing text, video, images, and other unique experiences.
Without knowing any better, we honestly just looked at them and thought, “Ugh, another place we have to post to,” and moved on. But really, it is better to think of Broadcast Channels as a one-way messaging platform that users opt-in to from brands they like. Think of it like a social-media-based newsletter but fully embedded on-platform.
While you aren't really owning the list here, as you would with a traditional newsletter, where this becomes interesting is because it seems like the opt-in helps cut through some of the algorithmic concerns we see in other posting styles on the app. You send out a new image, or link, or text update, and everyone who opts in will be notified about it in-app.
Creators also have the opportunity to create several channels themed around unique topics of their choosing and can really unlock a number of avenues to engage with fans in your niche.
But there is a downside- as of publication, it seems like Broadcast Channels can only be started for those with 10,000+ followers.
Still, let's jump into some novel ways we're using Broadcast Channels that you may want to consider.
Broadcast Channel Ideas to Stay Connected to Fans
When Broadcast Channels first launched, it was marketed for those who want to share things like “authentic content” and “behind-the-scenes moments” that may otherwise not make your main feed.
For us, however, we're more interested in the fact that it is a direct connection with our readers, and we want to leverage that as best we can.
Some Broadcast Channels that we started with this in mind include:
- Receive recent articles – We only send out new articles published on our blog in this one.
- Get notified of events/meetups – Whenever we have a new ticketed event, we share the link here.
- Coupons and discounts – If we find a cool discount or coupon in our niche, we'll share it.
- Giveaway notifications – Only shares of contests as they go live.
- Join our groups – Push notifications to get more members in our themed Facebook groups. One group's channel we share member posts via a direct link (a public photography group) and another is only a one-message reminder to join (private group, so posts don't show up well here).
As you can see, these ideas are not necessarily behind-the-scenes or authentic moments that would not find their way into our main feeds. In fact, this is exactly the same kind of content that shows up in our main feeds.
The main difference is that with Broadcast Channels, users have opted in to receive these postings directly, and getting article links, coupons, affiliates, events, and other content straight to Messenger can be quite a powerful tool- all on app with no newsletter or algorithm needed! (But still run a newsletter outside of this- you don't own your lists here.)
Now, don't get me wrong, if you are an outgoing type whose niche allows for cool behind-the-scenes style content, a Broadcast Channel could be a great place for that, too. But as someone who is more matter-of-fact and just wants to get the point across, having the ability to just message new content in themed silos to users who opted in for it sounds immensely powerful- especially with organic reach on-page dropping over time.
Imagine if you had 1,000 people who wanted to be notified of paid events? Or new product releases? Or new articles? Or brand-sponsored giveaways? Or discounts that may net you an affiliate commission? Now you can see why this one is exciting.
Even better? Facebook seemingly promotes your Broadcast Channels for you. After creating the channels, our followers on our 130k+ page started to receive notifications that we created channels, and without any extra work on our part we had 50-100 subscribers within a day or two of launch and just kept growing from there.
It will be a slog to convert even a small portion of our massive following, but if it works, well, you can imagine what should happen next- all for copying and pasting select content over into a Messenger app.
- You may be wondering just how often we post to these channels. The answer is very limited. New articles are maybe twice a week. A share from our public photo group is maybe once or twice a week, if that. The rest are when we have something new which can be few and far between. We do believe sharing too much is a risk to these for the reason we're about to discuss.
One Downside to Broadcast Channels? User Confusion
Shortly after launching my Broadcast Channels, my membership jumped considerably- about 300 to 700 members each depending on the channel. Not as big of following as I would've thought for a page with 130k+, I'll admit, but enough that the initial response was starting to be substantial (and all due to Facebook recommending them on my behalf).
Getting 100 people to do literally anything is quite difficult, after all.
By and large, the channels were working as intended. I never could see replies, obviously, but posts were engaged within the message (like and love emojis, etc.), the reach was quite high (often higher than the channel membership!), and the like.
But one weird thing happened- I started to get messages from users complaining about me “sending them messages” they didn't want to receive.
As it turns out, some Facebook users simply do not understand that joining a Broadcast Channel means that you are signing up for a direct message subscription. Some just opted into the push notification they received and had no idea what that meant.
Given that I, honestly, didn't really know what Broadcast Channels were until I started looking into it more on my own, this actually makes a lot of sense. Meta's rollout of Broadcast Channels was fairly terrible, and many people just don't really know what they are.
Ignoring all of this, the big problem that I ran into here is that Meta also doesn't make it easy to remove users from Broadcast Channels from the admin side. As of publishing, I still have yet to be able to find a search function where I could go look up a user and remove them from the channel on my end- short of banning them from my page entirely, at least. (A lot of the rude messages I got ended up blocking me before I could block them, so win-win I guess.)
Overall, while Meta's rollout of Broadcast Channels could've been better, I'm pretty excited to have these new outlets to reach users with targeted marketing that they explicitly opted-into. It is more work, yes, but with a bit of strategy the effort is likely to pay off quite well on the long run.
Just don't sacrifice your off-app newsletter to do these, either. Own your list as best you can, and play in other people's sandboxes only when it is valuable like this.
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