Viber Community: How to Create and Use It for Your Business
Published: Aug 7, 2023
Introduced in 2018, Viber Communities are like a group chat, but with an unlimited number of members, more admin controls, and advanced features that make for seamless communication.
They offer a chat space on Viber Business messages, where members can exchange messages and engage with one another in a moderated and safe environment that respects user privacy.
All the conversation features that make a great channel for large groups, also make Communities on Viber a remarkably effective business channel.
With this option, business messaging becomes a piece of cake.
You get the perfect platform for managing, engaging, and growing large, active groups.
These groups can connect any number of people around interests, causes, and anything else you can think of.
A Community on Viber for businesses and brands offers a great space to keep customers and fans updated on company news and new product offerings.
You can directly engage your audience in text-to-win contests, giveaways, and other fun activities that reward participation and keep everyone engaged with your business.
So what is a Viber Community?
Here's everything you need to know about the new feature and how to use it for your business.
What is a Viber Community?
A Community is a group within the Viber messaging app where people can connect with others who share similar interests, hobbies, or passions.
Members of a Community can interact with one another, share relevant information and links, and participate in discussions.
Brands and public accounts often use their list of Viber Communities to connect with fans and businesses use the feature to engage with their customers and gather prospects.
Businesses can share updates, promotions, and more with their entire Community in a single chat window.
Viber Group Chats Vs. Communities
Viber group chats are usually for family or friends and can have up to 250 members.
Members can only join by invitation or a direct link.
Communities on the Viber app are larger, public-facing groups, usually made up of people who are not personally connected.
Group chats work best when everyone knows each other and feels safe with other participants because the phone numbers of everyone in the group are visible.
Communities hide the phone numbers of their members and only allow incoming messages from others if a member has approved of it.
Another big difference between Viber group chats and Communities is that in a group chat, new members are not able to view the earlier conversation.
In a Community, the entire chat history is available to everyone, no matter when they joined.
In group chats, admins can only remove or add other members.
Meanwhile, in communities, admins can also manage the conversation by deleting messages and adding or revoking certain privileges for members.
These features make a Viber Community a better option for businesses that want to bring together their entire audience without compromising on privacy or accessibility.
9 Community Features That Set It Apart
These are the top Viber Communities features that Viber users should know about:
1. Unlimited Members
The biggest advantage of the Communities feature is having an unlimited number of members.
2. New Member Engagement
New members can see the Community chat history and join the conversation without losing a beat.
3. Conversation Management
You decide whether your members can post in the chat or just view messages posted by admins.
4. Messaging Features
Community members can react to messages, respond directly, or mention a member.
5. Member Privacy
All members’ phone numbers are hidden; just their Viber username and photo are visible.
6. Discussion Moderation
Add admins to help you manage your community and delete messages or remove members.
7. Community Growth
Easily invite new members or allow members to add friends with an invite link.
8. Chat Safety
Members can choose whether to let other members message them in a hidden-number chat.
9. Poll and Quiz Creation
Use polls and quizzes to create fun engagement and collect feedback from your community.
How to Create a Viber Community
Anyone can create their own Community group on Viber in just a few simple steps:
In the Viber app on your phone, tap on the new chat icon and select New Group or Community
Select the first member(s) from your contacts you’d like to form a Community with and tap Next. These first members will automatically have an Admin status (you can toggle this off later)
On the next screen, you’ll choose a group type: Group Chat or Community. Select Community and enter a name and an optional description
Tap the checkmark and voila, you have your first Community. The Community will be pinned to your home chats screen. The contacts you had selected when creating will be sent a notification
From here, you can then start inviting more people to join, add or remove admins, and manage individual member privileges such as the ability to send messages or links
Tiered Management Roles: Superadmins, Admins, and Members
Each Community group on Viber has three tiers of participants.
As the Community creator, you are the first Superadmin and have full control and flexibility to create an environment that reflects the purpose of your group.
A Superadmin can:
· Promote members to admin or Superadmin status
· Add or remove Community members
· Pin messages to start a group discussion or promote a certain topic or link
· Delete one or all messages written by specific members
· Publish public links to invite new members
· Decide whether all members of the Community can share its link
· Control admins’ and members’ writing privileges
While superadmins have the final say, admins help them manage the Community and moderate the discussion by:
· Adding or removing Community members
· Pinning messages
· Deleting messages
Every member has full access to the Community’s complete history and can contribute to the conversation with all of Viber’s messaging features: text, pictures, videos, GIFs, and stickers.
This is, of course, possible if a Superadmin has allowed member writing privileges.
Members can mention other users within a message and make quoted replies.
Top 3 Advantages of a Community for Businesses
By bringing together all your customers and prospects in a Community, you have a single space where you can easily communicate and engage with all of them simultaneously.
Members are already warm leads who expect updates from you and are more receptive to messages from your business.
Think of it like group texting everyone on your chat list, except with more collective participation.
Gain Visibility
Community messages appear alongside private messages in a user’s Viber inbox, giving your business high visibility and keeping it top of mind for your customers and prospects.
Collect Feedback
No matter if you’ve chosen your Community on Viber to be a one-way or two-way communication platform, members can still react to messages sent by admins to express themselves.
You can test your new ideas with your Community first before launching a more public chat campaign.
Engage Your Audience
You can use the feature’s built-in polls and quizzes to engage with your customers and get to know their preferences while emphasizing the importance of their opinion.
Businesses of all types can use quizzes to create giveaways or contests with prizes, and polls to get opinions on new products.
For example, cafes can do a poll to get opinions on a new ice cream flavor or decide on the week’s special.
Use a Community as part of your overall food and beverage messaging strategy.
The app’s Community Insights feature allows businesses to better understand their audience and determine what type of content they are most receptive to.
This is information that you can then use in other communication mediums as well, online or offline.
Grow Your Viber Community Group
Viber has over 1 billion users worldwide, accounting for about 15% of the world's population.
So, any community has the potential to reach 1/8 of the planet.
Of course, that’s a tall order for any business.
Many would be happy just to engage a few hundred or thousand customers who are interested in the company or brand, but the potential to expand your Community is vast.
If you’re already using Viber Business messages or SMS marketing solutions, then your existing contacts should provide a good base to start with.
To grow a Community on Viber, share your Community link on your website and social media or allow members to invite their contacts through an invite link.
Your most active members can become your brand ambassadors and spread the word.
When your members forward a message from the Community to any of their friends, groups, or other Communities, it has the potential to go viral throughout the app.
Every forwarded message has a label with your Community name on it, so everyone who sees it knows where the message came from and can tap the Community name to join.
Sticker packs are one of Viber’s most popular promotional tools to attract users to join a Community.
You can create free branded stickers, which can be downloaded from Viber’s sticker market to convert Viber users to Community members.
Promoting a sticker pack on the sticker market is a great way to gain exposure for your Community and provide a fun experience for users.
