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Facebook is making major changes to their subscription messaging permissions that may affect your business and will definitely affect your chatbots, if you have them.

Starting from January 1st, 2019 Facebook will require you to have “Page Level Subscription Messaging Permissions”

This means that if you currently use, or plan on using Facebook messenger marketing in your business, then you will need to be approved for it.

So, what’s the difference between standard messaging and subscription messaging?

The main difference is that subscription messaging can be sent after a 24-hour window, while standard messaging needs to be within 24 hours of someone interacting with your page. Subscription messaging also doesn’t allow promotional or advertising content to be sent, while standard messaging can…but only in that 24-hour window.

Prior to this change, you have been able to get permission to send subscription messages via the app level, so if you’re using a chatbot then you didn’t need any further permissions, however, as of January 1st, this will all change.

If your Facebook business page wants to send subscription messages, then you will need to go through the approval process.  Luckily, the approval process is quite simple and straightforward.

To get approved for subscription messaging, follow the below steps:

  1. Go to your Facebook Business page and in the upper right-hand corner, click on settings. You will then scroll down on the left-hand column and click on “Messenger Platforms”. From here, click on “Advanced Messaging Features” and click on subscription messaging. If the button is green, then good work, you’re already approved! If it’s not lit up, you will need to request it.  To get approval, provide the relevant information and let Facebook know what type of messages you’ll send and how often. You will need to give an example of what your page will send. They will give you examples to go off, so you have a good idea of what you can and can’t write.
  2. Once you’ve written your examples, save it as a draft and then submit it to Facebook. Note: Facebook could take up to 5 business days to approve this.

It’s as simple as that!

Even if you’re not already using a chatbot or Facebook messaging system, it’s a good idea to get approved so that you don’t need to do it in the future – and if you are already using Facebooks subscription messaging, then ensure you have this approval before December 31st, 2018 otherwise you will no longer be able to send subscription messages.

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