Telegram launches business features and revenue-sharing

Telegram has introduced business functionality and revenue sharing to compete with rival messaging apps WhatsApp and Messenger.

These features include opening hours, locations, chatbot support, and automated messages and are available to all premium users.

However, you will not need coding skills to use some of these features as you would have previously.

Telegram has made them accessible to all business owners.

Revenue sharing with channel owners

Telegram channel owners will now receive 50% of revenue from ads displayed on their channels.

These channels have to be public and contain at least 1,000 users.

Users will be paid their ad revenue share in Toncoins, a cryptocurrency backed by the TON blockchain. Advertisers will also buy ad space using Toncoins.

Telegram Business features

Similar to WhatsApp, Telegram will allow businesses to list their operating hours and location in their profiles.

Start pages allow you to showcase information about your business or provide a welcome message in an empty chat.

Users can customise these start pages by selecting text and a sticker.

Quick replies can be selected from a list to speed up response time when replying to messages.

These messages can be preset and support sending multiple messages simultaneously, including text formatting, links, stickers, media, and files.

Typing a “/” will bring up a list of quick replies from which you can choose.

This is useful if you constantly send clients similar messages or media files.

Telegram Business has also introduced greetings and away messages.

Greetings are preset messages sent to users when they initiate a chat for the first time.

Away messages are preset replies sent between specified times and dates to indicate you are out of the office if someone interacts with your chat.

Tags for chats will allow you to streamline your workflow on the Telegram app by creating chat categories and tagging chats accordingly.

Similar to how you can use a link to join a group, you can use a link to allow someone to initiate a chat with your business.

This feature allows you to use a link or a QR code.

The most significant Telegram Business feature is the introduction of chatbots.

These chatbots can be instructed to manage specific or all chats by automatically responding using an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant.

Telegram encourages developers to make their AI chatbots available to other users within the Telegram business community.