Meta is quietly rolling out a new “Communities” feature to Messenger, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The feature is designed to help organizations, schools, and other private groups communicate in a more organized and structured way. The rollout comes on the heels of Meta introducing Communities to WhatsApp in 2022.
The feature lets users connect with other users even if they're not associated with a Facebook group. Meta introduced Messenger Community Chat in 2022 as a way for Facebook group members to connect in real time, but with this new feature, the company is letting users create a space on Messenger dedicated to real-time communication, even if they're not connected to a Facebook group.
The announcement suggests that Meta is looking to expand Messenger's functionality and differentiate it from other messaging services like iMessage. It also suggests that it wants to add a broader social networking aspect to its non-Facebook messaging app by letting you find and connect with communities directly within Messenger.
Communities consolidate multiple group chats in one place, and each community has a dedicated “home” space where admins can share updates and announcements. Meta says that up to 5,000 people can join a community through shareable invites.
This feature allows you to create dedicated spaces for your organization, school, PTA, neighborhood, etc. You can also create dedicated spaces to connect with friends who share the same interests.
For example, a neighborhood can create a Community so everyone can connect and stay up to date on a variety of topics. They could even create group chats dedicated to topics like upcoming events, security alerts, trash collection schedules, etc. Or a school could create a Community to create a group chat dedicated to all grade levels so parents can join in on conversations about their kids.
The feature works similarly to WhatsApp's Communities, with a key difference, according to Meta: Messenger Communities are connected to Facebook's social graph. Whereas WhatsApp requires people's phone numbers to invite them to join your community, WhatsApp's community builder lets you grow your community by inviting your Facebook friends and friends of friends.
Meta's help page says that Messenger Communities are designed for more public conversations compared to Facebook Groups: For example, the company says that all current and future members of a community can see the contents of chats.
This new feature will be rolled out to all users globally.