Social media pro: WhatsApp
GO BEYOND BORING WITH THIS POPULAR MESSAGING APP.
THE HUMBLE SMS has been around for over two decades, and let’s face it... text messages are no longer innovative like they once were. Looking at the plethora of messaging apps now available for smartphones, the 160 character word limit doesn’t cut it. While MMS gives the ability to send photos and videos, so can many popular social networking platforms, and that’s in addition to the many other features like video calling, document sending, even location sharing. While some smartphone companies have created their own messaging platforms, such as iMessage, try talking with someone on a different OS and you’ll be at a loss. As one of the most popular cross-platform apps worldwide, WhatsApp is the perfect solution. Rather than rely on a carrier service, it uses your phone’s mobile data connection to send and receive messages, with absolutely zero cost to you. Here, we’ll run through the steps to setting up a new account, before highlighting the many features available.
THE BASICS
SIGNING UP: After opening the app for the first time, you’ll be asked to provide a mobile phone number, which WhatsApp will then send a verification code via SMS. This is to ensure the mobile phone number does in fact belong to you. If you’ve previously installed WhatsApp, you’ll be asked if you want to restore your conversation history from the cloud. Lastly, add a display name and profile picture before pressing done.
ADDING CONTACTS: While social networks such as Facebook require you to manually find and add new friends, with WhatsApp, the process is so much simpler. During sign up, the app will request access to your phone contacts... that’s all you need to do. People from your phone book who have WhatsApp installed will appear in your contact list instantly — no friend requests required. If there’s someone not yet using the app, you can invite them by navigating to the new chat screen and scrolling to the bottom of your contact list — it’s here you’ll see the option to send them a link via SMS or email.
SENDING MESSAGES: To start a new conversation, tap the button in the top right corner of your chat screen and choose a recipient. The grey tick underneath each message indicates that it’s been sent from your device, while two ticks shows the message has successfully reached the recipient. If your friend has read receipts on, ticks will also turn blue once a message has been viewed. Change the formatting of a message by selecting your text and tapping BIU from the context menu. Press the plus button to send photos, videos and documents; while holding the microphone icon allows you to record a voice memo.
STATUS UPDATES: There’s one feature that seems to be popping up in many of the social media apps we’ve covered over the last few months. The humble story which expires after 24 hours is something that first emerged on Snapchat, before appearing on both Instagram and Facebook soon after. Not one to miss out on a fad, WhatsApp introduced its own version called status updates in 2017. To add a post, visit the status tab and press either the camera or pencil tool. On this page, you’ll also find a list of recent posts from friends. You can adjust who sees your status updates from the account section of settings.
STEP IT UP A LEVEL
PRIVACY: Because WhatsApp doesn’t rely on friend requests, anyone with your phone number can send you messages. Hence, it’s important to know your options if things end up going sour. Muting will cease all notifications from a contact for eight hours, a week or a year; while blocking will prevent them from contacting you ever again. These options can be accessed either by swiping left on a conversation tile or from the contact profile screen of a chat.
GROUP CONVERSATIONS: Making plans with friends is extremely easy thanks to the group messaging feature. Press the new group button at the top of your chat screen and select who you wish to add. You can then give your group a name and icon.
BROADCAST LISTS: While a group message allows you to conduct conversations amongst each other, you can also send a blast message to multiple contacts at once. This can be useful
for things like sending invitees the location of a party. Broadcast lists can be found at the top of your chats screen.
VIDEO CALLS: Some of you will be familiar with the frustration brought on after commencing a Facetime call with a friend, only to discover they’re using an Android device. Rather than lecture them on the reasons to purchase an iPhone, just ask them to download WhatsApp. Once done, simply tap the phone or video icon at the top of the conversation to commence a call over Wi-Fi (or 4G). This is especially useful for calling people overseas.
BACKING UP: It’s amazing how much information gets said in a single conversation. Hence, losing your message history following a phone upgrade (or breakage) can actually be quite traumatic. Luckily WhatsApp allows you to back up your chat history to the cloud for safe keeping. You can modify how often backups occur from the chats section of settings.
STARRED MESSAGES: Don’t strain yourself scrolling through months of messages to find that amazing restaurant recommended by a friend. Simply tap and hold on a message to see a star icon appear in the context menu. Every message you currently have starred can be found in settings.
GOING PRO
ARCHIVE: No longer talking to that special someone from Tinder? You can archive chats by swiping left on a conversation tile. While this removes it entirely from the chat screen, you can still access archived conversations by entering the recipient’s name into the search bar.
EXPORTING: Take your conversation history away from WhatsApp using the super handy export feature. Simply swipe left on a conversation tile and tap the more icon. Here, you’ll see the option to export with or without attachments — note this if you’re after a smaller file size. The folder can then be sent via text, mail or shared to another app.
WALLPAPER: Make your messaging experience that little bit more aesthetically pleasing by changing the background behind conversations. Located in the chats section of settings, change your wallpaper to one of the pre-existing backgrounds, solid colours or a photo from your camera roll.
LOCATION SHARING: WhatsApp lets you share your current location with friends. Simply tap the plus button and press location. You can even let others track your movements for a specified period of time — helpful in situations like trying to find friends at the beach. DATA USAGE: While sending messages on WhatsApp is 100% free, your mobile data is not. Hence, you may want to think twice before sending (or receiving) an endless number of photos and videos from friends. By default, WhatsApp will automatically download attachments sent by contacts whilst connected to Wi-Fi. This can be changed from the data and storage usage section of settings.
PINS: If you frequently speak with a particular person, you can pin their conversation tile to the top of your chat screen. Simply swipe right on a conversation and tap the pin. Do the same again to undo.