Broadcast-like chat using Twilio

Question

I'm using Twilio Conversations for a chat service in my project. Currently, we have only normal 1-to-1 chat which is handled using frontend SDKs. It's working properly. My new requirement is something like WhatsApp broadcast: the sender can send messages to multiple participants, but on the receiver's side, it should be a normal chat message. Is it possible to implement using Twilio? How can I implement this?

Answer 1

Twilio developer evangelist here.

You can definitely do this with Twilio Conversations! Here's a way to do it using the Twilio CodeExchange.

Here's the JS version of that CodeExchange app on GitHub as well.

Edit: A Messaging PM says that Conversations is not the right product for notifications/bulk messaging. They're positioning Conversations and its features for bi-directional/conversational messaging and Messaging for transactional messaging (notifications, bulk messaging, verifications, etc.)

What they've seen people do in the past:

• get list of numbers, iterate through them with Messaging API to send out bulk marketing message
• set up the 'from' number (twilio sender) with Conversations autocreation, so that if someone replies it creates a Conversation
• Handle the interactive dialogue with the person who wrote back using Conversations

Let me know if this helps at all!