Help and Info is Only a Text Away

Yesterday Scarleteen, a free sexuality information resource for teens and young adults went live with their Text Scarleteen service. I’ve been quite impressed by the buzz already surrounding their launch of the service in the first day (and their graphic, above, is great as well). Owned and operated by Heather Corinna (plus a handful of volunteers), Scarleteen provides service to approximately 20-30,000 young adults per month internationally. Heather and her team seem to have no trouble getting traffic to the website where they can ask questions via email or read and respond to messages on their message board.

Scarleteen’s use of text messaging in this way isn’t augmenting a phone line, but rather using it as an additional way for young people to get in touch with someone who cares when they’re out in the world. Last month I wrote a post on our mobile answers blog called “sex and health education for teens and young adults via mobile text messaging – private, personal, anonymous, and effective” pointing out some of the reasons we’ve been contacted lately by health centers and services on campuses and in the community. In a recent meeting with an organization that provides youth lines, they told us that their phone call volumes were going down. It makes sense. Americans on average, text twice as much as they talk on their mobile devices. If teens aren’t talking to their friends as much on the phone, preferring texting, then it’s not going to be their first choice in communication tool for speaking to hotlines or helplines. The organization that we met with knows using text messaging to communicate will prove to be more successful. I’d argue this is the case not only for teens, but 20-35 year olds as well, even if for different reasons.

Consumers expect businesses to have a website. They expect many businesses to have a toll-free number. If your audience carries a mobile phone, they’re going to expect to communicate with you on that device and behaviors are showing that it’s not going to be talking.

More and more libraries are beginning to understand this and moving that way. They use text messaging as a way to extend their outreach, expand their walls and communicate with patrons wherever they are. It’s an exciting movement and very fun to watch. What we’re seeing with our customers is the understanding that simply having texting capabilities isn’t enough. There has to be a way to collaborate, archive, search, run statistics and become more efficient in responding through the mobile medium. We’re happy they’re choosing us to do so and are getting more and more interest in our text messaging for hotlines, helplines and info lines software.

Below I’ve reposted the “9 reasons to use mobile messaging for sex and health education for teens and young adults” in case you haven’t seen it yet. Most of the reasons below can be applied to any organization in communicating with all U.S. mobile phone users these days, not just the younger demographic, but that’s for another post.

9 Reasons to use Mobile Text Messaging for Sex and Health Education for Teens and Young Adults

1. Their mobile phone is everywhere they are. Phones are in their pockets and in their purses, everywhere they go. Text messaging offers a quick, discrete method of communication whenever and wherever advice is needed.

2. Text messaging technologies exist that provide anonymous interactions, allowing conversations to be private and confidential.

3. It is difficult to get over the hurdle of calling or coming in face-to-face for advice or help. Starting the conversation via text messaging can lead to more personal interactions (phone or appointment) once a level of comfort has been reached.

4. 80% of 18-34 year olds report cell phone as “lifeline” in a recent survey conducted by Sprint.

5. “Sexting” is a real problem. Utilizing the same medium to educate students can make a positive impact on negative behavior. They are obviously communicating about sex with their peers through text messaging & mobile photos, so this channel is open for healthier conversations.

6. 71% of teens and 90% of college students own a cell phone (Pew Internet and Student Monitor, respectively).  Not all own computers or have the privacy at home to be able to consult health professionals and sex education specialists.

7. Young people already understand texting can be used beyond peer-to-peer interactions. American Idol and youth-targeted marketing campaigns have done this for years, so there is no obstacle or major challenge for them to understand how a text messaging service works.

8. Quick, immediate, real-time availability by health services/information specialists can help prevent delayed, long-term issues.

9. It is a lot easier than you may think to implement a text message service and information helpline to reach more teens and young adults.

Text the Library With Comments, Feedback and Suggestions

Enabling libraries to set up mobile text messaging reference services so patrons can ask questions has been the primary use of our technology to date. In fact, mobile questions and answers is our business, it’s what we geek out on every day at work. But there’s another use for Mosio’s Text a Librarian currently being utilized and we’d like to encourage more of it: Patron feedback and suggestions via text messaging.

Encouraging patrons to text comments, suggestions and feedback can be a great way to gather intelligence about library use and provide insight on opportunities to better serve them. Being able to collect this feedback everywhere throughout the library beyond a stationary suggestion box allows patrons to chime in at their point of experience. Plus, it will get them to start using your mobile reference service, showing them all of the ways they can communicate with the library.

As a company, Mosio prides itself on listening to the suggestions and feedback of librarians to help make our software better. The product development team always wants to know how people are using the service, what would make it better, more useful, easier to interact with. The product has come a long way in the past 8 months since we launched, but we’re not done making it better. The same is true for those libraries we see who are embracing new technologies and services to become more relevant to patron needs.

Of course, there are always the traditional methods of gathering feedback through simple conversations, suggestion boxes, emails, surveys, etc, but if your library is already offering a text message reference service, you can easily extend the service to include comments and suggestions.

“Questions, Comments, Feedback? Text Us!”

By making it easier for them to communicate with you when they have ideas, you can collect great information that’s helpful to the entire library. Capturing patron thoughts in a database, where reports can be run, shared and talked about, gives you the ability to make ongoing improvements to your library services.

To those libraries who have already put this new use into play, we applaud you! For those looking to get interested, we’ll be creating and posting some easy to use comments/feedback patron marketing templates to use very soon, so stay tuned.

We hear a lot of feedback regarding text messaging from both ends of the spectrum. Some understand and are part of the mobile messaging explosion in the U.S. and others need a little more convincing.

While we don’t send 470 text messages per day (we have plenty of work to do around here), we love text messaging, understand that it might be better to provide some industry facts regarding text messaging usage and show why we’re seeing more and more libraries embrace the mobile channel as an effective addition to reference services. We’ve compiled a quick list for you with links to the reports where possible, will add more as we find them and if you have any, please let us know or post them in the comments section.

• Americans sent 1 trillion SMS text messages in 2008 (CTIA’s Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey)
• SMS text messaging advertising generates response rates 2-10x higher than Internet display ads. (Local Mobile Search Study pdf)

• On average, Americans send and receive twice as many text messages as phone calls per month. (Nielsen Mobile)

• U.S. Teens (ages 13-17) sent and received an average of 1,742 text messages per month in Q2 2008 (Nielsen Mobile)

• In 2008, teens and twenty-somethings were by far the largest users of texting, coming in at 85%. In 2009, this continued to be true with teens at 94% and 20-somethings at 87%, but usage also increased for older age groups. Among those in their 40s, usage jumped from 56% to 64%, and for those in their 50s it jumped from 38% to 46%. (The Vlingo Consumer Mobile Messaging Habits Report, May 20, 2009)

• 60% of U.S. mobile phone users now use SMS, compared to 54% in a survey conducted last year. (The Vlingo Consumer Mobile Messaging Habits Report, May 20, 2009)

• A new online survey of mobile users (sample size not disclosed) conducted in January, 2008 by Amplitude Research has found the following features and considerations to be most important among cell phone buyers:
  * Text messaging: 73%
  * Camera: 67%
  * Ability to access the mobile Internet: 61%
  * Music features: 34%
  * Video: 33%

• Medical and Policy Experts Agree Wireless Technology Makes Healthcare More Efficient, Effective, and Patient-focused (CTIA Wireless Association)