Text messaging (SMS) is often over-shadowed by the richer mobile experience offered by Apps and the mobile internet. Brand and publisher dollars are flowing freely into the App space with SMS relegated to ‘poor cousin’ status despite its wide-ranging utility as a response and bridging channel.
What’s often forgotten – or ignored – is that SMS is still light years ahead of any non-voice mobile activity in terms of sheer use volume and reach. Not only do Canadians send 100 million SMS/day, but virtually every single phone on the market today is SMS enabled.
One audience that is a voracious user of SMS are teens, which is why I was pleased to see Toronto Public Health launch an SMS-based sexual health advice service. The service provides an anonymous way for teens to get answers to questions about sexually transmitted infections + birth control, connect with sexual health clinics and advisors and get information on other related issues.
A couple of comments from a TPH representative sum up the rationale and benefit of the service:
“Teens are always texting, and we know from previous research that teens want to get information from their friends. This service puts reliable information into their hands that they can pass on to a friend.”
“This is the one gap in our service that we wanted to close up,” said Hamilton-Page, noting teens rarely leave home without a cell phone and consider text messaging private and personal, which means they might be less fearful to use it to find out about sexual health.
You can read more about it here.
I also reached out to Sidneyeve Matrix, a Queen’s University professor, noted pop culture and digital media researcher and someone who’s gone deep on youth media trends . Her take:
GenY is accustomed to and skilled at accessing on-demand, mobile, information on their handheld computers (cell phones)... this initiative leverages those digital literacies & meets teens where they are at with a relevant/timely/mobile/customized solution.
Well said.
I went through the experience a couple of different ways to get a sense of the depth and scope of content:
There are a few things I really liked about this effort:
-
They selection of SMS. If this program had been rolled out as an app experience it would have surely bombed. The reach isn’t there into this audience and apps are viewed more as an entertainment or service channel rather than a communication channel.
-
By starting with SMS, besides being most relevant to the target audience, it gives TPH a platform for beginning to understand their audience’s engagement patterns. What info are they requesting? How frequently do they use the service? Looking at these types of data points can create a body of information to inform content strategies for mobile web and app executions.
-
The scope of content offered. While not exhaustive, TPH gives teens a broad offering of the most relevant concerns and subjects – pregnancy, STIs, practical tips around condom breakages, where to locate clinics, etc...It’s substantial enough to offer something useful for the majority of their audience.
-
The click to connect. While SMS can be private and personal, if you think you have a problem, you want to connect with a real person. Click to call is a simple bridging technology and it’s integrated well here to connect the user with exactly the right resource with one click.
This is a simple, well executed concept that provides relevant and valuable content delivered in the perfect medium for the target consumer. It also validates a number of key benefits of SMS:
-
Wide audience reach with especially high use among teen audiences
-
Device and operating system agnostic
-
Ability to deliver timely content
-
Ability to deliver personally relevant content based on defined needs;
-
Ability to bridge between experiences – while this uses click to call, you could easily do click to web, click to download, click to coupon and more.
Nice job Toronto Public Health.
-Jonathan
Subscribe