Facebook And Twitter Are Today’s Town Square (But That’s Not A Good Thing)

Facebook and Twitter are two of the great communication tools of our time.  They are the modern equivalent of posting a notice in the town square.  When you put something on Facebook or tweet it people can see it when they visit those respective apps or websites just like visitors to the town square could see a scroll tacked up to a post in the center of town.But what if that notice is important?  What if it can’t wait for everyone to come to town to see it?  What if people need to know about it NOW, not when they happen to see it?  That’s when you ring a church bell.

If social media is the posted notice in the town square then text messaging (SMS) is the church bell.  When there’s a major power outage or a security alert on campus or a tornado coming towards your area at 100 MPH do you really want to wait for people to visit the town square?  No, of course not.  You want to ring the church bell and alert everyone instantly, loud and clear.Social media is a great way to communicate with people casually but SMS is the only way to communicate instantly.Research shows that the exposure of social media postings is actually fairly weak.  First of all you need followers.  Check to see how many your company has on both Facebook and Twitter.  In the vast majority of cases you’ll be shocked at what a small percentage of your customers are actually following you.Then there’s what experts call “reach.”  A tweet, for example, is viewed by only 30% of all of the followers of that account – and that’s over a week.  Only 16% of Facebook followers see any individual post.And SMS? 90% of US households use wireless service.  (In fact 40% of adults live in wireless-only households so don’t try to reach them with a landline call.)  And 95% of text messages are read within three minutes.  It’s the church bell compared to the posted notice.  Everybody gets it, virtually simultaneously – TextPower’s system sends thousands of messages per minute – and everybody reads it right away.The next time there’s an urgent message to deliver, think about this: Do you want to leave a note in the town square or ring the church bell?

Facebook and Twitter -- or SMS?

SMS is the fastest, most effective and least expensive method of reaching your customers and the ONLY method that gets to everyone within minutes. It’s time to start ringing the church bell: Learn More.