For the longest time, I didn’t “get” text messaging. It just seems easier to push seven buttons on the phone and actually SPEAK to someone. When I expressed this sentiment to my 15 year old son, I got the “teenager eye roll” and my son says, ‘Get used to it Dad. Learn it or get left behind.”
I have two teenagers. Between them, they send and receive well over 2,000 text messages a month (thank God for the unlimited plan!). Both my kids can type a text message with one thumb that rivals “War and Peace” in length.
Me? I can sort of stumble through sending a text message. My kids laugh when they see me do it. It takes me 5 minutes to text, “What’s for dinner?” to my wife. (It takes her slightly less time to text back, “You’re on your own”…)
Over the last couple of months, I’ve slowly come to accept the fact that text messaging is pretty cool, and it’s actually not a bad way to communicate in certain situations.
Our main web site has the capability to send me text/SMS messages (I still don’t know the difference, if any, between the two) when a prospect triggers certain activities on the site. It’s a fantastic tool to let me know when a site visitor is asking or looking for something. Several times I’ve been able to immediately respond to a web site prospect. People like that. I like that.
I now find myself sending text messages not just to the kids, but to the wife, clients, and friends. There ARE times when all I need to do is say or ask something that only takes a few words. It really is more efficient sometimes than placing an actual call.
I know teens spend half their lives texting. There’s a whole language developing around texting (that I’m slowly learning). I figured that being a 46 year old sending text messages puts me on the bleeding edge of communication technology. But then I stumbled across this blog that reports the fastest growing group of text messagers in the U.S. is adults age 45 – 64. This demographic grew about seven times as fast as kids under the age of 18. So I guess I’m not alone.
There is more interesting data on the Mobivity.com blog. Some of these numbers are staggering:
- 936 billion SMS messages were sent in 2005 (world wide). That number is expected to hit 2.3 trillion by 2010. That’s a boatload of communication happening…
- Users in the UK sent over 3.8 billion text messages in the month of October. That’s 100 million more than the previous record, which was September.
Mobivity.com is a company that specializes in “Do It Yourself Mobile Marketing” using text messaging. (Here’s their page for real estate agents. I haven’t tried it yet, but I plan to look into it.)
Think about these numbers folks. If you aren’t using text messages in your business (be it real estate or just about anything else), you may be missing out on a significant chunk of the market.
CUL8R! (See you later!)
[tags]Mobivity, SMS, text messaging, texting[/tags]
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Jay,
Thanks for letting your readers know about us. We actually have another product in beta testing that is specifically for realtors. It can be reached at http://www.cellahouse.net .
The beauty of this service is that you receive a text message & email when a prospect is standing right in front of a house you have for sale!
If anyone is interested in beta testing this service, please let us know. We expect to officially launch the first week in February.
Also, any feedback from the real estate community would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Greg! I went to your site and tried to do the “Try it” by texting house10000 (and house 10000 — I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to have a space) to 95495 and got an “Access denied” message… I use T-Mobile.
I’ll beta test it for you.
Jay,
We’re live on all the major carriers, but T-mobile won’t be certified for production use until next week.
As soon as it’s live I’ll let you know.
Greg
That’s pretty cool stuff. I loved their idea of a bar/restarant owner texting a list of previous customers about a 2 for 1 special around dinner time!
Very interesting service – what about Alltel?
If you think your kids are fast, read the article we have up about the world champion fastest texter.
Anthony Wayne
Text Message Blog
http://www.textmessageblog.mobi
Anthony – I can’t seem to find that article. Would really like to read it. Do you have a direct link?
I find that I only text with other people that are into texting. In business, I think it is up to us to communicate with our clients the way that feels the most comfortable to them. For some of them, that means phone calls. Others will like email. If your client texts you, they are sendin you a signal that they like getting texts for quick updates.
I still don’t know the lingo, but with a full keyboard on my phone and predictive text, I don’t really need it.
(BTW – love the Twitter ID form for comments. How do I get that added in my comment block?)
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