the power of text messaging

Did you know that on average, 13 – 17 year olds in the US send 1,742 text messages each month? That’s about 57 text messages per day. I personally know people that will respond to a text faster than an email or a phone call. Voicemail? Forget about it. You might as well consider that a waist of your breath. And sending a letter? What’s a letter?

My point is, the use of TEXT Messaging is growing exponentially and it is phenomenal at communicating with people. In fact, some popular social networking sites allow individuals to send and receive posts via text messaging, which can be pretty handy in promoting that youth event…

Speaking of which, below are some tools that may be useful in maximizing text messaging (taken from http://youthministryideas.net)

Simply TXT: Send individual or group text messages to your students, parents, or volunteers. Simply TXT lets you build groups and send messages whenever you like–you can even schedule them in advance–and the pricing is pretty reasonable.

Poll Everywhere: Create polls and free response questions your students respond to via text message. Results are updated live and can be displayed right on the screen. Pricing is also very reasonable with a free option for audiences under 30 people.

Twitter: Self described, “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” People have used Twitter to send text messages to their whole youth group without paying a dime. Here’s how: Set up a Twitter account for the youth group, tell students about it, and show them how to sign up for “mobile updates.” Every post you make to your Twitter will go as a text message to the entire group!

Hope you find this info useful in getting you started in the right direction to better connecting with your youth.

Thanks to the following…

http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/category/mobile

http://youthministryideas.net

http://simplyyouthministry.com/txt.html

http://www.polleverywhere.com

http://twitter.com

Eddie Mason III