by Travis Sowders
Think you don’t need SMS? Think again.
For years it seemed, the rest of the world was hooked on SMS – while Americans were slow to adopt the technology. But is that really true today? Is the US still behind, or have we caught up?
Consider: of the 5.6 trillion text messages sent around the world last year, 2.3 trillion were sent by Americans – that’s over 40 percent of total global SMS traffic.
Consider: the average US mobile subscriber sent over 660 texts annually – that’s more per capita than any other country on Earth.
Those are some of the remarkable statistics you can find in this infographic from Blackboard Connect, “Rising Text: Do you have the tools to meet the challenge?”
A seismic shift has occurred in the way Americans communicate – and it’s happened while we weren’t watching. Sure, if you pay a teenager’s cell phone bill, you won’t be surprised to learn that young people send over 3,400 texts every month. But did you know that 65 percent of Americans say they ‘need’ SMS, and 45 percent say they can’t live without it?
Texting is not just mainstream – it’s off the charts. And if you’re an educational institution, a government agency, or a business owner – you need a plan to meet this challenge. If you’re still communicating via “old” technologies – phone, print, email – and you’re wondering why your message isn’t being heard, perhaps it’s because you’ve shut yourself off from the one channel that everyone reads and responds to: text.
At Blackboard Connect, we’ve made text a priority for a while now. But this week, we’re launching something new: Blackboard ConnectTxt.
It’s powerful, proven 2-way SMS software that allows you to send and receive SMS, right on your computer. Because it’s 2-way, you can have more meaningful, more conversational interactions with the people you serve. It comes from the UK, where mobile users have been texting for more than a decade. But now that we Yanks have caught up and surpassed the Brits, it’s high time we had the tools to engage and inform one another as well.
Get the infographic – and see if your assumptions are still accurate when it comes to Americans and SMS.
