Business model to innovate.
An alternative to social media channels?
As early as 2016, the “New York Times” tried to report the Rio Olympic Games in the form of text messages, and to send users regular highlights of the event. Users can also reply to text messages to interact with reporters, and reporters can more specifically meet their individual needs.
Many start-up media companies have also conducted experiments to “resurrect” SMS news: Purple tried to build a communication platform for creators and users to provide SMS and email marketing services; Outlier Media pioneered local SMS news to push low-income residents Valuable information related to topics such as housing and public utilities. There are also media attempts to use artificial intelligence to send text messages to users on Facebook’s instant messaging app Messenger, but the response has been mediocre.
Different from these attempts, Subtext, launched by Alpha Group in 2019, is a platform dedicated to providing SMS tools for news organizations. Alpha Group is an internal technology and media incubator of Advance Local, one of the largest media groups in the United States. They position Subtext as an easy-to-use and highly participatory communication platform.
Picture source: Screenshot of the introduction video of the Subtext website
Subtext’s co-founder and CEO Mike Donoghue said that the product aims to provide media with a new way to connect with the audience.
Soon, Subtext was welcomed by major media and creators: In the context of the increasingly saturated news demand of clients and social platforms, the opening rate of SMS messages depends onHowever, it exceeds 90%, and it is not disturbed by fake news and marketing advertisements. The epidemic has catalyzed this process, and the direct and rapid nature of SMS is very suitable for sending breaking news. Currently, there are more than 600 hosts on Subtext (that is, media organizations and content creators who use this service), and more than 500,000 subscriptions Users, many news organizations choose to use Subtext to push information related to the epidemic.
Other companies that provide similar communication tools include Substack, Revue and Tinyletter. Founded in 2010, Tinyletter provides free subscription services and simple data analysis, and is welcomed by many independent creators; while on Substack, independent media can publish content by email and collect fees from subscribers. However, most of these services are aimed at individual creators.
Personalized usage
Subtext supports diversified journalistic practice needs, and hosts can use it according to their needs.
The use of Subtext to provide SMS services requires the purchase of a license. The price varies according to the identity of the host and whether the user is charged for SMS. If Subtext is used for interactive marketing or retention marketing to provide services to the public or subscribers for free, the monthly cost is about hundreds of dollars. If you charge users for subscription fees, you need to share revenue with Subtext, and 80% of the revenue goes to the media.
Media can also use Subtext in many different ways. For example, BuzzFeed uses Subtext as a Push pop-up prompt, and users can subscribe to epidemic-related news, ask questions or make comments. News editors can also communicate with users to get news breaking news;
BuzzFeed News’s SMS news product
NPR uses Subtext to collect information for podcasts. Podcast fans can send text messages to the anchor to tell the anchor what they want to listen to in the next issue;
P.Kim Bui, user creative director of the Arizona Republic, uses Subtext to answer questions about the new coronavirus. When Gannett, the newspaper’s group, announced the layoffs, Bui sent a text message to the user, explaining that the user might not be able to hear his news often, and asked the user to subscribe to the newspaper.
In addition, the “Dallas Morning News” offers free and paid subscription methods: users can get a summary of the day’s headline news for free, or pay $3.99 a month to send text messages with the newspaper’s cowboy reporter team.
There are also media like “The Globe and Mail” that use Subtext to send recipes…
Why is SMS news hot again?
When mainstream channels are becoming more crowded, news organizations are looking for personalized release channels. Personalized communication methods such as text messages and emails allow reporters or other creators to have one-on-one conversations with subscribers in a direct, private and familiar space.
“If you want to build a community, you must optimize your relationship with users, not increase email conversion rates,” said Donoghue, co-founder and CEO of Subtext. “Looking at the overall communication space, we are about to reach the saturation point of content push, where should we go next? We believe that a deeper and more meaningful interactive and communication tool is very valuable.”
From the perspective of Subtext’s product characteristics, where does Donoghue’s confidence come from?
Decentralized communication system
The lack of a sustainable profit model is a long-standing problem facing the digital media ecosystem. In the past, users did not directly pay for the value obtained from the news, and the platform did not pay for the data contributed by users and news producers. Social media and news aggregation sites have taken away a large number of advertisements and user shares, fundamentally breaking the platform, mediaThe relationship between the body and the audience.
In the past few years, although the situation has improved for news organizations, the centralized data storage model of social media and news aggregation sites has put data ownership in their own hands. Therefore, the unwilling media has never stopped expanding new channels of contact with users, and more and more independent creators are also trying to establish their own controllable businesses.
SMS and email are decentralized and can form numerous backups on the terminal. For example, if it is an email newsletter, the creator owns the newsletter and can control the list of subscribers without being affected by the platform algorithm. The traditional simple mail transfer protocol (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, SMTP) is distributed and can provide reliable and effective email transmission. The technology of SMS service is simple and mature, and can cover all users without being restricted by the platform user groups.
In contrast, unlike technology giants that rely on user data for profit, Subtext attaches great importance to protecting user privacy. Any user data (such as phone numbers and emails) collected is owned by the host. Subtext cannot know which user has opened which text messages because of these Information will not be communicated back from the mobile phone operator. If the user cancels the subscription, the data can also be exported.
The emotional bond between the sender and the recipient
Communication is one-to-many, but communication is mostly one-to-one. E-mail and SMS are letters in essence. Communication in this way helps to consolidate the humanized experience of one-to-one communication and return to the original “dialogue.” The briefing can also form a one-to-one communication between the author and the user, allowing the user to understand and form a connection with the reporter on the other end. This intimacy also affects the choice of content for journalists. Many content creators choose to write more private content in text messages or email communications.
Social media should provide a shared public experience, but it has gradually evolved into a noisy and sharp environment. Scholar Craig Mod believes that unpredictable algorithms make social media an ideal marketing tool, but sincere conversations are becoming increasingly difficult. Searching for information on major application software makes people feel exhausted. Social media failed to promote public dialogue,On the contrary, it exacerbated the division and made opinions more and more circled. For news briefings, social media is no longer the ideal distribution platform.
SMS news can be welcomed by the media and users because of a friendly and healthy communication environment. Users can directly communicate with reporters they trust in intimate and joyful in-depth communication; in addition, the privacy of instant messaging also makes users less likely to encounter hate speech and harassing information.
The average open rate and response rate of Subtext also prove that through SMS, you can build a closer and lasting relationship with users. Donoghue said in an interview that 92% of messages will be opened by users, and 85% of messages will be opened within one hour of sending.
The emotional bond formed by text messages is even stronger: “I can’t tell you how many emails we received like “Hello, I have to unsubscribe, but please don’t tell the host.” “Donoghue said. In contrast, people seldom feel guilty for unfollowing or unsubscribing to emails. In the past news production, reporters and editors were often hidden behind the scenes, but through text messages, users can interact with their favorites. Journalists establish more personal connections.
This connection has greatly enhanced user stickiness. According to reports, Subtext’s overall user churn rate is only 2%. Part of the reason is that the way news organizations communicate with users through text messages is currently quite novel. If this method is widely adopted by various organizations, text messages may also be flooded in inboxes like push notifications and emails.
The success of Subtext and the revival of SMS news may also bring some inspiration to the domestic news industry. Learning from the strategy of using SMS news by foreign news organizations and establishing a “strong relationship” through one-to-one communication to retain users, it may open up new ideas for the content industry.
Reference link:
1.https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/02/subtext-lets-journalists-build-deeper-relationships-with-readers-one-text-at -a-time/
2.https://www.niemanlab.org/2017/09/news-startup-purple-is-now-a-service-that-lets-creators-charge-people-to-text-with-them/
3.https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/qa-subtext-the-platform-buzzfeed-and-gannett-trust-for-texting-their-audiences/
4.https://craigmod.com/essays/newsletters/
5. Li Yanling. SMS news returns to highlight the value of mobile phone media[J].News and Communications,2011(01):43.
This article is from WeChat official account:QuanMeipai (ID: quanmeipai), author: rain heart