Two-Way SMS Makes Legacy Print Media Conversational
Back on April 17th, I caught the following image as it came across my X (formerly Twitter) feed:
This caught my eye for several reasons: 1) supposedly Elon Musk shared it 2) I have a legacy media background in magazine publishing and the numbers represented are meaningful declines 3) the time frame is over a longer period and is not a 30 day snapshot that has been extrapolated to tell a story 4) I question whether the basic assumption that legacy media cannot compete is valid.
1) Whether this is actually from Elon, I don’t know. The feed has his picture and he has taken a number of shots at legacy media for quite a while now and that makes sense given his ownership of X (formerly Twitter).
2) A 20-25% decline in visitors over a four-year window is meaningful. Given the brands represented in the image, these are not small numbers. However, the chart is slightly skewed and appears to have errors. The bottom right corner shows a very faint source pointing to this url: Election Year Audience Erosion Continues for Right Wing Websites — TheRighting: Alerting mainstream audiences about headlines from the right
a. Although mostly accurate the source data shows a 22% decline for Fox News, not 24%. The Washington Post indicates a 43% decline, not 45%. Still, the numbers are pretty ugly; and according to the TheRighting, the underlying source for the traffic on these charts is Comscore.
3) I appreciate the time frame referenced is over a four year window. Too often writers, politicians and people in general take a very short time frame, extrapolate the numbers and project their favored conclusion into the future. I like the fact that four years is a decent time frame in looking at web site traffic trends.
4) Is legacy media really dead? Even if the declines are real, and I do take them at face value on this one, here are a few thoughts on changing the user experience and the trajectory for legacy media companies, and in particular print media.
X (formerly Twitter) and other social media platforms proclaim their news channel as the new media of choice because it is instant and interactive. That may be true for pop culture, talking heads and instant popularity, but in the B2B space, where well thought out journalism, research and considered opinions have value, why not take the hint and turn print media into a conversational platform? Here is one method to make that possible:
Two-way text messaging has the ability to create deeply engaged readership, at scale.
Assume for a moment that a trade publication like ACHR News (Air Conditioning, Heating, Refrigeration News), a publication from BNP Media, includes a unique, inbound text enabled phone number in the author’s signature line for every article.
In addition, let’s say there are a half dozen key words highlighted in the article for which the company has prepared a series of educational / referenced text messages. Keep in mind these text messages can include text, images and links to specific URL’s. Upon reading the article the subscriber is given the opportunity to text the highlighted key word to the author’s phone number OR they can send a text message directly to the author at the same phone number. If the subscribers text is one of the specific key words (e.g. refrigerants, frostlines, ductdynasty, etc.) the SMS system responds with a pre-built series of text messages, specific to that topic at scheduled intervals (let’s say three messages, two days apart each). Each text message from the series is saved to the phone number history of that particular subscriber. The author has visibility to these responses and can add to the conversation with the subscriber at any time if they choose to do so.
If a subscriber chooses to send a text message to the author’s phone number, the message is delivered to the author in its entirety and does not trigger any of the pre-built messages in the topical series. Instead the author responds directly to the subscriber and they engage in a relevant topical discussion based on the article the author wrote. If the subscriber asks questions and makes commentary that is beyond the scope or skill of the author, the author takes an assist from generative AI, edits the AI response appropriately to fit the conversation more perfectly then sends his/her response to the subscriber. All messages from the conversation between author and subscriber are likewise stored in a complete conversational history for the subscriber.
Three months down the road, the same author writes another article, related to the one previously published. The publisher could at that point, queue up and send a broadcast message to all subscribers that had previously responded to and engaged with the author. The message would go out en masse, albeit personalized to each reader. “Dear Mr. Subscriber, I’ve written a new article on the same topic we were discussing three months ago. Please take a look and let me know your thoughts. Joe Author.”
Each subscriber could then read the referenced article in the just received magazine and continue the very topical conversation with the author. The author would be able to review their prior interactions and build on the prior discussion.
If the print magazine has 25,000 qualified subscribers (which ACHR News had in 2022) and only 1% (250 subscribers) engage with each author from each issue and article (let’s assume 5 different authors writing on five different topics in each issue), over the course of a year, the publisher could potentially develop a deeply engaged, individually identifiable and more valuable readership. Potentially, the publisher could even add a new Channel Profile to their audited media report to highlight readers’ involvement with the publication.
At scale means different things to different industries and I’m not suggesting that two-way SMS is ideal for every large scale consumer environment with millions of subscribers. However, if a publisher can talk to and interact with 25% of their paid or qualified readers over the course of twelve months, that is a highly valuable audience and likely very attractive to advertisers. Two-way SMS creates this kind of readership and it’s not nearly as stale, dead or old news as Elon Musk and others would have you believe. These people are thoughtful, engaged and willing to have relevant, contextual conversations, all built on the foundation of legacy magazine content they receive each month in print.