How do you communicate with someone who isn’t right next to you?
It’s a problem humans have worked to solve since we pretty much crawled out of the ooze. Once upon a time in some place far, far away, we drew on cave walls, carved into stone and scribbled ink on papyrus. We paid other people to carry our letters for us via horse, boat, train, truck, and plane. People even tied little messages to pigeon’s legs and then sent them into the blue. With the telegraph, we sent messages across the Atlantic Ocean faster than a ship could ever sail. The telephone let us hear each other's voices across great distances.
Then of course came computers, the internet, the mobile phone, and then… the humble little text message. We now had an easy, portable, simple, convenient way to talk to each other. But it would take decades for businesses to really come to recognize what a powerful tool they had.
Now, in 2022, text messaging is the best new trend for influencers and other content creators who want to increase their communication channels and build a better connection with their audience. If you’re curious about how this all came to be and what it means, read on!
The tech behind text messaging has been around for decades. The messaging technology known as SMS — which stands for Short Messaging Service — was created in the 1980s.
The first SMS was sent to a mobile phone in December 1992, when an engineer texted “Merry Christmas” to his boss, the head of a major mobile company. At the time, all he could do was read the message, as the capability to respond didn’t exist yet.
One of the key elements the creators hashed out in the early days of SMS was length. How long could an SMS be? What should the standard be? Although they could have gone a little higher, they ultimately agreed on 160 characters. That limit for SMS is still technically in place today (even though most mobile phones now let you send texts as long as you want — not to mention the ability to send multimedia messages.)
Like with a lot of technologies, growth was slow at first (and faster in some countries than others). But by the year 2007, Americans were sending more text messages a year than making phone calls.
Amazingly enough, no one thought text messaging would be that popular. They certainly didn’t predict what ended up happening: young people were the ones who made SMS skyrocket. From Finland to Japan to the U.K. and beyond, texting was the youth craze that changed everything.
This isn’t surprising to us now, since teens and young adults have been the earliest adopters of pretty much every new social media app you can think of (and by the time their parents’ generation start using an app, the kids have already moved on to the next one.)
Why has that been the case, though? Young people of course are great about being adaptable to change, learning new technology quickly, and seizing on trends that benefit them. They’re also going to embrace new experiences as a way to distinguish themselves from older generations. Each new generation is eager to create a space and a culture that’s just their own. Or, as one media researcher put it: “One of the reasons young people took to texting was a tactic of consolidating and shaping their own shared culture, in distinction from the general culture dominated by their parents and other adults.”
Over the years, the widespread adoption of text messaging, especially by younger generations, had sweeping effects on old ways of communicating. Because texting is quicker and less obtrusive than talking, people in general are way more likely to text than make a phone call — and many millennials and Gen-Zers don’t make phone calls at all anymore.
One of the biggest casualties, of course, was voicemail. RIP, voicemail. (We don’t miss you.)
With the rise of text messaging culture also came the rise of textspeak.
Texting is all about communicating short messages quickly, after all. This wasn’t easy in the early days, before mobile phones had keyboards. Combine that with the rise of internet slang, and pretty much an entire new and creative language was born.
From abbreviations (txt) to acronyms (brb), letter-number homophones (h8ers gonna h8), new spellings (luv), and more,
texting has completely changed how we write and understand each other.
It’s not just words anymore, either — we’re also messaging abstract concepts and conveying emotions via things like emojis, gifs, memes and other communication trends.
One thing to note is that just like technology, language is always evolving too, including textspeak. New slang words replace old slang words all the time. New spellings become popular, and then get replaced again. Punctuation marks die and then come back in fashion.
And everyone has different ideas about what’s cool or appropriate to write in a text message. That’s a good thing! It just means if you’re writing texts, it’s always important to keep in mind who your audience is.
Yes, and no. Now that smartphones are a lot more ubiquitous, messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal and many more are massively popular. You can do a lot more with a messaging app than you can with a simple text message, and messaging apps are awesome for communicating with friends in other countries (no extra international fees.) On WhatsApp alone, more than 65 billion messages are sent every day.
On the other hand, SMS is still the most practical option for reaching people who don’t have smartphones or can’t get affordable mobile data plans.
Text messaging is also the most universal communications option. There are so many messaging apps and social media options out there right now, but not everyone uses every one. But everyone has a phone number. Communicating with a phone number still feels more direct and personal than using a messaging app. That’s why text messaging is an increasing trend in 2022 for influencers, artists, entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Although using SMS for marketing is nothing new, the extent of that use has evolved. One of the biggest differences now is a wide preference for text messaging over other forms of communication with a business (such as calling or emailing). 9 out of 10 consumers would rather text with a business than call or email them.
It’s 35 times more likely that someone will read a text message over an email.
You probably have more unread emails in your inbox than you can count, but your unread text messaging numbers are likely really small. Emails are a lot easier to ignore.
Think about how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced what ways we communicate, too. Recent data revealed that 56 percent of people use their mobile phone more often since the pandemic began. If we’re picking up our phones more often, we’re reading texts more often, too.
It’s pretty much a no-brainer at this point: If you’re an influencer or entrepreneur looking to build deeper and more profitable relationships with your audience, text messaging is a clear communications tactic to add to your strategy.
Since the first text was sent almost 30 years ago, texting has dramatically changed how we communicate. Young people were the early adopters, and they helped change our language by inventing textspeak, too. Even now in the age of the smartphone, SMS plays an important role in marketing, surpassing email in popularity and effectiveness. If you’re not getting yourself a public phone number and texting with your audience, you’re missing out!
Are you ready to get your own public phone line and more?
Toosa, a powerful new audience communication platform, will be launching soon. Don’t miss out! Get on the waiting list now for updates and find out how to be one of Toosa’s first users.