I-Style Recruiting: Texting and Blogging

1. I-Style Recruiting: Texting and Blogging Shankar Goudar Chief Information Officer Carter BloodCare Tuesday, May5, 2009

2. What is Texting? • Technical term for Texting is SMS – Short Message Service Texting – The Technology Evolution

3. Texting – The Technology Evolution • SMS History • SMS was created in the late 1980s to work with a digital GSM (global system for mobile communications). • Its European inventors wanted a simple messaging system that worked when users' mobile phones were turned off or out of range. • The first SMS message in the UK was sent in 1992. It took a little longer for SMS to make its way to the United States. • Texting is still more popular in Europe, but stateside use is on the rise. • A July 2005 study found that 37% of U.S. mobile phone owners had sent or received at least one text message in one month.

4. Cell phones send and receive information constantly. They talk to a cell phone tower over a pathway called a control channel. How Does SMS Work? The control channel provides the pathway for SMS messages. A message flows through the SMSC, then to the tower, and the tower sends the message to the recipient’s phone as a packet of data.

5. Message Limitations Why 160 Characters? SMS was designed to deliver short bursts of data. To avoid overloading the system, the inventors set a 160-character maximum message size. • The 160-character limit is not absolute. Length limitations may vary depending on your network, phone model and wireless carrier.

6. SMS Abuses SMS Attacks A large number of SMS messages sent to phones in a small area could overwhelm the control channels making it impossible for the cell phone system to set up calls. Cell phone providers know about the possibility of such threats and can design systems to detect and limit abnormal traffic.

7. Advantages of SMS Privacy – SMS is more discreet than a phone conversation, great when you don't want to be overheard. Texting can take less time than phone call or e-mail. SMS is convenient for deaf and hearing-impaired people. SMS can broadcast a message to a large number of people and can be used to contact groups of employees or customers. Online services distribute news & information. People who use texting seem to prefer it. People who regularly use text messaging send almost twice as many SMS messages and make less than half as many voice calls as people who only use the phone for voice phone calls. Texting allows review of a message before it is sent. SMS doesn't overload the network as much as phone calls.

8. SMS Lifestyles Text messaging subscription services are used for medication reminders, weather alerts, news headlines, or even novels in a series of 160-character messages. Internet search engines such as Yahoo! and Google have short messaging services: users get driving directions, movie showtimes or local business listings by texting a query to the search engine's phone number. Social networking services use SMS to alert people who live in big cities when their BFFs are nearby. The possibilities for integrating SMS into our business model seem endless. Blood centers can use text messaging to remind donors of a donation appointment, to thank donors, send birthday greetings, or alert them of an emergency need.

9. Disadvantages of SMS • Pricing – Most wireless plans charge for a certain number of text messages a month. If you exceed your message allowance, you could be charged for additional messages. • Immediacy – Speedy message delivery is not guaranteed. During periods of high traffic it may take several minutes for a message to be delivered. • Text Only – It's strictly for sending text messages. SMS does not support sending pictures, video or music files.

10. SMS in the News SMS is Impersonal Questions of etiquette/propriety/legality/ethics – • What kind of information is OK to send in a text instead of delivering in person? • Legal actions have been filed by people who were fired or notified of divorce proceedings via SMS. • Broadcast text messages have been used to rally political activists in Beijing and to mobilize young people for riots in Belfast.

11. Collateral Benefits Ah kin spelgud Some teachers believe that texting impacts students' grammar and attention to detail. Students have to take the time to proofread their work

12. SMS Providers • Clubtexting.com • infoUSA.com • redoxygen.com • redrabbitsms.com • sendgroupsms.com • EzTexting.com • AlarmPoint.compremiereglobal.com • Messagebuzz.com . . .

13. SMS Options and Cost Cost of service is an important factor to consider when choosing an SMS gateway provider. • Credit-basedYou purchase a number of credits from the SMS gateway provider. Sending one SMS message costs one or more credits. The country of destination can affect the cost. • SMS-basedYou purchase a number of SMS messages. The cost for sending one SMS message is the same for all destinations. If you purchase ten SMS messages, you can send at most ten messages.

14. Comparing & Selecting Providers For most gateway providers, the cost for sending one SMS message decreases with your purchasing amount. Example of a pricing structure comparison : • If you plan to purchase 1 to 10,000 SMS messages at a time, SMS gateway provider C has lower cost per SMS message • If you plan to purchase more than or equal to 20,001 SMS messages at a time, provider B provides the best cost option.

15. SMS Cost Comparison Cost to transfer 2560 songs: From my ISP: $1 Via SMS messaging: $15,339,212.80 It's no wonder that SMS texting alone is a 100 Billion dollar a year industry!

16. Texting Lingo • With more than 82 million people texting regularly, it's no wonder you've seen this cryptic looking code! • Commonly used wherever people get online -- including IMing, SMSing, cell phones, Blackberries, PDAs, Web sites, games, newsgroup postings, in chat rooms, on blogs

17. Measure of Texting Success @CBC

18. Remarkable Popularity Among Young People

19. Donors Signed for Text Reminder

20. Average Show Rate – Donors Who Prefer Texting

21. Increased Text Reminders Text reminders increased dramatically immediately after the option was introduced to high school students.

22. Texting by Age Group

23. Pilot the system with employees. Don’t forget there’s a limit to the amount of text you can put in a message. A 160 character limit means that you might get cut o KISS Keep it simple & short. Don’t let your message get truncated before you’ve made your point.

24. Blog is short for “weblog.” A blog site is a special website where internet users enter comments. It is a chronological listing (log) of posts from all users who enter comments on the site. It is the unedited voice of each person who enters comments. It is a web journal with entries from multiple sources. Blogs (usually) focus on an particular area of interest. Blogging for Donors

25. Blog Pages • Most weblog posts are short, a paragraph or two. Some weblog tools provide for longer articles or stories, often by including a place for a summary in the form for a weblog post. • The home page of the weblog displays the current items (configured by an editor/administrator). • Some weblogs show the last 15 posts or the last 7 days. • Eventually each blog post will scroll off the home page, but it is permanently stored on an archive page. • When people point to a specific post, they link to the archived version, the permanent one, using a permalink.

26. Blogging is Interactive • Blogging requires a commitment of time and resources. With text or e-mail, you can send a message and be done with it. • Blogging is interactive and requires monitoring. While blogs are good at building community - they generally feature one person (or a small group of people) as the central voices in a conversation. • Some bloggers keep readers at arm’s length (they might switch off comments and rarely respond to emails) but for a blog to work in recruiting, it’s probably an advantage to actually engage the reader(s) .

27. Selecting a Blog Platform • Several platforms are available. Make sure you know what you want to include in the blog before committing to a particular platform. • Advertisements? • Calendars and schedules? • Links? • Goals • Recruiting donors? • Keeping donors informed about the organization? • Costs • Site maintenance