Every time I ask students if they got my email, they tell me they never check it. They might check their facebook or myspace, but even that is it or miss trying to communicate with them. The one thing they all seem to do is txt message, and they do it a lot. If you’ve ever wondered how you could use text messaging as a way to communicate with your students, here’s a little video demonstrating a new service from Simply Youth Ministry. I stated using this a little while back and it’s super easy. I’ve also found that my students are actually getting my messages now.
If you want more information, go to SimplyYouthMinistry.com/TXT. They even have a free 30 day trial you can sign up for.
You can also use Twitter, and it’s totally free. I set up a Twitter account for our student ministry, and if the students want to get text messages, they text “follow switchstudents” to Twitter (40404), and voila. All I have to do is get online, type up a 140-character message, and everyone who is “following” the account gets the text message.
And it’s free.
It’s also helpful for students who don’t have text messaging, because we get a Twitter homepage. They can log on and see an archive of messages on our profile (twitter.com/switchstudents).
Hey,
There is a very nice group messaging service for youth groups called Telefio Messaging. It lets you categorize your youth group into subgroups and then you can send out messages to any group or list of groups. You can get a free account on there also. We have been using this service for about 2 years now and it’s amazing. You can see how it works by going to http://www.telefio.com/how_it_works
– Joseph