Mobile media & broadcasting

The media industry is increasingly looking to mobile as an opportunity to create deeper engagement with its viewers. For television and radio companies, SMS is a way of reaching out to consumers outside scheduled programs whilst content owners can deploy the mobile channel to add new services.

High quality SMS can be used to enable live interaction with broadcast content, either through voting or competitions or else through the submission of comments to programs via text messages. SMS interaction also gives media companies an additional channel through which to facilitate consumer engagement outside of broadcast content. Ensuring ongoing engagement between broadcasts can improve viewer/listener figures whilst enhancing overall engagement and loyalty.

The universality and reach of SMS interaction enables media companies to reach out to and encourage participation from the widest possible audience. Unlike apps or mobile web pages, enterprise SMS works on every handset and almost every mobile user knows how to use it, meaning that it can be used for true mass interaction. 

High quality SMS is vital for applications such as voting and competitions because the rapid delivery of information is essential to ensure that activity can be undertaken within the competition time window. Similarly, the time-sensitive nature of news updates requires a robust approach to delivery.

SMS has traditionally been used as an interaction mechanism by media companies, in the form of SMS voting or competitions. In addition, it can be used as a channel to facilitate ongoing interaction with consumers through regular news updates:

• Media voting & competitions – Enabling the submission of votes or competition entries via text, for instance for TV competitions

• News updates – Distributing news updates about shows or celebrities to viewers, creating engagement outside broadcast content

Any media company looking to generate additional interaction with its audience can work with an SMS gateway as part of its communications mix. The universality and timeliness of SMS make it ideally suited to creating mobile functionality for the widest possible audience.

Mobile smartphone apps have rapidly grown to dominate the rich mobile content space.  However, whilst they represent the latest mobile technology, there are still many uses for established communications media such as SMS in an app environment.