Brands on GroupMe

Back in March, I wrote about how the hottest thing coming out of SxSW this year is Group Texting. The concept is that you can text to a pre-created group of your friends all at once. Seems perfectly suited to the next evolution in communication -- almost a duh, finally it's here.

One of the leaders in group texting, GroupMe, is taking it a step further and offering their service to brands. For now, only a select set of brands that they believe match with their target audience but it is certainly a sign of what's to come.

So now a brand can engage with a set of its fans, its most rabid fans, through group communication via texting. And fans can communicate back, and with each other. Brilliant. And GroupMe is allowing these brands to also add content, so the fans get rewarded for their participation and can get even further engaged.

The first set of brands are all in the entertainment space: Bon Jovi, America's Best Dance Crew, Bad Girls Club, etc. Makes sense, these are brands that are likely to have very active fans who are also very savvy with texting. It'll prove the concept that can then get rolled out more main stream I suppose. You can read a little bit about it here.

Technology is fun. And the fact that marketers can use it to build a deeper more intense relationship with consumers is just plain fascinating. Let the dialogue begin! I can wait to use it myself ...

What's your experience? Jim.