From the official site:

A team from The Takeaway radio show joined journalists from WDET Detroit in a successful experiment that prompted residents to text tips about particular stories from Mexicantown in Southwest Detroit. Residents texted information about trucks illegally barreling down their side streets, and in another experiment, they sent keywords describing their neighborhoods. The result: non-listeners became engaged and more informed. The experiment has continued in Miami’s Little Haiti.

Alisa Miller, the CEO of Public Radio International, has a very nice insider view of the Sourcing through Texting project written up on her blog.

At Mobile Commons, we continue to be impressed and humbled by all the innovative ways our customers use mobile technology to connect with people. We work hard to create simple yet powerful tools and put them in the hands of smart, creative people; it’s amazing to see what they come up with! Great work to everyone at The Takeaway, WNYC, WDET and all the organizations who participated in this project.

Text FLU and your address to 30644 to find the closest H1N1 vaccine in California

Mobile Commons, Inc., a pioneer of easy-to-use technology for mobile messaging, today announced its partnership with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to power a unique, California-based flu vaccination awareness program. Through Mobile Commons’ mobile messaging platform allows users to text in their zip code and receive vital flu related information including alerts when the vaccination is available, the nearest vaccination location and critical messaging regarding treatment and other information. The ubiquity of mobile phones, combined with the high projected demand for vaccinations, makes this an ideal solution to help Californians from all communities obtain vaccinations and receive necessary information on a timely basis.

“We strongly expect this program to result in high levels of participation, given the ease-of-use,” said Edgar Ednacot, Ed D. M.P.H. Health Education Supervisor at the CDPH. “Mobile Commons’ technology provides an extremely efficient system for Californians to learn where to get vaccinated and stay informed during the flu season.”

Californians will learn of the campaign through a variety of media, including out door advertising, broadcast public service announcement, social media and PR. Users will text in the word “FLU” and their zip code to the short code 30644. Once a zip code is received by Mobile Commons’ technology platform, users will receive a text message with the nearest vaccination center or other valuable information about the flu in that area or throughout the state. Additionally, all of the functionality is automatically made available on a Facebook application, Twitter and web widgets which will allow for the program to be easily shared.

“We are thrilled and honored to have been entrusted by the CDPH to help them provide Californians with an easy, cost-effective way to receive such vital information about the flu and vaccinations this year,” said Jed Alpert, Founder of Mobile Commons. “California is truly on the cutting edge of integrating communication technologies to make sure people receive the information they need in a way that is most useful to them.”

For more information about the flu vaccination campaign or Mobile Common’s technology, please visit http://www.MobileCommons.com or http://www.cdph.ca.gov.

CHALLENGE
In June 2009, the Shedd Aquarium needed to drive significant awareness and visitors to the premiere of a new aquatic show, Fantasea, in the renovated Oceanarium. Campaigns were created across multiple media channels, including a contest to win exclusive VIP tickets to the show. The Shedd team wanted to test the overall effectiveness and consumer preferences of different marketing tactics, specifically the Web versus SMS text messaging.

SOLUTION
Shedd selected the mCommons™ platform from Mobile Commons to manage the SMS text messaging campaign and measure conversion rates.

A TV commercial was created that aired on the four major networks (NBC, ABC, Comcast and FOX).  Each commercial was the same except for the call to action to enter the contest.

• Three stations asked viewers to go to a website to enter the contest.
• The fourth station asked viewers to text the word FOX to 69866.

Once a viewer texted in, they received a message asking them to respond with their email address and zip code to officially enter.

RESULTS
When Shedd compared the entries received at the end of the promotion, they were amazed at the results:

• The TV ad with an SMS call-to-action generated 325% more contest entries than any other call-to-action.
• SMS entries made up 52% of the total contest entries, despite only running in 25% of the ads.
• When Print and Outdoor were added in, SMS entries still made up more than half of all total respondents to the contest.

“Mobile text messaging has been working well for Shedd Aquarium and after results like this, we continue to think strategically about how to use SMS,” said Jay Geneske, Marketing Strategy, Shedd Aquarium. “Mobile Commons makes it extremely easy to setup and run campaigns, and the direct CRM integration allows us to be smart about the data.”

“Shedd’s results reinforce that every TV and Out-of-Home campaign should have an SMS call-to-action. It just works,” said Anthony Risicato, CEO Mobile Commons.

Download the full case study (pdf)

To add your name to the honor roll on 9/11 Memorial’s website and commemorate the 9/11 attacks, text WTC to the number 30644

Image of the 9/11 Honor Roll, using Mobile Commons's mCast text-to-screen

Supporters texting in will have their name displayed on the honor roll and will be asked to donate $5 to support the Memorial utilizing Mobile Commons’ mobile donations application. This is a great use of the technology to connect with people, build a relationship, raise money, and engage with them in a meaningful way in the future.

Mobile Commons is honored to be working with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum and we hope everyone will text in to support the memorial’s efforts, and become part of remembering the victims and families of 9/11.

In the past 6 weeks, we’ve seen labor unions, large national advocacy groups, small local non-profits, and faith-based community organizations all effectively use mobile to reach out to their supporters around the issue of health care reform. They’ve used SMS to organize groups of people on the ground, getting their supporters to attend meetings, press conferences, and rallies. They’ve combined text messaging and automatic call routing to generate 100,000s of phone calls to the White House, to the House and and the Senate. And they’ve used SMS to drive web traffic, whether it be to a site for more information, to sign a petition or to listen live to a radio show.

Here’s just a sampling of some of the amazing ways our customers have been using mobile technology around this critical issue:

* NARAL Pro Choice sent messages to thousands of people, urging them to sign an online petition to keep anti-choice extremism out of health care legislation bills
* LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan sent a recorded audio message to union members asking for their help passing healthcare reform Bill 3200
* True Majority sent a text message broadcast asking people to call their Senators before they went on summer recess and pass health care reform
* PACT in San Jose used SMS to organize supporters on the ground and get them to a press conference at Congresswoman Lofgren’s office
* Center for Community Change has sent hundreds of thousands of calls to the White House and Congress over immigration issues, including health care reform. They’ve also targeted Congresswoman Pelosi directly, urging her to end the 5 year ban on immigrant health care
* The League of Young Voters in Maine used SMS to organize supporters on the ground, getting people to meet at Monument Square in Portland to fight for health care reform
* PICO National Networks sent SMS invitations, both in English and in Spanish, to a web site where users could listen in on a call between President Obama and the Faith Community. Over 140,000 people joined the call

We continue to be excited at how creatively and effectively our customers use our platform to reach out and connect with their supporters, to drive traffic both online and in the real-world, to motivate people to make phone calls, and to really affect change. Every day we see our customers leverage mobile technology extremely well and find new ways take advantage of the unique benefits it provides.

Check out these examples:

Web-driven voice advocacy through the “Make America Happen” Campaign

AFSCME sends emails to their list to drive constituents to web forms for congressional voice advocacy.

Make America Happen Campaign Results:

Over a two week span when the Obama Jobs and Recovery package was being debated in Congress, AFSCME sent out three standalone emails that generated approximately 1,000 calls to Congress in support of the bill. Additionally, AFSCME has been building their text messaging file by converting email subscribers into text subscribers as an optional check box in the web form. In the future, they will drive response via SMS.

Advocacy at Live Events

At their recent conferences, AFSCME asked their audience to text “happen”  69866 to make calls into Congress.

Results: They have seen response rates as high as 53% for people in the room texting in (225 person conference, 119 opt-ins) and 42% response rates on broadcast text-to-call messages sent later that day to generate calls. (119 opt-ins, 50 calls generated)

Targeting state legislators

AFSCME has also used mobile to target state legislators. This strategy gets their affiliates involved and targets legislators who get calls less frequently, which means the calls are typically more effective.

Thanks so much to Tracey Conaty, Assistant Director of Online Communications, at AFSCME for sharing the results and to our friends at the Watershed Company for all their hard work!

It didn’t quite work out the way we planned; we received no donations over the phone.

It did, however, produce a very interesting result–people who got the text message gave online with an increased response rate of 77%!

We suppressed a third of their list to see if the text had any effect on online giving, and it turned out to have a huge impact.

Download the Full Case Study (pdf)

We are excited about all the different ways people are pushing mobile fundraising and we hope that this integrated approach becomes another arrow in the mobile fundraising quiver.

Dane Grams of HRC gave a presentation at the DMA 2009 Washington Nonprofit Conference session titled “New Media Channels — Adding Text Messaging, Social Networks and Media to the Marketing Mix” last Friday. Also on the panel were Scott Goodstein from the Obama campaign and Grace Markarian of the Humane Society (HSUS). We’ve embedded the full 8-minute video below.

One of the main points that Dane addresses is that organizations have causes that matter and can run highly effective campaigns even though they don’t have Obama as their figurehead. At Mobile Commons, we’ve seen proof of this again and again as we see people use our tools to spread causes and ideas they care about (and now we’ve made that even easier by tying into Facebook and Twitter). Dane and Grace have both had great successes with Mobile Commons and Convio eCRM integration and will continue to because they’ve embraced mobile as an ongoing part of their communications and are constantly looking for ways to engage more deeply with their constituents.

Thanks to Tad at Convio for posting the great video.

text pp then your street address and zip to 69866 (eg: pp 101 market st 94105)

Our system will respond with the appropriate polling place for your address, or the number for the Election Protection Coalition if we can’t find a match. Please feel free to promote this service any way you like and share it with people looking lost on Election Day.

Some of our customers will also be using this tool in conjunction with their election day txt message voting reminders. We think that this will be a particularly powerful tool for canvassers in the field who need to provide information to voters on the fly.  If SMS isn’t your thing, you can also look up your polling place on the web at GoVote.org.

Other Mobile Commons customers are also using txt messaging to help distribute early voting information.  In North Carolina, the State Democratic Party is using an mData to allow their constituents to txt ‘EARLY’ and the name of their county to 69866 to get the address of their early voting location.

The team here at Mobile Commons will be using these services to get ourselves to the polls  – we hope you do too.

One of the great things about working at Mobile Commons is seeing how our amazing customers use our platform. Credo Wireless, an early Mobile Commons customer,  in partnership with the Student PIRGS New Voters Project and the University of Notre Dame just released a study testing txt messaging as a voter turnout tool. On Super Tuesday, during the 2008 primary season they sent out reminder messages to a group of mostly young voters and compared their turnout to a control group of similar voters. The findings indicate that sending a voter a txt message reminder on election day increases their likelihood of voting by 4.6% – numbers that are consistent with an earlier 2006 study.

Many of our customers plan to take advantage of this on November 4th because of the significant cost-per-vote advantages of txt messaging—we’re anticipating the biggest single day use of our platform to date. We are incredibly excited about that, and everything else our customers are doing this election season.