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In today’s age, texting is the most widespread and honest form of communication among coworkers, friends, and family. There’s a coveted intimacy in texting someone that you don’t get from an Instagram feed or Snapchat story. With people feeling more isolated than ever, millions are looking to celebrities and influencers for entertainment and comfort. What better way to comfort someone than to text them directly. With the Community app you can.
What is it?
Community is a new conversation platform enabling direct and instant communication on a massive scale, all through text messaging. You can communicate one-to-one with millions of contacts without wading through social feeds or getting buried by algorithms. On the Community App, you will find thousands of actors, music artists, social media influencers, and more taking full advantage of real-life, direct conversations with their fans.
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For celebrities and artists, this app is a text-based management and communication tool to know more about their own fans and be able to interact with them more directly than what social media usually allows. For fans, Community is a direct link to the person instead of the brand or promotion team behind them.
How does it work?
Although it may look like your favorite celebrities are giving out their personal phone number, the Community app creates a dedicated community phone number to give out. Once people text to that number, they will get a format response asking them to add their info to a contact list to finish the process. Fans then fill out their contact information and other facts like location and age. Once fans fill out their information, contacts are filtered into the app then communication happens like regular texting – no format shock or difficult controls.
This information goes directly to the celebrity or influencer, it’s not kept in an app database for other uses. Community believes in protecting its users from spam and unwanted advertisements. They do not sell your personal information to data brokers or advertising companies. Instead of selling user data to advertisers, Community charges creators a monthly fee based on how many contacts they accumulate. With so much engagement and ease of information transferred directly to the fans who most appreciate it, the app could end up paying for itself. The monthly fee might be covered with one sold-out live gig in Seattle announced through the app only to contacts living in Seattle.
Unlike Instagram and Twitter, the only person who has fan information is the band or celebrity or influencer, without having to pay for access. It creates a direct relationship with the audience that you don’t get from Twitter or Instagram due to the complex algorithm that disregards fan and creator intents. It’s also an effort on the part of those with huge followings to protect fan information from being funneled and hoarded into huge databases for other uses.
Why use it?
In a recent article, Kerry Washington said she uses the Community app because “It’s something that feels more direct. I’m not reliant on advertisers or algorithms. Nobody’s navigating this communication or filtering it. That feels really important. That transparency is what’s so attractive.”
Just text me it’s easier. +1 (319) 519-0576
— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) July 23, 2019
For celebrities and influencers, the main perk is being able to connect and talk with people instantly without sorting through DMs or thousands of comment chains. Along with everyday conversations, this platform is ideal for communicating exciting and time-sensitive information directly to those who appreciate it most. Without competing with other content, creators can make announcements that won’t be swallowed by an algorithm and never show up in people’s feeds.
They can also give out VIP content and secret links for clandestine fan experiences, host game nights, and promote their content with a more engaged and fewer media overwhelmed audience. Almost all text messages are opened within the first 3 minutes, proving that text messaging has more engagement than social media and allows for better direct marketing and stronger relationships. Fans are more likely to pay attention to a text from their fav than click through an expensive ad.
One of the notable perks for music artists on the Community app is that it allows music producers to access fan data like age and location for better tours and ticket prices in a way Spotify listener data can’t compare. It also lets priority info and announcements get the attention they need to succeed in a way an Instagram post or story just can’t. For the artists themselves, direct access to a fan database means indispensable information when it comes to releasing new projects, selling tickets, and calls to action that will actually engage their fanbase. People can ask questions and get personal replies, and creators can send out personal questions and invitations for meetups and the like.
Beyond music artists, any celebrity or influencer can use fan info for better shows and tours and experiences. Through the initial form you fill out when entering in as a contact, artists learn more about their audience and can now target specific groups by metrics like age and geographic location. This is great when generating an audience for pop up events or live shows, or getting local tips from fans in town.
The Community app can also be for nonfamous personnel. Youth groups, small businesses, or any other group/person hoping to make more personal connections with an audience can make one on one announcements and learn their clientele.
Competition
Facebook may borrow features for a messaging app, but there really is no competition to the privacy driven and intimate text message format of the Community App. The Community app creates a conversation where other social media apps morph into a broadcasting platform.
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One of the most incomparable features is that Community also eliminates the trolls. On social media, Celebrities and influencers may avoid reading comments or turn that function off entirely because of the rate and ease at which abuse festers there. In a private space, this problem can be eliminated without an audience for attention seekers that would cause trouble.
More and more, artists and influencers are searching for a more agnostic approach to their business platform, something that allows them to engage in an actual two-way conversation with their audience and not at the mercy of a convoluted media algorithm. This single agency is becoming more pivotal as creators take control of their brand and audience information. This is evident by the fact that the Community app is not ad-supported. The only people on there are celebrities and artists themselves, not brand reps or other teams. Because it’s not a marketing channel, it’s a platform for honest, personal connection.
