Copyright: stokkete / 123RF Stock Photo
Some may consider the concept of group texts a necessary evil. Which is probably partially true, in that they may not always be necessary and they don’t always take place for nefarious reasons.

In the right hands, this mass communication can be useful, even productive and efficient, and a fine way to get the whole team talking and on one page.

But in the wrong hands, a group sms can waste people’s time, lead to miscommunications, hurt feelings, leave others out, or create more tangents than your company’s last informal brainstorming session. You’ll also miss out on interpersonal dynamics – what’s the fun of rolling your eyes if no one else can see it?  (There’s always emoticons!).

Similarly, a bad group text session can be just as inefficient as a poorly run real-world meeting, and you won’t get occasional donuts or a chance at escape.

But before you fire up your phone’s text button and start adding people to a group conversation, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.

This interaction can definitely can be handy for when busy people are all over the place and unable to gather in person. Because people tend to check their texts quickly, rather than let them stack up in their email box for hours or days, it’s a good chance to get nearly instant feedback, especially if the clock is ticking on a deadline. It also keeps everyone in the same conversation thread, which is handy for later reference, rather than searching through chains of emails that everyone may not see or participate in.

Once you’re ready to proceed (cautiously, please) there are simple group sms guidelines – not necessarily hard and fast rules – which you and your team can utilize.

1. Take attendance and perform introductions. Just like you might do at a traditional meeting, or even school, make sure everyone is there who is supposed to be there, and let everyone know who’s present. This way, everyone knows who is taking part, and also that it’s a group conversation, which comes with expectations. One being that no one has privacy and everyone can read everything that everyone posts, which means no private asides to an individual participant, unless it’s done  outside of the SMS environment, maybe with an email or voice call. Establishing who’s who may require certain behaviors – your marketing team by itself may have different in-jokes than when marketing/accounting takes part.
   
   
2. Don’t text at night. Unless everyone is on the same schedule, try to keep your work-related group texts to a minimum after hours. Some people may truly be done with work and want to spend their free time alone or with their families. Some people may have other jobs or duties which keep them from taking part off the clock. Other people may want or need a certain amount of sleep to ensure productive performance during the work day. While an individual text to discuss a certain idea or a reminder might be occasionally useful, bringing the whole team together regularly for a late-night formal group text might raise some eyebrows – and maybe even be a potential labor violation.
   
   
3. Try to keep topics relevant to everyone. Just like in a “real” meeting, it’s easy to get off track due to past grievances, related projects or simply more interesting discussion items. It’s even easier to do this when people aren’t in the same physical space. If it’s your party, consider yourself a moderator and keep trying to nudge people back to the main topic. The limitation of the text field (160 words or less) may possibly make it easier to stay on task, rather than an email interaction with unlimited space where people can go on and on. If your team wants to hold a conversation without some of the other department representatives, you can schedule it later.
   
   
4. Announce when it’s over. If you’re holding your group SMS session for a particular reason, simply end things when that point is discussed. Otherwise, people may continue texting. Even if you leave, the conversation may still go on, and you may miss valuable info. You can also give a warning that everyone needs to leave.
   
   
5. Not everyone will be texting at the same time. It may be necessary to bring latecomers up to speed, but you also don’t want to necessarily bore the people who have been there since the beginning to go through everything again. So be ready to summarize. Or, people may join the initial conversation, but may not be fully available the whole time. Perhaps they’re in a car and don’t want to text and drive, or on a phone call or in a real meeting.

For more suggestions on proper group text etiquette, visit Trumpia.com.

Want to see a full business texting solution in action? Watch our short demo and contact us if you have any additional questions.