At Daily Kos, our motto is "News You Can Do Something About." We are constantly coming up with innovative ways to fulfill that mission, including using technologies that better serve our community of readers, activists, and partners.
We launched a Mobile Messaging SMS program in 2018. Over the course of the program, we determined that you, the Daily Kos Community, do respond to mobile messages and use them to generate activism.
Thanks to our mobile message SMS program, Daily Kos has increased the number of calls we made to Congress by over 200% from 2018 to 2019, a further 15% in 2020, and an additional 50% beyond that in 2021. All told, by building a text messaging action list, we have been able to more than quintuple the number of phone calls we are able to generate to Congress on a daily basis since early 2018.
What you can expect to receive on our mobile message list
When you opt in to our mobile messaging list, you will receive regular messages that ask you to sign a petition, call a key decision-maker, or share viral content.
If it's a call campaign, you will receive a message with a clickable phone number, which instructs your phone to make a call. After you hear a short message about the topic and a script of what to say, you will be immediately connected to the officials that need to hear from you.
We also send messages about breaking news and critical analysis that you will only find at Daily Kos. Sometimes these are exclusive Daily Kos YouTube or podcast interviews, which can easily be viewed on smartphones with YouTube installed, or viewed on any smartphone’s web browser.
And just like our email program, Daily Kos petitions that need a large number of signatures in a short amount of time will also be sent through our SMS program.
We also scale up our volunteer recruitment efforts ahead of critical elections around the country. Users will likely receive opportunities to help get out the vote, to help people file for vote-by-mail, to write letters or postcards to infrequent voters, or to attend virtual phone banks or virtual texting sessions.
That's a brief overview of our program, which we know will continue to evolve with new ideas and activism opportunities, and we will continue to provide tools that empower the Daily Kos Community to impact the country, as well as tools for our partners and allies that will make it easier for them to succeed in their campaigns, and, of course, original, engaging content.
You can sign up to receive mobile messages on most of our petition landing pages, or this page here. Every message will be identified with "Daily Kos" in the message.
When you sign up for mobile messages from our activism pages, or if you are being introduced to our new short code 62340, you will receive a welcome message, with standard legal information like, text "Help" for information or "Stop" to quit receiving messages, which will automatically unsubscribe you from the mobile messages, or tell you how to reach us for technical help. All of this information is also in our privacy policy, and on the landing page disclaimer.
Once you are subscribed, you can reply directly to 62340 from your mobile phone to reach our mobile inbox. We monitor these replies and respond to legitimate reply requests.
As always, the Daily Kos community continues to make a huge impact with our collective activism as we push for justice and democracy. Upgrading our mobile messaging program is an exciting feature that will allow us to continue making change happen.
If you would like to subscribe, you can do so on most Daily Kos petitions or by signing up here. If you've moved, you can also change your address information here.
This new technology was made in partnership with Action Network, an activism platform for the progressive movement, that powers Daily Kos activism, newsletters, mobile and email programs.