This election cycle has witnessed the advent of mass person-to-person texting as a method for political messaging. This is a great way to reach out to voters who may not be captured in typical phone banking and canvassing efforts.

Getting set up to text can take some time. Here are some tips on getting started.

1. Using a laptop/tablet to text is easier than using your phone. You can use any of them, but the interface on the laptop is more accessible than the phone.
2. On a phone/tablet? Download your apps ahead of time. Most platforms use Hustle: P2P Texting for texting activities and Slack for support of texting efforts. Download these apps to your phone/tablet and create accounts ahead of time.
3. On a laptop? Set up your accounts ahead of time. As with the apps, you’ll want to have accounts on Slack and Hustle. Your login and password will be the same for the app and the online accounts!

Indivisible Montgomery uses either IndivisiText or Resistance Labs. Both platforms are good and they often have different campaigns or events that they’re texting for. You should familiarize yourself with at least one of the sites ahead of time.

You can also read this document, which is set up for texting with Resistance Labs and mostly works for IndivisiText as well.

Note: Each of these texting platforms have training slides that they recommend you read through prior to jumping into a texting campaign. They also have quizzes that you need to complete before you can be added to a campaign.

Texting can be fun and effective. You can avoid having the set up period frustrate your efforts and do some of this work ahead of when you want to text voters.

Good luck!