Last Updated on January 3, 2021 by Cass County Communication Network / Existential Media LLC
When we started CASSINFO in 2010, the cost of providing the service was based on how many subscribers we had at any given time. A couple of years ago, the vendors began charging by the number of texts sent per month. So, each time we send out a message, we use about 2500 texts. We have to decide in advance how many we think we’ll send each month. As we buy more, the price per message goes down.
We were getting a little more confident in our ability to predict what we’d need when COVID-19 hit. We were also buying over 100,000 texts each month.
COVID-19 has changed things. There are fewer events, and businesses are understandably spending less on advertising.
We’re also looking ahead at some changes in text messaging technology that may make it difficult to sustain the service in the same ways.
We’re working on some alternatives but for right now, we’ve hit pause on CASSINFO mobile alerts.
You’ll still be able to find school delays and cancellations at https://www.casscountyonline.com/closings-delays. That’s always the first place we update that information. Then, we share to our social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter.
We post weather alerts to our Facebook page first, and for more severe weather, we also update CassCountyOnline.com.
We also post new information throughout the day on CassCountyOnline.com and events are frequently added to CassCountyCalendar.com.
You can turn on notifications from pages you follow on Facebook (like Cass County Online) using the instructions at this link:
https://www.facebook.com/help/299284303519326
We’re also testing a notification feature on CassCountyOnline.com. You may have noticed a pop-up asking if you want to receive notifications. Those notifications are sent by us, the same way CASSINFO was.
We’ve found that we get more engagement on Facebook than we do on Twitter, but we know many people in our community do use Twitter. This link has info on how you can receive notifications when we tweet: https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/notifications-on-mobile-devices
We’ve also got a couple of additional things in the works that we’ll tell you about soon. In the meantime, you’ll continue to find the latest updates from us at CassCountyOnline.com.