• by Melynda Fuller , March 4, 2020

As new information becomes available about the spread of the coronavirus, BuzzFeedis choosing a more intimate, immediate way to communicate with its audience: text.

Today, the publisher launched a new coronavirus texting campaign with Subtext that allows it to send information and answer questions. Subtext is used by other publishers, like USA Today and McClatchy, to similarly connect with readers.

Subtext comes from The Alpha Group, an in-house tech and media incubator within Advance Publications.

“BuzzFeed has always embraced social platforms. It's the best way to meet our audience where they are, especially rather than expecting them to come find us,” Mat Honan, San Francisco bureau chief for BuzzFeed News, told Publishers Daily.

“We're excited to experiment with Subtext as a new way to open up a two-way dialogue with readers. This Covid-19 outbreak is so fast-moving, and we already know our readers have so many questions about it, that this just makes sense as a way to communicate.”

Readers sign up for the service by simply entering their phone number and verifying it through the campaign’s Subtext landing page.

The campaign builds on BuzzFeed’s commitment to connect with readers.

Honan pointed to the publisher’s in-house tool that ran on Facebook Messenger during the 2016 conventions and its “The Stakes 2020” newsletter as prime examples of how BuzzFeed has experimented with audience communication in the past.