How to schedule and publish to SMS with Sheevook
A text message to the people on your list who agreed to get them, sent through your own Twilio account. Nothing ranks it: everyone on the list gets it on their phone, and every text has a cost. Sheevook turns one approved idea into a SMS-native post (grounded in the platform's real rules, not a generic cross-post), then schedules it and measures what it drove.
Sheevook publishes to SMS for real, through a live connection: write once, tailor natively, schedule, and it goes out on time.
Is SMS worth your time?
Worth it for a business whose customers already asked to hear from it: a local service, a shop, anything with appointments or offers worth acting on today. It reaches only the people on your list, so it keeps customers rather than finding new ones.
Before you connect
- A US business with an EIN. Sole proprietors are not supported yet.
- Text only people who agreed in writing to get marketing texts from you. Each contact you add needs a note of where that consent came from.
- Texts go out only between 8 AM and 8 PM in your project's audience time zone.
SMS at a glance
- Character limit
- 306 (sweet spot 70-160)
- Hashtags
- None. They read as spam here
- Best times
- Only between 8 AM and 8 PM in your audience's time zone. Florida and Oklahoma bar marketing texts outside those hours, and Sheevook refuses to send or schedule one outside them.
- Links
- Tagged links are kept in the copy so a click is attributed back to this platform.
Nothing ranks a text, so the list is the reach
A text goes to every number on the list that agreed to receive it. There is no feed, no ranking and no algorithm, which means the copy cannot buy reach. What it can do is be worth the interruption, because the reader is holding their phone and a bad text costs a STOP reply rather than a scroll.
In the US, marketing texts need the recipient's prior written consent, and Florida and Oklahoma also bar them before 8 AM and after 8 PM in the reader's time zone. Sheevook keeps a consent note on every contact, refuses to send or schedule outside those hours, and stops texting a number the moment it replies STOP.
Every text is billed by the segment: 160 plain characters, or 70 once a single emoji or curly quote appears. The editor counts segments as you write and prices the send before it goes, so a long text is a choice you make with the number in front of you.
What gets a SMS post buried
Texting a list nobody agreed to
A bought or scraped list is not consent. Beyond the legal exposure, carriers filter numbers that draw complaints, so the texts you are allowed to send stop arriving too.
Leaving out how to stop
Every text should end with the way out. Sheevook adds "Reply STOP to opt out." when a text has no opt-out line, and will not send one without it.
Writing a long text with an emoji in it
One emoji switches the whole text to 70-character segments, so a text that fit in one can cost three, on every person on the list.
Skipping carrier registration
US carriers expect business texting from a 10-digit number to be registered for A2P 10DLC in Twilio. Unregistered traffic pays extra fees and is filtered more.
Publishing to SMS with Sheevook, step by step
- 1
Get your SMS account ready
Add texting to your plan: Choose how many texts a month you need under Messaging add-ons in Settings. You can move up a step at any time. Register your business: On the SMS screen, give your business's legal name, EIN and address, who speaks for it, and what your texts are for. US carriers require this for business texting. Describe your texts: Say how people agree to get them, and write two to five example texts. Each example ends with the way to stop. Wait for the carriers: Review takes days, sometimes longer. The SMS screen shows where it stands, and a number is assigned the moment it is approved.
- 2
Connect SMS to Sheevook
Texting is an add-on, set up on the SMS screen. Register your business there; the carriers review it, and when they approve, a number is assigned and your list can be texted. Each month's allowance is counted in text segments, and sending pauses when it is used.
- 3
Write once, let Sheevook tailor it
Write your post once. Sheevook re-authors it natively for SMS, inside the 306-character limit, with a per-platform diff showing exactly what changed, and it blocks a near-copy of another platform's version before it schedules. The voice it writes in: Short, plain and personal, the way the business would text a customer it knows. One message, one point.
- 4
Schedule or publish
Pick a time (or let Sheevook choose the best open slot for SMS), or publish now. Turn on Repeat weekly to make it recurring. Each run gets fresh copy automatically.
- 5
See what actually worked
After it publishes, Sheevook reads back the real engagement SMS reports, and where a link was posted it ties clicks and conversions to the post. Results rank on outcomes, never on vanity reach.
What wins on SMS
- Fit the whole text in one 160-character segment
- Use plain quotes and apostrophes: a curly one turns the text into 70-character segments
- Give a date or a deadline only when the source states one
- Keep the opt-out line on every text
SMS questions people actually ask
- How does Sheevook send texts?
- Through your own Twilio account. You connect it with your Account SID and Auth Token, choose the number or messaging service to send from, and Twilio bills you for each text directly.
- What happens when someone replies STOP?
- Twilio blocks further texts to that number, and Sheevook marks the contact as unsubscribed so they are left out of every later send. A reply that asks to stop in a sentence, like "please stop texting me", counts too.
- Can I import the list I already have?
- Yes, from a CSV with a phone number on each row. You say where the list's consent came from, and that note is kept on every contact it adds. A number that has opted out stays opted out, even if it is in the file.
