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Social Media

Categories Give Blogs Structure and Direction

Categories are collections of content that relate to a designated topic.

A previous post explored how “categories” help readers wade through pages of valuable content. They can also be a valuable tool for you as author.

If you are like most people, you started your blog with just a couple of posts in mind. Categories were the last thing you were thinking about. Now, several months later, you have a blog with a dozen or more posts and your interests are beginning to broaden.

Scroll through your posts. You are probably finding some of your best content buried, requiring a dedicated reader to scroll for seconds to find them. Placing them in a category is the fastest and easiest way to make your older posts more prominent.

Look again through your blog posts. Do you see any recurring themes? Make a list. These are your categories.

You do not want to create a category for only one post. In your mind you are just starting to write on the topic. To readers it looks like you have no passion or authority on that topic. So hold off until you are sure you can offer your readers more than a fleeting opinion.

Creating categories becomes a useful planning tool. You will begin to understand your blog and its structure. This may give you insights about your blogs future and help you plan future posts.

Here are the steps to take when creating categories and developing your blog into a useful resource.

  • Review your content.
  • List the topics you are writing about.
  • If you see a topic that is of great interest to you, but you’ve posted only one article, pull out your editorial calendar and brainstorm more topics for that category. Hold off on creating a category until you have at least five posts to add.
  • Your review of categories might identify a dominant topic. This could lead you to create a separate page for that topic or even to create a separate blog.
  • Once you’ve identified a few categories, plan for how you will continue to address each topic. You might want to address each topic every week. Soon you may find a structure. Write about topic A on Mondays and Topic B on Wednesdays, for example. You might want to add a special feature such as a poll on Fridays. Soon you will have a PLAN!
  • Review your editorial calendar and make sure each category is regularly represented.
  • While you are at it, brainstorm new content ideas for each category you’ve identified.

As you develop your blog, you will want to start publishing newsletters, white papers and perhaps even ebooks. If you’ve carefully maintained your blog categories, you’ll be able to easily identify content to adapt to other purposes. A good bit of the organizational work for larger ventures will be done!

28 Nov 2011

How to Write Powerful Headlines that Draw Readers

Headlines are the most important part of your post. They are the first thing your reader sees. Lackluster headlines will have readers moving on.

People who depend on headlines to improve sales study their effectiveness in the most minute detail. We know that most church workers do not want a degree in headline science. Nevertheless, we can learn from the people who make their living figuring out what works best. 

We’ll condense their advice. If you want to know more, go to the experts. Here’s one.

Your major goals are to:

  • Pique interest
  • Inform readers
  • Help your readers solve a problem
  • Entertain! No one wants to be bored!

We’ve already covered that headlines should contain key words so that search engines find them. Arranging those words is the next challenge.

Some authorities recommend writing your headline first to help you focus your post. Others say write your headline last to be sure it truly reflects your message. Try both! Write a headline to help you focus and then revisit your headline before you post. Make sure you’ve kept the promise you made to your readers.

Headlines should address the question “What does this blog have to offer the reader?”

Let’s say you are planning to write a post to offer ideas on a common problem for many churches — post-holiday drop in attendance. Let’s figure the key words are some combination of “Church Attendance” and perhaps “Holiday” or “Post-Holiday.” If you are publishing at “Christmas” or “Easter” those words might figure as well.

Here are nine approaches to consider:

PROMISE A SOLUTION (HOW TO)
Does your post solve a problem? Use the words “How to” in the headline.
How to Improve Post-holiday Church Attendance

NUMBERS
Will your post give simple, practical advice? Use numbers. The people who study headlines can prove it boosts readership. They’ve even figured out that the number 7 works best!
7 Ways Your Church Can Boost Post-holiday Church Attendance

UNIVERSAL APPEAL
Certain Words Appeal to Readers. (easy, quick, free, more, better, new, grow, improved, guaranteed, fresh, you and your)
7 Easy Ways to Improve Your Post-holiday Church Attendance Quickly

QUESTIONS
Questions can make good headlines.
Does Post-Christmas Church Attendance Give You the Blues?
or
Church Attendance Down? Where Did All the People Go?

TESTIMONIAL
Will your article include real examples?
How Grace Church Brought Members Back after the Holidays  

AUTHORITY
Will your article quote an expert? Say so.
Archbishop Smith Recommends 5 Ways You Can Improve Church Attendance Year-Round

URGENCY
Your headline can take an authoritative tone.
Failure to Boost Church Attendance Year-Round Challenges Mission Budgets 

EXPLORE THE PROBLEM
Help your readers understand why they share a problem.
7 Reasons Why Church Attendance Plummets after Christmas

BE CLEVER!
Headlines can be a place to have fun! Play on words. Use current hot buttons or old writer tricks like puns or alliteration. Shift the key words to the opening paragraph or perhaps a subhead before the opening paragraph.
Done with Church ’til Easter? Santa’s Making a List!
or
Here’s the Church. Here’s the Steeple. Where Are the People?

As you look at the differences in headlines for the same proposed story, you will notice that the tone of the headline will influence the angle of your story. Remember: Write the headline. Write the story. Revisit the headline to make sure the story keeps the promise made to the reader in your opening words — your headline.

That’s the end of our short primer. Just one more bit of advice:

Don’t be boring!

07 Nov 2011

Evangelists Can Learn from Marketers

Have you noticed that the business world has adopted words commonly used in the religious world? Companies once hired spokespeople. Now the job title is “evangelist” (for example, Guy Kawasaki, former evangelist for Apple).

The business world also talks about a successful sale as a “conversion.”

Church evangelists can learn a great deal from modern marketing. Marketing and evangelism share many of the same goals. They can also share the same strategies.

The hottest trend in marketing goes by several names: Inbound Marketing, Relationship Marketing and Content Marketing are just a few. These three emphases fit beautifully into any church’s evangelism program.

INBOUND MARKETING

In a nutshell, Inbound Marketers make lots of helpful information available to everyone for FREE, using blogs and websites, coupled with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn networking tools. While sharing their expertise, they gain authority. When people are ready to buy, they think of the people who were so helpful to them on the web. This marketing technique is tailor-made for Church Evangelists. Help people and they will come to you.

This marketing specialty grew from the modern challenge salespeople faced. As a people, we once were amenable to the knock on the door, the cold call, or chatting it up with visiting sales reps in the company cafeteria. Today we are security conscience. We ban solicitation, check Caller ID before answering the phone, and we do not allow anyone to enter our work space without passing security.

Marketers looked for new ways to get their message/product before potential customers. They used modern tools and technology to attract interest. It is a breath of fresh air for the business world. They no longer feel like nags. They refer to the old days (just a few years ago) as the days of “Interruption Marketing.” They are glad they are no longer distracting irritants. They know that the people they talk to are already interested in their message.

RELATIONSHIP MARKETING

Companies don’t want to work harder than they have to. Finding new customers is more work than keeping old ones. Businesses look for ways to stay in contact with their customers and continue to serve them long after the initial transaction. This can begin on the web. Some of it will rely on other strategies which we will discuss in later posts. Churches must learn from relationship marketers. It will help them be better Christian witnesses.

CONTENT MARKETING

Content Marketing is related to both Inbound Marketing and Relationship Marketing. Content is the helpful information you provide for FREE that attracts people to your message or product. Churches of any size can do this. It is a redirection of energy, but it is a potentially powerful evangelism tool. Provide helpful advice, meaningful thoughts, valuable information, and show that you care. People will notice and begin to build a relationship with you.

Churches must consider implementing these outreach techniques. It requires work and retooling ministry concepts, but these new methods can be very effective. It is not enough for congregations to be witnesses for Christ. They must be effective witnesses for Christ. That means looking for strategies that will make a difference in people’s lives and in the life of your congregation.

The above chart reveals 2×2’s web site’s pattern of growth. This is a project of a very small congregation. We began using Inbound Marketing techniques in February when we launched this blog. We took a few months to learn the ropes. In mid-summer we began following best marketing practices. We slowly started adding content more regularly (now daily). We monitored the statistics. Weekly, we saw interest growing. Today we expect to welcome our 1000th site visitor (almost all within the last four months!). We are averaging close to 30 new visitors every day. We’re not sure where we are going, but we are following a plan that seems to be appreciated. Thanks to all readers. We encourage you to start your own web ministry. We’ll be glad to help.

06 Nov 2011

Key Words Help Readers Find Your Posts

Key Words are the words people type into search engines when looking for articles on topics which interest them.

Blogging platforms give you a chance to list some key words before you post. Writers should also use identifying key words in their headlines and within their article.

Search engines analyze everything going on everywhere on the web and present lists of what they find relating to those words. Key Words introduce writer and reader.

People wanting to know how to bake bread will type “how to bake bread” into their search engine. Often the science of key words is just that simple.

The problem is that there are probably thousands of people worldwide writing about baking bread. All of them want search engines to notice their web site first. The trick, therefore, is to find the words which make your article stand out. 

There are people who will help you with this for a fee. They will run a “key word search” and give you a list of how many people looked for “how to bake bread” as opposed to “baking bread” or “bread recipes.” Often, the results are unimpressive because they are obvious. Yep, your key words are “how to bake bread.”

Key words were once critical. Search engines concentrated on them. Today search formulas measure other things — like incoming and outgoing links. But don’t worry about all of this. There are strategies you can use that will work without stressing about search engine algorithms. Here are a few:

  • Use the words that are obviously important to your story in the headline and also in the first paragraph or two.
  • Craft your headline using popular formulas. (We’ll have a separate post about this). For now, we’ll share that headlines with numbers draw readers (7 Secrets for Baking the Perfect Loaf of Bread). Also headlines with “How to” are effective (How to Bake the Perfect Loaf of Bread).
  • Use common sense. Write for your readers — not the search engines. For a while some bloggers repeated the “key words” so often that their writing became dull and search engines caught on and adjusted their strategies.
  • Use photographs or video (both of which attract attention) and make sure that you use the key words in the description and alternate text boxes which present themselves when you load the picture.
  • Be authentic. Don’t use words that are popular but have nothing to do with your story. This trick has been used unscrupulously to lure people into finding their web site. It is dishonest. Search engines watch for this. It is one reason they changed their search tactics to measure more than key words. (When we posted this article, WordPress suggested we use “baking bread” as key words, but this article is not about baking bread!)
  • Write about things people want to read about. People will find you faster than you may think!

Our experience: About three weeks ago, 2×2 started this series of articles on Social Media Ministry. If you are reading this, you found us! So have 600 others. When we plugged the words “social media ministry” into a popular search engine last week, 2×2 ranked #1. We paid for no analytics. We just used the strategies listed above.

A word of warning to churches: Your key words should be what the people you want to reach are looking for. Use key words that describe your ministry, not just the name of your church. If the name of your church is Trinity, that word will not work as a key word. It has too many meanings and there are many churches named Trinity. Also, you will miss out on traffic that is looking for topics and not just your church. (Trinity Smithtown Feeds Homeless, Trinity Smithtown Youth Walk for MS, Day Care in Smithtown, might be more effective.) You can pay to have someone figure this out, but just get started. Keep your current audience — and most important — your target audience in mind. You’ll do just fine.

05 Nov 2011

How to Prepare Content for Your Church Social Media Blog

How long should your blog posts be?

Social Media experts have differing ideas on this. Most say that content posts should be short and recommend 250 to 500 words. 

This is good advice for many topics. How-to Articles tend to be longer since detailed directions are what your audience is seeking.

The correct answer may be that it depends on what you have to say and the urgency of your need to say it. Do your readers need to know everything now or can you spoon-feed information over a few days without frustrating them?

The best yardstick is to ask yourself, “If I were looking for information about this topic, would I appreciate the content (whether it be 250 or 1000 words)?

2×2 posts tend to be about 800 words on average — too long according to the experts. We violated the rule because we wanted to post thorough content that would be helpful to our audience quickly. This approach has been successful. Our audience has grown steadily.

Nevertheless, as we move forward, we will begin to keep a closer eye on the length of our posts. Here are some ways bloggers can divide content into shorter, more palatable doses.

Journalist’s Formula

Long topics can be divided using the standard journalistic formula. WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY and HOW. One post could then become a six-part series.

Chronological Approach

Other topics might lend themselves to chronolgical subdivision. Detail topics in formative steps. We used this approach in our Social Media Ministry Series, starting with the concept of Social Media Ministry and forming a committee. Later posts covered the work of the committee, etc.

Geographic or Cultural Focus

Some topics might lend themselves to geographic or cultural subdivisions. Many of our topics address small churches in general. We could talk about small urban churches or small rural churches. We might contrast Southern churches with New England churches.

If your posts are longer, look for ways to break up your words or copy so that there are focal points that lead you through the post.

Studies show that web readers scan a page in the shape of the letter F. They read across the top, then skip down. They hit the next topic sentence, and read across and continue down the left side of the page, occasionally drifting to the right as things attract interest.

Tools for breaking up text

There are several tools built into blogging software that you can use to lead your readers’ eyes.

  • Headlines
  • Subheads
  • Bulleted Lists
  • Numbered Lists
  • Photos or Art (with or without captions)
  • Quote Callouts
  • Boldface/Italic Text
  • Indented Text
  • Use of color

Pay attention to your own habits as you read web sites and blog posts to understand how others read your pages.

Thus ends this post of 458 words!

04 Nov 2011

Budgeting for Social Media Ministry

Social Media Ministry can be run on a shoestring, but if you want to develop your ministry faster you may want to allow some money to give you some options. Here are some costs you can anticipate.

  • Hosting and registration of a domain name (web address): $25
    This is the only cost on this list that is absolutely necessary.
  • Purchase of a theme: $50 (Themes are templates designed to look good, add functionality and make blogging easy and accessible to anyone. There are many FREE themes available.)
  • Purchase of a digital camera: $100
  • Purchase of a video camera: $250
  • An allowance for occasional guest bloggers: $50 per post ($100 per month ought to be enough). If you build good relationships, many will offer to contribute freely. Barter! It works! Be sure to give proper credit and a link.
  • You might want to allow $500-1000 per year for some design and programming expertise. A designer could make sure you have an attractive header and give you some guidance on the use of colors and fonts. A programmer can help you over some of the interactivity hurdles as you get more sophisticated with your Social Media Outreach.
  • It is helpful to allow a small budget for the purchase of stock photography which is proven to increase readership. Istock.com is a good source and very inexpensive. You buy bundles of points which cost about $1.50 per point. Many photos (the size you need for the web) cost just one point. $20 per month is ample. (You can take your own photos!)

Adding all of these items together, a starting annual budget of $3000 is more than adequate. You can get started for much less!

2×2 started this site in February 2011 for $25. We’ve purchased about $10 worth of stock photography. We purchased two guidebooks for about $25 each. We use cameras our members already own. That is our total investment so far — eight months later.

Training

You can pay for training and how-to books, but there is abundant help available for free on the web. This is a reliable avenue. Information can become outdated faster than books can be published.

There is some comfort in having a book nearby. Teach Yourself Visually WordPress gave us a jumpstart. It’s step-by-step illustrated approach is very helpful. WordPress for Dummies is the other book we have on hand. We found an ancient guide to html that is useful, but lately we’ve just googled what we want to know and found answers easily. Cut and paste the code and eliminate typos!

Don’t let this talk about code scare you. Most code is built into the blogging platform and you won’t need to know any code. There are times when it is helpful, but it is not necessary.

Online webinars are very helpful. We’ve referred you to socialmediaexaminer.com and hubspot.com before. They are great places to start learning Social Media. Both provide much information for free. SocialMediaExaminer runs quarterly webinar series which cost between $200-$400. Hours of trainings are available for a full calendar year. An online community grows around these trainings which is very helpful. Hubspot sells analytical software but makes TONS of information available for free. Visit their site and look for ebooks and recorded webinars. Both sites will point you to other good resources as well. They practice what they preach and are models for what you will be trying to do with your web site!

Hiring a Social Media Manager

As your Social Media Ministry takes off, you may want to hire a Social Media Manager, but don’t worry about that to start. A manager would help maintain the editorial calendar, see that blog posts were written and coordinated with Facebook and Twitter, analyze your Social Media’s performance, and (with your committee) strategize to maximize your site’s success. This is a strength of Social Media Ministry. You can measure results, and what you can measure, you can improve.

A Social Media Ministry Manager is foreign to most church budgets, but the addition of these skills to your leadership team could mean as much to a congregation’s ministry as an organist, choir director, youth minister or other church professional. Aim for it! (But don’t wait until you can afford it to get started!) This is a topic which deserves its own post. Watch for it!

Using Analytics

Another potential budget consideration is to subscribe to a metrics program, which will give you real time reports on the effectiveness of your site. (It is interesting that people in this field talk about web sites leading to conversion. While they mean purchases of services/products, churches have used this language for decades.)

Using the internet makes it possible to analyze the effectiveness of your ministry and lead you toward measurable ministry solutions. No more sitting around at committee meetings and guessing what might work. You’ll have answers.

2×2 is looking into this now! We’ll share our experience in later posts.

31 Oct 2011

Getting Pastors Onboard with Social Media Ministry

Social Media is new — only a few years old from the start and even fewer in universal popularity. Many pastors and professional leadership were not trained in using social media. They probably never gave it a thought when they answered their “call.”

Therefore, congregations may run into resistance when talking with their pastors about developing Social Media Ministry.

Professional leaders should be excited!
• Social Media gives the church tools to reach many more people.
• The people churches want to reach are using social media.
• Social media is a change agent — just look at what is happening across Northern Africa!

While many in the church agree that the church must change, often they are slow to accept the tools which will create change. It seems the Church longs for change as long as everyone (including leaders) can continue doing things the same way! Social Media is a tool for changing ministry. Use it!

Here’s a great video overview from PBS’s Religion and Ethics program.

This video begins with a mega-church approach. It may intimidate you to see the opening scenes of a church with a control room and banks of computers. But watch to the end. It ends with the Social Media Ministry of an order of nuns in the Boston area, who have made it a mission to answer spirital questions online. They have more than 16,000 “Likes” on their Facebook page. Anyone with a laptop and internet connection can do Social Media Ministry.

If your congregation has a pastor that is savvy to social media, great! If not, encourage your leadership to explore the possibilities. Remember, it’s new to everyone!

Here’s the choice for pastors of small congregations:
Continue to preach on Sunday to the same few people and an occasional visitor or go into all the world (without leaving the church office!)

Using Social Media will require some shifting of mental gears. Social Media is most effective with short thoughts (as opposed to skillfully crafted long sermons). Think of the power of parables which were sometimes only a couple of sentences.

Social Media requires frequent interaction, not just once a week. Your leaders will have to restructure their work habits to make room for new work. They will not be alone. People throughout the business/nonprofit world are restructuring the way they work to include Social Media. The church will have to follow suit. Many executives are starting and ending their day with 20-30 minutes of participation in Social Media — and finding it to be time well spent! “I don’t have time,” is not an acceptable excuse.

Social Media invites dialog. It will take a while to develop online dialog, but pastors must be prepared to field questions and engage in online discussion. What a great opportunity!

Social Media requires commitment. Online questions/comments must be answered within 24-48 hours. Longer than that and you have turned a seeker away. All comments deserve a response.

Start with blogging. Facebook and Twitter are often the first things that come to mind when people think of Social Media. They have their place but they are not good places to start if you are encouraging reluctant pastors to get their feet wet. Blogging is more sophisticated — closer to what pastors are trained to do. Professional leaders can maintain their voice better on a blog than in the short and fleeting interactions of other tools.

Share statistics. Start your church blog without your pastor as contributor if necessary. It’s too important to wait. You are not likely to change minds while doing nothing. As your audience grows, share the statistics with your pastor. If you start to get 50-75 new hits a week (as our church experienced after four months with no pastoral involvement), your leadership may begin to see the potential.

Be specific in you initial expectations. If your pastor does not want to contribute regularly, ask for help with specific topics your committee may have identified.

27 Oct 2011

Finding Content for a Church Blog

What topics should a church blog address? This seems like a tough question. It’s hard enough gathering information for the monthly newsletter! But there is a difference. Blogs engage. Blogs have no space restrictions. Blogs allow for last minute changes! The communication potential is endless. Once you get started you’ll be excited to find ideas cascading.

Remember your audience. Your audience is your community. Blogging is outreach ministry. 

You can start with the issues on the minds of the people you know best — your members, but quickly expand your circles. What would interest the families of children in your day school or any of the groups that might use your building (scouts, community groups, AA, etc.)?

Understanding that content should be for and about the people you hope to reach — not about your congregation — is a challenge to new church bloggers. (Failure to understand audience also limits content ideas.)  

Brainstorm for topics. Not all topics have to be profoundly religious but many can be. You’ll get the knack of finding the religious angle to the stories you publish. Try to identify 30 topics at every meeting. (That’s about two months worth of posts). If you have monthly meetings, you’ll overlap, but that gives your committee a chance to review and rethink. We’ll talk about how to schedule posts later.

Here’s a list of possible topics that focus on parents’ issues without forsaking Christian mission–

• Preparing your child for the first day of school
• Teaching young children to pray
• The top ten Old Testament Bible stories every child should know
• The top ten New Testament Bible stories every child should know
• Teaching your children about God’s world (link to local nature reserve or garden)
• When your child asks about Santa Claus
• What Easter eggs and butterflies teach us about God
• Four Bible verses young children can remember.

Here’s a similar list of topics aimed at community or civic groups.

• 6 ways communities of faith benefit the community.
• 5 problems facing our community that need everyone’s help.
• Ten ways faith communities can work with the business community.
• Pitching in to make our town’s fall festival great.
• Why our congregation supports the local blood drive.
• Post a poll: What is the most important problem facing our community? (list possibilities)
• Analyze the poll results.

“How To” articles are also popular and can be addressed from a religious point of view:

• How to prepare your child to deal with bullies
• How to recognize the signs of drug addiction
• How to keep Christ in Christmas
• Teaching your child to deal with peer pressure
• How to deal with a difficult boss

Review popular magazines. They are experts at finding ideas. Look at the topics they address and adapt them to your congregation’s point of view. You’ll notice that they cover seasonal/holiday topics, news, events, common problems, popular issues such as the environment or economy or crime. When your committee meets, brainstorm these ideas and ask each other “How do we see these issues from a Christian point of view?” You will soon have many ideas.

When you’ve created a following, which may take a few months or even a year, start adding content that is more specific to your congregation. If your pastor is on board with the project ask for two contributions each week — a SHORT follow-up from Sunday’s sermon and a teaser for next week’s sermon. Publish one on Monday and the other on Thursday. Of course, you’ll welcome more posts!

Resist the temptation to reprint sermons as blog posts. You want short posts that focus on others. Think of people who haven’t been to church in quite a while. Are they more likely to read a five-page sermon or a 200-word thought? Tailor the message to the audience. (Sermons can be published but should not be blog posts.)

Your professional leadership can also give your committee the confidence to address the topics your committee identifies. They can help you shape the short articles and help your congregation create a voice. They can help create content without having the sole burden.

Establish some themes and rotate them. They might include: Social Ministry issues, Children’s Ministry, Youth Ministry, Women’s/Men’s Groups, etc., Grief, Parenting. Ask others in the congregation to contribute — youth, teachers, business people. Get everyone involved!

Find information for your post. Once you’ve identified a topic, where do you find information? The easiest way is to ‘”google” the topic. You can adapt articles you find online. Many online writers allow you to link to their posts or use their material with proper credit. (Links fuel the internet; you are expected to link to one another.) You can also interview someone in your congregation or community. When you ask others to contribute, remember to tell them you are looking for short posts, not novels!

Make assignments. Don’t end your committee meeting without knowing who will be doing what. Don’t saddle one person with all the work! Who will create the next dozen posts? Who will review? Who will post?

The discipline of blogging will encourage your congregation to think about ministry in more cooperative ways. The circle of people interested in your ministry will grow as they see that you are interested in them!

26 Oct 2011

Churches! Ready, Set, Dive into Social Media

Part 5: Social Media MinistryWhere do you start?

In previous posts we’ve advised every congregation to start a Social Media Ministry committee. So what’s next? In the next series of posts, we’ll explore the very first steps to getting started.

The world of social media is changing very quickly. This can be intimidating. We recommend that your committee members become familiar with a couple of web sites that will give you tons of ideas, help, and most of all encouragement.

2×2 will provide helpful tips periodically so don’t overlook us! Meanwhile, here are two expert sources that have demonstrated integrity and reliability.

socialmediaexaminer.com
This web site reaches out of your computer screen and leads you by the hand. It provides a steady stream of information and directs you to sites and experts that are tested and reliable. Your committee members can subscribe to the daily e-newsletter for FREE. In addition, the SocialMediaExaminer offers regular month-long webinars on various topics that are worth the price of admission. (No travel — all web-based.) These are held roughly quarterly and characteristically consist of 17 sixty-minute webinars and tons of additional archived resources. The cost varies — about $300 for first-time early registration and less as you become an alum. Each series of webinars has a community forum which remains active long after the webinars end, so you have a place to ask questions and find help.

hubspot.com
Hubspot sells analytical software and hosting. They are dedicated to helping organizations grow through their web presence in ways they can measure. While using their software would be helpful to any church’s evangelism goals, it is pricy (but worth it) to get started. While you consider this value, you can subscribe to their site and immerse yourself in their tons and tons of great content about how to use social media — all of which is FREE.

There is an overflowing fountain of resources available on the web. We recommend these two to start. Both websites link generously to other experts in the social media field. They will help you search for what will work for you.

Our next post will be about blogging.

22 Oct 2011

Failure to use Social Media is missing mission opportunity

Failure to embrace social media is failure to do mission.

“Why don’t they come to us?” That’s the question many church people ask. “We’re friendly. We care about them. We have something to offer. Why don’t they come?”

One thing the last few decades have proven to the church is that people are not going to come to them like they once did. It’s not because your congregation isn’t a good group of people doing great things. It isn’t because they don’t believe in religion or the church.

It’s because today’s world provides more options to fulfill their needs — socially and spiritually.

Businesses experienced the same challenges. They knocked on doors. They advertised. They gave things away. They sponsored ball teams. Some strategies worked for a while. Along came social media. At first businesses used the internet to plug themselves shamelessly. It didn’t work very well. Then they discovered that if they provided valuable information for free on the internet, people would start coming to them. It’s not unlike the hymn –They will know we are Christians by our love. Use the internet pulpit to show your love.

Last year 2×2 visited dozens of congregations. When we choose a church, we review web sites. We learned: The internet is the most powerful resource the church is not using. Many congregations have no web site. Most have a web site that is painfully static, often not updated in years. Some have wrong information on their sites. The voice of the site, if one can be discerned at all, is usually the pastor’s, and it is rarely more than a reprinted sermon. We haven’t come across a single congregational web site that is giving people any reason to visit their site if they aren’t specifically looking for service/event times or directions. Church web sites are all about the church and not about the people they serve or hope to reach. Failing to focus on others, makes their web sites almost useless.

The church wants to reach young people. Why ignore the tool they have glued to the palm of their hands?Reaching out to the community is evangelism. Congregations no longer have to wait until Sunday morning to send their message. Every hour, day and night, is available for you to reach your audience. The more you offer, the larger your audience grows. The more you concentrate on the needs of your customers and what’s going on in their lives and in their communities, the more successful you will be. The take away message: stop talking about yourselves and talk about what is going on in your community.

This web site is a social media project. We are a small congregation — too small to exist according to our regional body. But we do exist. We have adopted several missions. One is to harness the power of social media so that we can lead others in developing social media ministries. Mostly we concentrate on ideas that will promote ministry. We share our story only when we think it will help other congregations or illustrate an important point.

We analyze our site daily so that we can learn what works. Our little church site (only 7 months old) has an average of 75 new visits to our web site each week and has grown steadily overall every week since we began posting new information regularly. Our biggest week had 150 new visits. We have formed relationships with others involved in social media and Christian outreach. We are sharing ideas and laying the groundwork for new programs to answer the challenges which are so evident on our church visits. 

Every congregation — beginning with the smallest — must embrace social media if they are to survive. 2×2 will be there to help.  

Don’t know how? Here’s something to help you get started.

02 Oct 2011