Some of you (and your respective ministries) are at the point where you want to go ahead and “dive” in; you’ve been convicted (or convinced) that your church and/or ministry needs to be doing some sort of “social media.”
Ok, so now what?
Getting to the point, you need to develop a plan, because very quickly you’ll find that you can be “in” so fast and so deep that you’ll have no time left to do other things.
So here’s a 5 Step Plan for how to start “doing” social media for your ministry:
Every so often someone will shoot me an email about how they have personally seen or used web applications that were extremely creative or were outside the original intent of the developers and product.
I think that’s cool. I think that’s innovative.
I think that’s where the Church can be a thought-leader in the web technology space.
So, if you’ve got some creative or unique (or strange perhaps) ways in which you’ve seen or used Twitter for your church or ministry, please drop a comment below or email me your story to john@churchcrunch.com!
Don’t forget to include the ministry web address, your own blog address, and anything else that’ll help provide context.
I hope to publish the comments from the community later this week in a blog post. Represent!
Marketing a new product or service for Twitter is easy because you really only have to use one word: Groups. I’m not even sure your product needs to do it well for you to have thousands of signups within hours.
But “grouping” in Twitter is in serious want and so people will sign up to do it.
If you’ve got a moment I’d check out Buzzable.com, a new grouping platform for Twitter. Here’s what’s up as analyzed by TechCrunch:
You sign in using your Twitter ID, which lets you join and create both public and private groups centered around different topics.
Groups are built around RSS feeds. But you can set up topic-specific groups which pull from a number of feeds, including Google News, Eventful, Digg, Yahoo Finance, Twitter itself, blogs, and so on.
You can set it up so that the feeds are filtered by keyword (such as “Android,” Kindle,” “Knicks,” etc.). Members of the group can then discuss any headline by commenting in-line. Each comment can be pushed out to Twitter proper as well.
Both RSS headlines and comments can be “Buzzed” up by popular vote. The result is a combination of RSS content and Twitter conversation, all in the same stream.
Sounds pretty interesting to me. I’ve created a ChurchCrunch Buzzable Group here. I’d love to see a ministry or church really take it out for a spin.
If they are still available, try using techcrunch as a signup invite key.
Etsy, for those who may not be familiar, is a mega online marketplace where individuals and small businesses can set up shops to sell their personal wares that are made by hand. It’s raised more than $30 million in venture funding and is growing like a weed.
Although there is a lot of things that have contributed to its success, it’s Word of Mouth marketing strategies have made it a force to be reckoned with.
Their internal survey which was recently released is a stunning proof of their unique angle at virality:
This might be the best 8 minutes you’ll spend this weekend watching online video.
Right from the proverbial “horses mouth” comes Twitter’s Co-Founder Evan Williams and how Twitter has evolved due to unexpected uses by its users, especially in terms of helping each other out.
I think there’s so much to unpack here, but I’ll let you have a shot at it without my random commentary.
So, you’ve been thinking about creating a blog for your church but you’re still in the “mix” about the “why.”
You’ve been told a thousand times over that you should by “everybody” but your leadership team needs a bit more “concrete” reasoning other than “Hey, everyone’s doing it and they say it’s awesome!” speech.
Perhaps the chart on the left can help?
What it explains are the fundamental reasons why large enterprise businesses choose to do “Social Media Marketing.”
Also, what their experienced benefits have been after using the media.
In other words, why they choose to engage in a number of social networks and blogs and what the return on investment (ROI) has been.
Just take a look at some of the core reasons.
For a few of you yesterday was a doozy. Catalyst One Day blew my mind and then Off The Blogs event was perhaps the best event and night of worship that I may have ever had.
So, I’m exhausted.
And there’s tons more work to be done this morning and today.
One of the consistent things I shared with others yesterday at Catalyst was small ‘nuggets’ of wisdom in regards to how and what to blog.
Here are 10 easily-digestible pieces of advice that I shared yesterday:
The first time I ever met Russ Hutto was in a somewhat random hotel room in Austin, Texas. We had never intended to meet yet it was just one of those “things.”
I believe he and Fred McKinnon were attending a worship conference (I may have that totally wrong) and I had wanted to share with them a personal development project that I had launched (or was planning on launching).
That feels so long ago… Wow.
And ever since we’ve met he’s been growing his blogs and doing very cool stuff over at some of the online properties that he manages. I wanted to introduce him to the rest of the community so you can find another RSS Feed to subscribe to.
Gotta Love Indiana Jones
I’ve started to do some very serious thinking about how I personally engage in the social media space, and much of it has to do with the hundreds of social networking websites which I currently am a registered member.
The simple fact is that its humanly impossible to manage all of them at the same time. As a obvious result, it’s impossible to become an “expert” at any of them.
I know that Chris Brogan has suggested more than once (both on his blog and live talks) that businesses should choose to engage deeply with up to 3 social networking websites (and he almost always mentions that 3 might even be too many).
I think there’s wisdom in that and I’m beginning to really consider where I spend my time on the interwebs.
For starters I’ve decided that my blogs and Twitter will be definite areas of concentration for this 2009. That’s 2 “social networks” right there (or 3, depending on how you look at it).
There are definitely some days where I feel “maxed” out and then there are a some days where I know I can invest a bit more in a few others.
But I need to be careful not to get sucked in and spread myself too thin. I think a lot of us have the tendency to do so, or feel “pressured” to be a part of every single social network out there. It’s just unwise really.
Practically speaking, I think organizations need to go through the same process and decision making: Choose 2 to 3 social networking sites that you will engage deeply in and go become awesome at it. This number may increase due to large staffing, but perhaps not.
What are your 2 or 3 Social Networks? Have you spread yourself too thin?
Sometimes it’s just good to sit back, relax, and learn from large enterprise and marketplace businesses that simply act infantile.
Take, for example, Ryanair’s recent comments on an “idiotic” and “pathetic” blogger who happened to blog about their company website and a perceived flaw in their eCommerce portion:
“Jason!” a commenter identified as Ryanair Staff #1 wrote. “You’re an idiot and a liar! Fact is, you’ve opened one session then another and requested a page meant for a different session, you are so stupid you don’t even know how you did it!”
Way to go guys. Way to do it right. Apparently Ryanair’s street cred goes way before them:
Francis Tuke, a spokeswoman for the Association of British Travel Agents, told CNN that Ryanair is famous for not really caring what customers think. “They treat their customers with contempt,” she said. “This is the way Ryanair conducts its business.”
I know a lot of Pastors and Ministries who couldn’t give less of a care about what others think about them. Although it’s nice to be confident in what you believe I think there’s wisdom in caring for other’s opinions, or at least giving them an ear to be heard.
And definitely don’t pull a “Ryanair.” Do you know of “any” ministries or churches out there that could learn a thing or two?
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