There’s much to be learned from the “market place” about how they do social media strategy. One particular method that I employed and proselytized during my stay in one of those large businesses was the POST Method by Forrester Research.
Here’s how a local church or ministry can employ this systematic approach to “social media”:
Here is a breakdown of how this might be aptly applied (and/or introduced) to your ministry:
P is People.
Know who specifically you want to target and your key audience. Are you trying to target the congregation or potential visitors? Are you trying to engage with the “lost” or the “already found”? Is this tool for your internal leadership team, a specific group (or activity), or a program and/or ministry initiative?
O is Objectives.
Are you educating or informing? Are you starting conversations or picking fights? Are you energizing or evaluating? Are you looking for feedback or telling how it is? Decided on the specific objective before making a move on your technology.
S is Strategy.
“Strategy here means figuring out what will be different after you’re done.” Is your goal a closer relationship with your congregation, ministry leaders, or to establish a “presence” in the lost online world? Do you want people talking about your church or about what your church does? What is the result of this particular effort? Why?
T is Technology.
After going through the above three, decide on the technology that’ll best engage the people, fulfill your objectives, and meets your criteria for strategy. Is it a blog? A community of blogs? A wiki? A social network, an application? What? Make a move and do it!
Remember always to have fun! Engaging deeply in the world of social media should always be just as rewarding as it should be fun. Sometimes we forget that.
It is good to take this type of info and put it into a ministry perspective with a biblical influence. We can learn much from the marketplace in how to reach people. Those of the world understand its ways. To be able to take what is of God (although not necessarily acknowledged as such as He is creator of all things) and use it to His glory is a blessing.
Nice work!
Thanks bro.
just trying to provide valuable resources through the lens of the scriptures.
Thanks bro.
just trying to provide valuable resources through the lens of the scriptures.
This was great resource for me and perfect timing as I just met with our team about growing our "presence" in the social media arena for our church. Thanks
Of course! Thanks for stopping by and using it! pass it on!
I'm diggin' it and passing it along. Thanks!
word. share and share alike!
Awesome and concise. I like it!
Good stuff here. I think the most important one is the S. With starting anything you have to have a "hedgehodge" concept (Good to Great by Jim Collins). Set clear goals an objectives. Anything that doesn't steer you torwards the goals could get you off track easily with social media.
Collins is the man. we talk a lot about that here at North Point.
Social Networking (that's what is implied by social media?) is one of those things not mentioned the Bible, right? lol
But it's a great tool that we can leverage in reaching so many people, way more than TV and radio before that (neither of them were mentioned in the Bible either)
And because of that; good principles must be applied to use in the most excellent and effective manner.
I love how Creative our God is
seriously! God is doing some dope things. whoever would have thought…
Personally I like Jesus marketing plan the best for me.
Its quite simple, Mark 16:15, Mat 28:19-20.
People: everyone.
Objective: make disciples of Jesus.
Strategy: proclaim the Gospel, which we have in the bible written out for us already, to every person on earth.
Technology: our words and life empowered by the Holy Spirit. our testimony and the gospel should be incorporated in everything we do, conversations, blog, work, what ever we do, every part of our life.
In the words of Arthur Blessitt an evangelist who saw hundreds of thousands come to Christ, said when asked what was the secret for so many salvations? He answered quite simply “I share Jesus Christ, the Gospel with every single living soul I encounter everyday, bar none.”
Now that is a marketing plan written in heaven. Very simple plan, it worked for Jesus, Paul, Arthur Blessitt, and everyone else who has followed it, so I like it for me to.
Good to remember that we tend to want to overcomplicate things … social media is nothing more than the engineering of community for a global village. What hasn't changed is that our faith and life itself will always be "life on life."
word up.!
Good framework. Keep it coming!
Thanks Nic! keep it up. big week for you man…!
hey man,
I wrote a post about the Church and Social Networking last year – really just expressing myself more that speaking from experience. I thought I might revisit the topic in light of this post and an article in GeniusDV. http://synapticlight.com/2009/01/30/the-church-an…
I think that social media is just a tool of social networking and if you can – as a Church – leverage the reach of the internet then you can spread the Word of God to the ends of every wireless router in the world – kind of.
Phill
Sweet, let me check this out.