It seems that every church (or every church represented on this blog at least) has a media player or podcast of their messages online, or at least that’s where we are headed. The American church is beginning to embrace the value of church online, as seen in the rapid growth of online campuses.
Many churches, especially new church plants led by young tech-savvy leaders are leveraging online platforms to reach people with their weekend messages.
As our church plant, One Church, began to wrestle with the implications of having our messages online, we discussed many issues that come along with putting yourself out there on the interwebs.
After many discussions, we whittled it down to this question: What do we expect out of the person who listens online?
Target Audience:
I feel the biggest obstacle for church’s who are desiring to publish content online is determining their target audience, and what is expected from said audience. “Whoever decides to show up” is not only a terrible target, but it sets everyone up for confusion and discouragement.
Having no expectation for their engagement is an equally terrible approach.
Consider these questions:
- If five people download the podcast, are you going to be disappointed?
- If fifty people visit the media player, but the average time spent on the site is five minutes, are you going to be disappointed?
- If a person from Sacramento visits the site, are you going to be disappointed?
I am kidding with that last one, but you get the point. If goals aren’t clearly established beforehand, there will be no way to measure success one the effort has been put in and whatever you have created goes live online.
Especially if you are a stats person, or are the one in charge of tracking numbers, these questions are very important to have answered before the first podcast is published.
A bit more helpful list may look similar to this:
- We are expecting X amount of people to engage our media player per week.
- Our goal is for X amount of people to link to our messages via social networks.
- We have a target of X amount of page views per week.
- We plan on engaging X amount of people by following up through email per month.
This may seem a bit impractical, after all, the online platform is for the person who wouldn’t otherwise darken the door of your church, right?
Clear Expectations:
Perhaps, but this doesn’t rid your team from the responsibility of developing clear expectations and a clear goal of posting content online. There is no right or wrong when it comes to the motivation of having messages online, but if a reason isn’t clearly defined, then it potentially turns into a lot of work for no apparent reason. This can get frustrating for those who help pull it off.
For us, the goal was clear: We wanted to post messages online for two types of people: those who want to be there on Sunday but can’t, and those who have no interest in joining us in a corporate worship setting, but have questions about Jesus.
Our expectations mirrored those that we had for our Sunday morning services: to lead people who are disillusioned with the church into a deeper relationship with Christ. For us, this is impossible, or at least very difficult, without access into their lives.
When you log in to our media player, you are asked to sign in or create an account. Very simple: name and email.
We aren’t out to create an online community, but rather a way for us to have enough access for an effective follow up without seeming invasive.
Emailing:
Our next step with our online content is to be able to email those who listened to messages and able to serve them in whatever way we can digitally.
On a Sunday morning, everyone gets an invitation to join us at the 10 Minute Party after service, where we connect to those who are there for the first time or who we haven’t gotten a chance to meet before. The goal of this is to create a very authentic and immediate avenue to serve those who have gathered with us.
We want to be able to do that online as well, and we believe one simple way to do that is a follow up email.
Anonymity and Comfort?
We have a lot of respect for churches who utilize the anonymity of a crowd for people to feel comfortable, but that isn’t us. For us, access into people’s lives (or their inbox) is more important than providing a way to anonymously consume.
Of course, people can always give a fake email and name, since we don’t require an account verification to log in to the media player, but we desired our sign up process to be minimally invasive even if it meant we deal with the occasional fake identity.
We were able to develop a strategy surrounding our online content, as opposed to throwing it out there to see what would happen.
We by no means have everything figured out, but we are attempting to make informed decisions and have a method to our madness. Our solution was to put a sign-in feature on our media player, so we can keep tabs on who logs in to listen to our messages.
This may not be the solution for other churches, but it worked for our strategy. Having access to those who consume our content was more important to us than providing anonymity. There is no right or wrong here, but defining the goal is key.
There are undoubtedly churches out there that have clear strategies for their online presence, for both access and anonymity.
Do you have an example of a ministry doing it well?
Jim Gray says
both are equally important…but can you measure anonymity ?
SamMahlstadt says
I don’t think anonymity is measurable, but it can be a goal. I agree that both are important, but feel at some point, it’s one of the other. And for us, the goal was access, even if it means sacrificing some anonymity. Make sense? Thoughts?
benrwoodard says
My church, for one, had no plan or “vision” for the online content we were streaming each week. There is no measure for success and it can become very frustrating. It is becoming more apparent to me that we need to define a strategy soon or risk loosing the opportunity to minister to people through our video streaming.
SamMahlstadt says
Agreed. And frustrated staff is bad, but frustrated volunteers is really bad.
Hope this helped put some words to what you are encountering. There are people around here that know a lot more about me, so don’t hesitate to ask for help or guidance!
Right guys and gals…?
Nick Shoemaker says
I agree with your “risk” of being minimally invasive for the later follow-up.
A very timely post that, if anything, causes all of us to pause and consider the why.
Thanks Sam!
SamMahlstadt says
Thanks for the kind words Nick!
Pause and reflection are vital.
Stephen Bateman says
I feel like there is a vague dissatisfaction with the results of online publishing, in general, and with the church in particular.
Everybody wants that #1 post on digg…
But at the same time, ministry is hard, even online.
P.S. If someone puts a fake email up there, let’s be honest…They *really* don’t want to be found.
SamMahlstadt says
I agree that there is a general dissatisfaction, and I really agree that ministry is hard. But I think the best solution to fighting that discouragement is having very clear goals and a way to measure those goals. Online and offline.
Scott Magdalein says
Ok, so I’ll play Devil’s Advocate for a sec. Ready?
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I totally disagree with your decision to require a login before allowing access to your content if your purpose is outreach and not in-reach (both are legitimate goals for online content, btw). I disagree because by creating a small obstacle to access your content, you might be creating unintended results.
For example, a user might see this approach as a bait-and-switch (which it kinda is). It’s similar to a restaurant that advertises free dessert on their marquee. Then, when you walk in with an appetite for apple pie, they tell you that you have to sign up for their mailing list to get the dessert. Whenever that happens to me, I feel tricked and a little betrayed.
Or maybe the user sees the login as a way to keep “unwelcome” people out or to protect content that they’re not supposed to see or that it’s just *another* online account to manage or it’s not worth their time or any number of other assumptions.
What if you were to put a parking attendant at the entrance to your church property and didn’t allow people in unless they gave you their name and email first? That seems backwards to me, especially if your goal is to reach people that are disillusioned with church.
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Okay, I’m back. No more Devil’s Advocate. But I’d love to hear your thoughts. ๐
[P.S. Your church’s website is down at the moment. Do we call that the ChurchCrunch effect?]
SamMahlstadt says
You bring up some great points, and I very much appreciate the perspective. A couple things: we aren’t using online content as outreach, and we don’t see it as bait and switch because we aren’t advertising it. I can see your point, but we don’t try to draw attention to our media player other than tweeting when the newest podcast is updated.
I also hear your point about creating a small obstacle that could initiate adverse reactions, but for us, the obstacle is intentional. We don’t want to contribute to a consumer driven church culture, so the obstacle becomes our way of saying “glad you’re here, but church isn’t a passive experience.”
while this may keep some people at bay, it’s just what we feel is best at this stag in the game (we are only 5 months old, so everythin is subject to change).
Thanks for the devils advocate though, I love having to think through other perceptions. It only makes us stronger!
Also, the site was up again when I checked, but yes, it must have been the pesky ChurchCrunch effect. ๐
Scott Magdalein says
Awesome. Thanks for the response, Matt. Glad your strategy is working for ya! Keep it up, bro!
SamMahlstadt says
Matt?… ๐