[Editor’s Note: This is the second quadrant in the Social Media Engagement Matrix]
We looked at what it means to have a passive marketing strategy which is so prevalent on social media. Yet active marketing on social media is what everyone that studies social networks from their blogs is raving about. How do we go from to where your target marketing group is and put your product, brand, or ministry in front of their eyes? In many respects, it highlights what Steve Jobs said in 1997 with the unveiling of the iPhone, “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
Characteristics
This is what is seen as traditional marketing, but in a new environment on social networks. The purpose is to find your audience and then put what you want to show them in front of their faces. What is not is using the traditional practices as if this new medium is exactly how you would produce commercials for television, magazines, or newspapers. It also is not free to do active marketing as Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks are becoming public entities and you need to spend money to make it. There are no more free meals here. While this model has a bad rap and is susceptible to being cold because it “goes after the numbers for attendance,” it is undoubtedly effective.
Pros and Cons
In looking at this model, I want to give you a true view of what it means to have the Come See Us mentality of posts.
Benefits
This quadrant of the social media engagement matrix has a lot to offer that can be extremely enticing.
- You Craft The Message You Want Them To See Because they are not coming to see your page initially, you get to decide what they see first. While your ministry undoubtedly does a bit of everything, what is your primary focus? Do you want to evangelize to the lost? Maybe your focus is on thorough Biblical teaching? Could it be serving the poor or intentional discipleship? You get to decide here.
- Done Well, You Have Huge Returns On Investment Unlike any of the other quadrants, this model is looking at high volumes of return on investment for every post you put out there. We want people seeing what we share because we are putting it in front of the right people, having them click through to our blog, and comment on what we share. This is focused on growth and results.
- Reaching Those You Never Could Before This model is all about letting our content reach people we never had access to before. In many ways, your current audience is doing some of the work for you. Even better, you will be getting your posts and tweets in front of new people that need to hear the message of the Gospel that you would not be able to do with passive and relational posts.
- Focus on People and Branding While you are engaging with a lot of people constantly, you can also continue to focus on the branding of your posts. As we shared above, you get to craft the message that will ultimately shape the audience coming to your services and events. Ignoring this fact will hurt you in the long-run but capitalizing on it can be as powerful as the actual content being put out.
Drawbacks
Unfortunately, this model fails in many different ways that may outweigh the benefits.
- It Could Be A Waste Of Money Identifying the right target audience is not easy. If you get it wrong, you could essentially waste time and money in marketing efforts that go to people that will never benefit your ministry. That means you half to get your target audience right quickly and completely.
- You Will Miss People Doing active marketing means that you will miss people that could be great for your ministry because you are taking the time to put together a great marketing effort. Passive marketing may be able to overcome this shortcoming, but rushing the whole process will ensure that all of your efforts will fail even more.
- You Have To Know Your Resources You cannot casually do social media and expect to succeed at active marketing. If this is just one of your responsibilities as a pastor, secretary, or volunteer who does not do this for a living, do not expect to hit home runs with your posts. At best, you may slowly improve your process, but you are getting what you put into it and if all you are putting into it is a couple hours a week, you are not going to get much.
How Churches Use This Model Wrong
As we shared above, this model can go wrong a couple of ways. The most prolific and disheartening version is when the process of figuring out the target audience as well as the message you want to craft goes longer than expected or you realize that you wanted to be engaging with some people that are falling through the cracks. The misstep comes in trying to promote an unfinished product and rushing an active marketing campaign before it is ready to go live. Doing so may get you connected with that one or two people you might have missed or made your pastor “happy,” but now you have diminished what you are putting out there for thousands of people to see. You need to stand firm in what you are sharing, even if it means relying temporarily on passive marketing and standing up to the pastor who is trying to rush the results.
Best Practices
The best thing you can do in your active marketing process is knowing what resources are out there for your church to work with and what has been tested for your particular use cases. Options out there might include using clicktotweet, paywithatweet, and Google+ +Post Ads, and Facebook ads. None of those should be a duplicate of the other, but specifically crafted for its intended use. This also includes Facebook Events that including inviting targeted people to your event as well as using photos or videos of events you had already done in the past and tagging people in them to reshare with others. Be creative with the message, tweak it to perfection, and then send it out to the right people as effectively as possible.
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