Five Reminders for Making Ministry Videos Viral

by: Jon Thomas

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An interesting insight into what makes social content effective has emerged, or at least made itself more visible, in the past year or so. Content is king, but editing may be the queen who’s actually running the castle.

Our traditionally analog means of consuming media—television, newspaper, radio, outdoor—are quickly being replaced by digital means. We supplement TV watching with our iPads, get our news in near real time from Twitter, and share life’s moments in an instant on Facebook.

This consumption of digital content has led to the concept of “virality.” Just a few years ago this concept didn’t exist. Videos, images and articles didn’t “go viral.” Exposure on all levels, particularly for advertising, was limited to the very rich or very lucky.

Now individuals, media outlets and brands alike are owning their channels, creating and publishing content in hopes of that content’s being consumed, appreciated and shared. So now the question is not whether or not to own a channel and create content but what type of content is most likely to be shared. This leads to other questions. What resonates with audiences? Where do they consume it? Why do they share it?

THAT’S WHERE EDITING COMES IN

If you’re reading this, it is likely that within the past day or so you’ve encountered an article by the likes of BuzzFeed, This Advertising Life, ICanHazCheezburger? and any of a number of other sites (there are millions) dedicated to curating and sharing quick bites of content.

But what’s important is not so much why the editors at BuzzFeed create this content; it’s more the lessons learned from how they do it. BuzzFeed has concocted a lethal formula for social-publishing success, combining dozens of unique pieces of content each day with pop culture, timeliness, topics proven to be shareable and brevity. Most articles contain images with captions, and only a few articles contain more than a couple of hundred words.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN FOR BRANDS?

The idea of editing and succinctness isn’t just a concept for media outlets pushing Grumpy Cat memes and Gangnam Style videos. There is a correlation between the success of viral-media sites and the success of brands on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Vine and other channels. Shorter content works (hence the existence of Twitter, Vine and Instagram). Here are a few tips to keep in mind when creating content in hopes of achieving viral success:

1. Understand your platform
What works for Facebook doesn’t necessarily work for Twitter. Write with the platform (and its audience) in mind.

2. Push the boundaries
Many platforms have technical limitations, but that doesn’t mean the boundaries aren’t there to be pushed. Brands are already using Vine for creative stop-motion videos.

3. Stay on topic
Nothing can derail a shareable piece of content like too much irrelevant content. Stay focused and stick to what your headline promises (easier said than done, especially for me).

4. Don’t under-deliver
If you’re spending more time on your headline than on your content, you’re doing it wrong. Don’t promise “10 Tricks You’ve Never Heard Of” only to repurpose tricks everyone has heard of.

5. You can sacrifice time or quality, but not both
If your content is quick, audiences will forgive a lack of quality. But if you’re publishing long-form content, the production quality must be able to override the audience’s brief attention span (think Harlem Shake versus Kony 2012).

Of course, a brand’s content-marketing strategy must correspond to its goals, since bite-size content won’t work for every brand. But in 2013, there’s no question of the power of effective editing and the shareability of entertaining short-form content. Thinking like an editor when creating your brand’s content may just turn ordinary into viral. 

Read the full story here.

Tags: Attention, Brand, Jon Thomas, Social Media

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What Does Your Ministry Brand Say About You?

by: Justin Wise

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Every tweet, every status update, every avatar, every social network background image—they all say something about your digital brand. Have you taken inventory to see what they’re saying?

For most organizations, the answer is, “no.” It’s not an intentional “no.” It’s a “no” stemming from not enough time in the day. People usually stumble into digital ghost towns by accident, not on purpose.

A Few Good Brands

MailChimp does a fantastic job at translating who they are as a company to their online presence. Their Twitter feed is filled with irreverent kookiness. The welcome greeting on the dashboard borders on nonsensical.

Wherever you interact with MailChimp online, they are the same company. There’s no confusion about who they are, what their company is like, and what they want their customer to experience. It’s all intentionally, purposefully crafted.

Kristina Halvorson and the folks at Brain Traffic are another shining example. Here’s the website for her book Content Strategy for the Web:

Beauteous. Her message of “better content, better business” is actually built into the website itself. I can guarantee you every word on this home page has been poured over and intentionally chosen. For good measure, here’s the website for Brain Traffic, the company Kristina helps run:

And here’s the site for one of their events, Confab Twin Cities:

It’s all in-sync. It all works together. The brand’s values seep out of every corner of the web, ready to be enjoyed by whomever comes across it.

What Does Your Brand Say About You?

Take a quick look at your online presence. Twitter, websites, fan pages, Instagram feeds—the works. Go ahead, I’ll wait =)

What do you see? Do you see a continuous presence, flowing from one channel to the next? Are your values prevalent in each digital outpost? For instance, if you say you value “quality,” does your website actually reflect it? Do you have an online home you can be proud of? Did you invest the time, effort, and, yes, resources to build something of actual quality?

Here’s the thing (and I’m going to shoot straight with you): you don’t have the luxury of sandbagging your digital presence any longer. The game has changed. It is no longer in the act of changing.

You can no longer simply have a blog, you must have a strategy for it. You can no longer simply tweet, you must have a strategy for those tweets. Catch my drift?

As a business, brand, individual or organization, you need to be considering:

• Content strategy
• Content marketing
• Social media strategy
• Social media management
• Social media audits
• Email marketing
• Editorial calendars
• Over digital communication strategy
• And, yes, more…

If you’re not actively developing plans for most of these, I’m afraid the widening gap may prove too wide in the future.

Read more from Justin here.

Tags: Attention, Brand, Justin Wise, Social Media

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7 Questions Your Ministry’s Social Media Must be Answering

by: Jon Thomas

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The leader who shapes culture understands that not all stories are created equal. 

The use of social media continues to rise at at a rapid rate into our world.

The combination of social media and storytelling, the term social media storytelling could be the holy grail of buzzwords. Half emerging technology that everyone said would either rule the world or totally fail, half proven method of transferring emotion and knowledge since the dawn of humanity, social media storytelling is a relatively new and an oft-misunderstood term. Nearly every digital agency claims that they’re “storytellers,” and if the client is interested in a social media activation, then they’ve magically become “social media storytellers” as well.

The combination of social media and storytelling, the term social media storytelling could be the holy grail of buzzwords. Half emerging technology that everyone said would either rule the world or totally fail, half proven method of transferring emotion and knowledge since the dawn of humanity, social media storytelling is a relatively new and an oft-misunderstood term. Nearly every digital agency claims that they’re “storytellers,” and if the client is interested in a social media activation, then they’ve magically become “social media storytellers” as well.

My mom and dad are clueless about what “social media storytelling” means, and that’s okay. But I fear there are other agencies and brands that are misunderstood, and that can be dangerous for audiences.

Effective social media storytelling starts at the beginning as does all brand storytelling on any platform or in any medium, and that’s the difference. An effective social media campaign rooted in storytelling will be united by one aspect—the brand’s Story Platform.

THE STORY PLATFORM

At its core, the Story Platform serves as the emotional heart of the brand—the enduring idea that will serve as the consistent basis for the many stories that a successful brand must tell over time. It’s developed by deeply understanding a number of elements including audience, brand and category, as well as the goals and objectives of both the brand and the business.

Not just a tagline (though sometimes it can end up being the tagline), the Story Platform is a central thought around which all communications can be built. In the case of social media, it gives direction and coherence to all subsequent marketing work.

It’s the single thought that should be apparent in everything your brand does and says—the core narrative of every story that is told about your brand.

SOCIAL MEDIA STORYTELLING FROM THE HEART

Without unearthing the brand’s core story, it’s difficult (if not impossible) for a brand to effectively tell its story across social platforms. But having done it, the brand has a starting point—something it can use to ensure that every single post, tweet and video is on-brand.

From there a brand’s social media presence has a heartbeat. That heartbeat fuels the executions while offering inherent weights and measures. It helps answer these 7 questions:

1. Who is the audience, and how do they interact with our brand?
2. How are they innovating our brand? What are they saying?
3. How do we differ from similar brands, and how can we use stories to persuade customers to choose our brand over a competitor’s?
4. How quickly should we respond to social comments (positive and negative)?
5. Which pop-culture events should we be ready to respond to in real time?
6. What user-generated content should we encourage? Which contributions should we share?
7. Does this app make sense to our brand? Will our audience use it, and more important, can it add value to their lives?

HOW CAN YOU FIND YOUR STORY PLATFORM?

It’s not simple or done overnight. If you have time to spend with your brand’s stakeholders, you can take a giant step toward understanding your brand’s core story (and continue to do this every few years as things change). Start by investigating your audience, your brand and your category. Try to ensure that you’re working with some sort of core story for your brand, and map all executions back to that story. Develop a content plan with that core story in mind. 

Social media storytelling isn’t telling a number of stories about a brand. It’s unearthing the core story at the heart of your brand and telling it in meaningful ways that people enjoy, appreciate and share.  

Read more from Jon here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Brand, Jon Thomas, Social Media

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Beware: The Bible is About to Threaten Your Smartphone Focus

by: John Piper

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Are apps a threat to God-focus? Yes. But it works both ways. Fight fire with fire.

If you are reading your Bible on your computer or your smartphone or your iPad, the presence of the email app and the news apps and the Facebook app threaten every moment to drag your attention away from the word of God.

True. Fight that. If your finger offends you, cut it off. Or use any other virtuous violence (Matthew 11:12) that sets you free to rivet your soul on God.

But don’t take mainly a defensive posture. Fight fire with fire.

Why should we think of the Facebook app threatening the Bible app? Why not the Bible app threatening the Facebook app, and the email app, and the RSS feeder, and the news?

Resolve that today you will press the Bible app three times during the day. No five times. Ten times! Maybe you will lose control and become addicted to Bible! Again and again get a two-minute dose of life-giving Food. Man shall not live by Facebook alone.

I’m serious. Never has God’s voice been so easily accessible. The ESV app is free. The OliveTree BibleReader app is free. And so are lots of others. Let the Bible threaten your focus. Or better:

Let the Bible bring you back to reality over and over during the day.

Tags: John Piper, Scripture, Social Media

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Don’t Let the Screen Strangle Your Soul, Part 2

by: Kevin DeYoung

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Let me suggest three ways in which the digital revolution, for all its benefits, is also an accomplice to our experience of being hassled, frazzled, and crazy busy. For if we understand the threats, we may have some hope of finding a way forward.In Part 1 of this post, I talked about the first, addiction.

Second, there is the threat of acedia. Acedia is an old word roughly equivalent to “sloth” or “listlessness.” It is not a synonym for leisure, or even laziness. Acedia suggests indifference and spiritual forgetfulness. It’s like the dark night of the soul, but more blah, more vanilla, less interesting. As Richard John Neuhaus explains, “Acedia is evenings without number obliterated by television, evenings neither of entertainment nor of education but of narcoticized defense against time and duty. Above all, acedia is apathy, the refusal to engage the pathos of other lives and of God’s life with them” (Freedom for Ministry, 227).

For too many of us, the hustle and bustle of electronic activity is a sad expression of a deeper acedia. We feel busy, but not with a hobby or recreation or play. We are busy with busyness. Rather than figure out what to do with our spare minutes and hours, we are content to swim in the shallows and pass our time with passing the time. How many of us, growing too accustomed to the acedia of our age, feel this strange mix of busyness and lifelessness? We are always engaged with our thumbs, but rarely engaged with our thoughts. We keep downloading information, but rarely get down into the depths of our hearts. That’s acedia—purposelessness disguised as constant commotion.

All of this leads directly to the third threat of our digital world and that’s the danger that we are never alone. When I say “never alone,” I’m not talking about Big Brother watching over us or the threat of security breaches. I’m talking about our desire to never be alone. Peter Kreeft is right: “We want to complexify our lives. We don’t have to, we want to. We wanted to be harried and hassled and busy. Unconsciously, we want the very things we complain about. For if we had leisure, we would look at ourselves and listen to our hearts and see the great gaping hole in our hearts and be terrified, because that hole is so big that nothing but God can fill it.” (Christianity for Modern Pagans, 168).

Sometimes I wonder if I’m so busy because I’ve come to believe the lie that busyness is the point. And nothing allows us to be busy—all the time, with anyone anywhere—like having the whole world in a little black rectangle in your pocket. In Hamlet’s Blackberry, William Powers likens our digital age to a gigantic room. In the room are more than a billion people. But despite its size, everyone is in close proximity to everyone else. At any moment someone may come up and tap you on the shoulder—a text, a hit, a comment, a tweet, a post, a message, a new thread. Some people come up to talk business, others to complain, others to tell secrets, others to flirt, others to sell you things, others to give you information, others just to tell you what they’re thinking or doing. This goes on day and night. Powers calls it a “non-stop festival of human interaction” (xii).

We enjoy the room immensely—for awhile. But eventually we grow tired of the constant noise. We struggle to find a personal zone. Someone taps us while we’re eating, while we’re sleeping, while we’re on a date. We even get tapped in the bathroom for crying out loud. So we decide to take a digital vacation, just a short one. But no one else seems to know where the exit is. No one else seems interested in leaving. In fact, they all seem put off that you might not want to stay. And even when you find the exit and see the enchanting world through the opening, you aren’t sure what life will be like on the other side. It’s a leap of faith to jump out and see what happens.

The point of Power’s parable should be self-evident. Like Tolkien’s ring, we love the room and hate the room. We want to breathe the undistracted air of digital independence, but increasingly the Room is all we know. How can we walk out when everyone else is staying in? How will we pass our time and occupy our thoughts with the unceasing tap, tap, tap? For many of us, the Web is like the Eagles’ Hotel California: we can check out anytime we like, but we can never leave.

And the scariest part is that we may not want to leave. What if we prefer endless noise to the deafening sound of silence? What if we do not care to hear God’s still, small voice? What if the trivialities and distractions of our day are not forced upon us by busyness, or forced upon us at all? What if we choose to be busy so that we can continue to live with trivia and distraction? If “digital busyness is the enemy of depth” (17)  then we are bound to be stuck in the shallows so long as we’re never alone. Our digital age gives new relevance to Pascal’s famous line: “I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”

Or stay out of the room, as the case may be.

Read more from Kevin here.

Tags: Kevin DeYoung, Social Media

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Don’t Let the Screen Strangle Your Soul, Part 1

by: Kevin DeYoung

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The first time I really became aware of the full intensity of the problem was in a conversation with a couple students training for the ministry.

I was speaking at one of our top seminaries when after the class two men came up to me in private to ask a question. I could tell by the way they were speaking quietly and shifting their eyes that they had something awkward to say. I was sure they were going to talk about pornography. And sure enough, they wanted to talk about their struggles with the internet. But it wasn’t porn they were addicted to. It was social media. They told me they couldn’t stop looking at Facebook; they were spending hours on blogs and mindlessly surfing the web.

This was several years ago, and I didn’t know how to help them. I hadn’t encountered this struggle before, and I wasn’t immersed in it myself. Five years later: I have, and I am.

I used to make fun of bloggers. I used to lampoon Facebook. I used to laugh at Twitter. In my life I’ve never been an early adopter with technology. I’ve never cared what Steve Jobs was up to. I used to roll my eyes at technophiles.

Until I became one.

Now I have a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter handle, a Bluetooth headset, an iPhone, an iPad, wifi at work and at home, cable t.v., a Wii, a Blu-ray player, multiple email accounts, and unlimited texting. Pride comes before a fall.

I was born in 1977 so I can remember life before the digital revolution. In college we had to go to a computer lab to get on the internet, which wasn’t a big deal because nothing happened on email and I didn’t see anything interesting online. By the time I was in seminary, however, things had changed. Email was a vital way to communicate and the internet was how my friends and I were getting our news (and doing Fantasy Football). But even then (in the late 90s and early 2000s) life was far less connected. I only got an internet connection in my room part way through seminary–one of those loud, lumbering ack-ack dial-up monstrosities. I didn’t have a cell phone in high school, college, or graduate school. As little as four or five years ago I didn’t do anything on my phone and barely accessed the internet at home. I’m not suggesting those days were purer and nobler, but my life felt less scattered and less put upon. Something has changed. A lot, actually.

What Are the Threats?

Much has been written and will be written about our insatiable appetite for the screen. I’ll leave it to others to decide if Google makes us stupid and whether young people are more or less relational than ever before. Let me simply suggest three ways in which the digital revolution, for all its benefits, is also an accomplice to our experience of being hassled, frazzled, and crazy busy. For if we understand the threats, we may have some hope of finding a way forward.

First, there is the threat of addiction. That may sound like too strong a word, but that’s what it is. Could you go a whole day without looking at Facebook? Could you go an afternoon without looking at your phone? What about two days away from email? Even if someone promised there would be no emergencies and no new work would come in, we’d still have a hard time staying away from screen. The truth is many of us can’t not click. We can’t step away, even for a few hours, let alone a few days or weeks.

In his bestselling book The Shallows, Nicholas Carr reflects on how his attitude toward the web has changed. In 2005—the year he says the “Web went 2.0″—he found the digital experience exhilarating. He loved how blogging junked the traditional publishing apparatus. He loved the speed of the internet, the ease, the hyperlinks, the search engines, the sound, the videos, everything.

But then, he recalls, “a serpent of doubt slithered into my infoparadise” (15). He realized that the Net had control over his life in a way his traditional PC never did. His habits were changing, morphing to accommodate a digital way of life. He became dependent on the internet for information and stimulation. He found his ability to pay attention declining. “At first I’d figured that the problem was a symptom of middle-age mind rot. But my brain, I realized, wasn’t just drifting. It was hungry. It was demanding to be fed the way the Net fed it—and the more it was fed, the hungrier it became. Even when I was away from my computer, I yearned to check e-mail, click links, do some Googling. I wanted to be connected” (16).

I’ve noticed the same thing happening to me for the past few years. Unless I’m really in a groove, I can’t seem to work for more than twenty minutes without getting the urge to check my email, glance at a blog, or get caught up on Twitter. It’s a terrible feeling. In a postscript to The Shallows, Carr explains that after his book came out he heard from dozens of people (usually by email) who wanted to share their own stories of how the Web had “scattered their attention, parched their memory, or turned them into compulsive nibblers of info-snacks.” One college senior sent Carr a long note describing how he had struggled “with a moderate to major form of Internet addiction” since the third grade. “I am unable to focus on anything in a deep or detailed manner” the student wrote. “The only thing my mind can do, indeed the only thing it wants to do, is plug back into that distracted frenzied blitz of online information.” He confessed this, even thought he was sure that “the happiest and most fulfilled times of my life have all involved a prolonged separation from the Internet” (226). Many of us are simply overcome—hour after hour, day after day—by the urge to connect online. And as Christians we know that “whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved” (2 Peter 2:19).

Read Part 2 here.

Read more from Kevin here.

Tags: Attention, Brand, Kevin DeYoung, Social Media

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How to Create a Content Calendar and Engage More People in Your Church

by: Tim Peters

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One of the best ways to connect with your church throughout the week is with social media.  Statistically, over half of your congregation will spend some portion of their week actively engaged on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.

But connecting with your audience through social media requires consistent and compelling content.  And not just any content. Your content must be emotional, intelligent, shareable and intentional.  But developing content that is both creative and inspiring takes dedicated time and resources, as well as a considerable amount of effort on your part.

The best way to create emotional and inspiring content is by developing a Publishing Schedule. Developing a publishing schedule helps you plan, produce and publish compelling content that clearly articulates the vision of your church.

Without one, your content quickly becomes redundant, outdated, and unnecessary, and you end up with content no one cares about.

In my research, I found a formula created by Russell Sparkman of Fusionspark Media, used to develop a publishing schedule. The formula is 1-7-30-4-2-1.

I am adapting the formula to 1-7-30 for the sake of simplicity.

Here is a breakdown of the formula:

1 = Daily, 7 = Weekly, 30 = Monthly

This formula determines what content you will publish daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. Keep in mind that whatever content you publish must reinforce and advance a Big Idea or theme.

1 = Daily 

• Twitter Tweets (3-5 Times)
• Facebook Updates (2-4 Times)
• Respond to Twitter, Facebook and Blog Comments

7 = Weekly

• Blog Posts (2-3 Times)
• Short Video (1 Time)
• Update and Edit Website Pages (1 Time)

30 = Monthly

• ENewsletter
• Video Interview
• EBook

This formula might appear overwhelming at first glance.  Maybe you’re thinking, “There’s no way I can accomplish all of this!”  But start where you are, keeping in mind your resources and your target audience.

Content Ideas –

• Devotional eBook Series – Write, design and send eBooks on spiritual subject matter or a book of the Bible
• Short Videos – Interview staff members on why they love their role or brief updates from the Senior Pastor
• Blog Posts – Select a theme and write a series of blog posts.  Write posts on event highlights, life-change stories, sermon notes, book recommendations, devotionals, etc.
• eNewsletter – Switch up layout and flow of eNewsletter and give the reader value with free downloads, resources, etc.

Remember, your key messages are too important not to communicate them consistently, concisely, and with incredible clarity.  Social media is a valuable tool for communicating the mission and vision of your church.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Brand, Social Media, Tim Peters

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Leveraging Social Media for Your Next Church Event

by: Rich Birch

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As our people use social media all the time it’s becoming a growing expectation that as a church we leverage these tools to help them experience what we do. How can you use these tools within your ministry?

I sat down with Ali Raney who is the Social Media Coordinator at The Meeting House to talk about how they leveraged these channels at a recent event.  Ali is thoughtful leader, talented musician and gift to the church on all things social media.  You should follow her on twitter: @aliraneymusic.

On October 20th 2012, The Meeting House hosted a large event (part worship service / part tailgate party / part epic dance party) for all 13 sites at a local hockey arena (how Canadian!) called One Roof. The purpose of the event was to bring the entire family together under (you got it!) one roof and to kick off the church’s new mission, Transform.

RB: How did you leverage social media to help promote your event before the big day?

AR: We are a large multi-site community of around 6,000 people and we hoped to pack the place out! So two months before October 20th, we made the big announcement on a Sunday morning and immediately followed that up with an e-news blast and a “save the date” on our Twitter feed and all of our Facebook pages. We also introduced a hashtag for the event (#OneRoof) and I made sure to use it every time I posted anything about the event on Twitter (and we asked staff to do the same). A month before the event, we began putting One Roof promo into heavy rotation on all of our communication channels. At least once or twice a week we featured a short, engaging
video on Facebook and Twitter, and/or a photo from last year’s event reminding people to mark it in their calendars. In the last three weeks before One Roof, we did a Facebook cover photo campaign in which we changed the cover photo on each of our 14 pages weekly to feature a picture from last year’s event accompanied with helpful – why, where, who, what, how – details.

RB: Describe how you interacted with your community on the day of the event.

AR: The night before One Roof I scheduled an hourly countdown in HootSuite. I made sure each tweet had momentum by building in excitement, photos, practical reminders and our #OneRoof hashtag. I was sure to follow the hashtag and retweet almost everything that came in from followers. As we got closer to the event, people started to tweet more and more and I was RT’ing about 7 or 8 tweets every 5 – 10 minutes. As soon as doors opened for the event, we began a live-tweeting party! As the 5,000 seat arena was filling up, I had a long list of (pre-planned) fun, serious and meaningful community- building questions scrolling on the big screens. We would tweet a question and then RT our followers’ answers. Our community went crazy for it, and it created an awesome vibe as people waited anxiously in their seats for One Roof to commence!

Later on in the evening we had an epic dance party, deejayed by none other than our Teaching Pastor/ DJ Bruxy. We set the stage throughout the day on Twitter by asking the Instagrammers in our community to start posting photos of their One Roof experience, using the #OneRoof hashtag. We then used all of their photos in a scrolling slideshow throughout the dance party! This was an awesome social media feature, because as people were dancing, they saw photos up on the big screen and wanted to see themselves and their friends up there too. It was an easy way to get people to
interact with us!

RB: What tools did you use to manage your day?

AR: HootSuite for posting and scheduling Tweets, ProPresenter 5’s Twitter app for fielding and posting tweets on the big screen, Facebook, Instagram and Hashtagram.com – the fun web platform that allowed us to automatically create a big screen slideshow of people’s personal photos from the day, using the #OneRoof hashtag in Instagram.

RB: What did you do that you would repeat in the future at an event like this?

AR: I would definitely do a live-tweeting session again. It created such a cool, community vibe as we waited for the service to start. It helped to build momentum because it was an active, living, breathing thing that people could immediately participate in, and receive immediate gratification in seeing their Twitter handle and photo up on the screens in the arena. It definitely encouraged others to join in the party (and we got 60 new Twitter followers, 72 new Facebook fans and 53 new Instagram followers throughout the day because of it)! I would also do the Facebook cover photo campaign and the day-of countdown again as well as the Instagram slideshow – another great reason to create an event specific Hashtag.

RB: Was there anything you did that you wouldn’t repeat?

AR:I would investigate other Instagram sharing platforms as Hashtagram has limited functionality. You have no control over which photos are put up and in our context, although that wasn’t really a huge concern, it would have been nice to deselect any photos that were in the rotation for too long. I’m not sure if it was a site traffic thing, or something in Hashtagram’s functionality, but it seemed like many people’s photos were never shown (although they followed the instructions correctly) and so we had an issue with the same photos recycling over and over, which got a little stale. It corrected itself a few times over the course of the two hours that we were rolling, but it was disappointing that so many great photos didn’t get any air time on the big screens.

RB: Anything else you want to let our readers know?

AR: I think that social media within the church is one of the most underused methods of evangelism and community building. It (of course) will never (and shouldn’t) replace real time face-to-face relationships, but why not do both well? I’m excited to see where we go from here and I look forward to connecting with other churches and organizations on how best to share the message of Jesus through the use of great social media strategy and application. I would love to connect directly via email with anyone who might be interested in chatting.

Read more from Rich here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Rich Birch, Social Media

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The 2 Secrets to Success for Social Media in Your Church

by: Tim Kastelle

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It’s getting hard to keep up with all the different social tools that are flying at us every day.  We constantly hear things like:

“If you’re not on Pinterest you’re in big trouble.”

or

“Blogging is dead.”

It seems like people are putting a lot of effort into trying to figure out which tools they should use, and how they should use them.  What’s the best way to deal with all of this us? I’ve been repeatedly hit in the face with the answer to this recently from my network, which teaches me a lot.

So here is the secret to social success:

Connect with people.

Simple, isn’t it.  It doesn’t matter what tools you use – and if you spend too much time worrying about tools, you’ll forget to use them to do the one thing that matters – connecting.
Connecting Ideas is the Fundamental Creative Act in Innovation.  You have to connect ideas to ideas to innovate, and you have to connect people to your ideas to get them to spread.  It’s all about connection.

Earlier, I told you about the best social media strategy of all time:

Do awesome work.

That takes care of the connecting ideas to ideas part.  Then, to get them to spread, you need to connect the ideas to people.  And that means that you have to connect with people – that is the core purpose of all of these social tools.

Connections create value – that is the core message of Nilofer Merchant in her book 11 Rules for Creating Value in the #SocialEra. Here is one of my favourite quotes from the book:

We want innovation, but without experiencing failure. We want to embrace the new, but without risk. We want to act fast and fluid, but to maintain tight controls. We want to empower everyone, but retain decision rights for ourselves. We want to experiment, but we also want predictability. We want to be flexible to customer input, but remain ruthlessly efficient. We want to adapt, but we fear the death of familiarity.

This is why it’s hard to go from being an 800-pound gorilla to a herd of nimble gazelles; an organization goes from being a centralized institution that competes through overpowering strength and scale to a set of relationships or interrelationships. Gazelles thrive and win by how they share power with one another. And, as a result, they can act fast, fluid, and flexible. For organizations, this is key to winning in the marketplace.

As organisations, we win through connections. The same is true for people.

Here is Shane Mac from his book Stop With the BS:

All these apps, gadgets, buildings—everything for that matter—they don’t make me smile and think about how much I love what I do. The people I know do. It is the people and my relationships with them that really matter. Done. Simple as that. All we have in life are relationships, so we better start spending more time building new ones and rebuilding old ones. Build bridges, Re-build bridges, never Burn Bridges.

It’s the relationships that matter. Hugh MacLeod nails it in his latest book Freedom is Blogging in Your Underwear:

…all the internet is, as Doc Searls said, is a bunch of protocols that “allow us to get along.” Protocols allow us to talk to each other. The stuff in the middle, the stuff that separates us, the stuff that directly makes use of these protocols – hosting companies, web sites, blogging platforms, microblogging platforms, etc. – matter far less.

You’re on one end of the wire. Just think about who’s on the other end of the wire, and what you can do for them. Worry less about the wire. Worry less about the shiny objects in the middle.

Just worry about MAKING your own stuff, and the rest of the internet will look after itself.

So there is your two-step guide to social success.

Do awesome work.

and

Connect with people.

The problem is that while these steps might sound simple, they’re not.  They take a lot of effort.  That’s what makes the shiny new objects so seductive – they look like shortcuts.

Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts.  That’s why it’s still remarkable when you do awesome work and connect with people.

I know that I still have a long way to go myself.  But now that we’ve connected, maybe we can do some of this awesome work together.

Tags: Awareness, Intentionality, Social Media, Tim Kastelle

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How Will Social Media Reshape the Way We Do Church?

by: Phil Petty

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With the increasing use of GPS enabled smart phones and apps like foursquare, social media is attempting to mimic omniscience.  We find ourselves in a world where our technology has enabled more meaningful interactions with someone on the other side of the world rather than our next door neighbour.

Whether we like it or not social media will influence the way we do Church both positively and negatively and it is important that as a church, we anticipate and adapt to these changes appropriately.

Now that social media is here to stay, those that see church as primarily their social network may now find that they don’t need church quite so much.  Alternatively social media may have little effect on those who experience Church as both spiritual and social.

In the consumer generation, commitment is being eroded and content is fast becoming king.  People increasingly are being guided by customer reviews and have the ability to make more choices about the way they live their lives.  Is this same consumer mentality being applied to the way we do Church?

Is Church becoming more fluid, with people doing church when it suits them rather than fitting in with existing structure?  Could this fluidity cause churches to experience more churn, as people pick and choose when and which meetings they attend?  I already know people who are using social media to decide which church meeting to attend?  If their favourite speaker or worship leader is not part of the service that day, they may decide to go elsewhere.

In the consumer generation Hebrews 10:24 is interpreted more loosely and in response, the church needs to endorse the concept of being called to a particular church family (James 4:15) rather than allowing people to treat church as a consumer experience.

There was a time when the local Church was able to guard our minds from false doctrine and filter the information that we were subjected to; however that is increasingly no longer the case.  We have never before had so much information at our fingertips through social sites, blogs, and on-line magazines.  These days due to the web’s low barrier to entry, regardless of their credentials, anyone can publish their ideas.

On a more positive note, is the rise of the ‘social Influencer’ good news for the Church?

It will become increasingly important for Church leadership teams to encourage and mentor their social network entrepreneurs, their influencers and bloggers, and content aggregators.  If one of your church members writes a popular blog they are already influencing people on a global scale.

The boundaries between ‘virtual ‘and ‘real in the flesh’ communication will become increasingly blurred as mobile technology and social applications like facebook, twitter and foursquare draw people into more face to face meetings. Will this mean that micro church will happen more spontaneously in the park or culminate as prayers in the coffee house, as technology draws people together through their network of friends?

Social networking will aid in church growth as our influencers use technology in creative ways to convey the gospel message and connect people into family groups.

Good content will become increasingly important.

As the consumer is overloaded with information it is becoming increasingly important for their favourite content to be aggregated into one place.  We can already see this happening more and more with sites like Mashable, Pinterest and Delicious becoming more popular.  Google no longer just use page rankings to bring you the most relevant content but they now also take into account social influence and relevance.  This means that Christian influencers who are able to gather good quality content into their sites will become increasingly popular and influential.

These days it seems like internet gorillas like Google, Facebook and Twitter know you more than you know yourself.  Chad Hurley, CEO of Delicious and co-founder of YouTube recently said “As people’s networks and interactions expand, massive data sets will generate predictive models that will know what you want before you look for it.”

Could the prophetic in us, intuitively predict what is about to capture the public’s attention and help inspire good quality content which will re-direct people towards the Gospel?

For the more philosophical, social media could mean more cross-pollination and unity between church groups aspeople attend events organised by other Christians that they discover and connect with on-line. Church leaders could increasingly find themselves communicating and coordinating with their counterparts in other denominations.

Great news for the Christian artist as digital art will become more important. Due to short cybertized attention spans, good quality imagery is needed to capture the attention of the cyber channel clickers.

As one of my friends put it, ‘Social media means church beyond Sunday, and church beyond four walls.  Churches should be encouraging a continuing sense of purpose and mission through the embracing of social media.’

In evangelical circles during the last couple of years I have noticed an impetus to empower and mobilize grass roots leaders and influencers. In my denomination they have called this initiative ‘Radical Disciples’.

Combined with the power of social media, never before has the ‘Radical Disciple’ had so much opportunity to influence so many.

Tags: Attention, Phil Petty, Social Media

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