Changing the World when you Log-on

This month I had the great opportunity to write an article for Gospel Today Magazine about online significance and changing the world digitally. Here is that article, enjoy.

Over the course of time we have seen numerous advancements in technology that have enabled individuals to communicate faster and access information faster. The printing press, telegraph, telephone, radio and television are a few examples, but nothing transformed the world as quickly as the internet, the internet gave individuals the power to communicate with the world from their computers.

Then, just as we were getting comfortable with the internet and how we “thought” we should use it, social media transformed the way we used the internet and gave us even larger platforms and more power to communicate with the world, all from our internet connected devices.Now we all know, with great power comes great responsibility, and social media is no exception.

As we continue to build our online presence we have to realize that through our words, ideas and interaction, we are impacting people, whether we see the results or not. Everytime we say something publicly on a social network, it’s a global message, we just don’t realize it till someone across the globe responds.

What ways can you make an impact online

Build a community FIRST!
There a numerous social networks that you can join, connect with others, and convey your message to, but your initial focus should be to build a community. Start with Facebook and connect with old friends, classmates, coworkers and family. Use Twitter and Google+ to find like minded individuals, celebrities, influencers and groups of people that share your interest. Use LinkedIn to connect with business professionals that can help further your cause and grow your network. Join Youtube to help distribute your video content and find other video creators that share your sentiment. This may sound like a lot of work but each network you join has a distinct audience and your videos, photos, updates and links will help grow your online presence and build a strong community around you.

Help others with their online movement.
There are numerous online communities that are built around helping others and you can use your social network of influence to help as well. A great network that’s helping others is called Hopemob and it shows how we can use our online social networks to help others and change their lives.

Hopemob.org (@Hope) and its founder Shaun King (@shaunking) have built the largest community of generous strangers the world has ever seen. What I love about Hopemob is that they feature real stories that I believe I can impact and make a change. The goals of Hopemob are not always financial either, sometimes they are virtual, such as helping a family to get a video out and make it go viral.

Start your own online movement.
You can start your own online network with a website called Socialgo.com. With this online software you can build your own online community where your ideas and insights can be the rallying cry for your network. So as you build up your online audience on major social networks like Facebook and Twitter, you can inform your audience that you have an online network on Socialgo.com and they can join you there to further progress the message that you are trying to convey to the world and help you make a change.

http://ichurchmethod.com/changing-the-world-online/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=changing-the-world-online

5 Steps to develop a Social Media plan for your Church

Just as Churches we were getting comfortable with the internet and how they “thought” we should use it, social media transformed the internet and gave the church even larger platforms and more power to communicate the gospel with the world. We can now reach the corners of the globe from our internet connected devices. Now we all know, with great power comes great responsibility, and social media is no exception.

Social Media is one of the best ways to reach and help people learn the gospel. With Social Media you can reach people right where they are at, on their social network of choice and let the life-giving information flow from your ministry to their social profile. In my book The iChurch Method, I say “the church should strive to meet people wherever they are at, on whatever network they are on, via any device that they pick up”, this is the opportunity that social networks give us.

Now that we understand the importance of social networking and the great moment the church has right now, let’s talk about the five steps to take advantage of this opportunity.

1. Who will manage the tasks: The first step in developing a social media strategy is to establish who will be the social media manager. Who will be the person that champions the social media networks, gathers the information from the rest of the ministry and actually distributes the information to the social networks. This person needs to have a good understanding of social networks and the benefits of one network over another.

2. Who is your audience: The next step is determining who is your audience for your social media strategy. Start to segment your audience into categories so that you can gather church content geared towards a specific audience. For example, if you are targeting non-church members then you will tailor a social media post differently than if you are targeting church members. Most churches say they are focusing on members and non-members but their messages are always catered to members only, wasting a great opportunity to reach millions of other social networkers that may not attend their church.

3. What’s Your Message: Next, establish the voice of your church. What will be the message that you will convey to people via social media and how will you convey it. Will your church speak on societal and current issues? Will your church quote scriptures and quotes on every network? Will your church push out announcements and never respond to people? Make sure your church isn’t one dimensional, there are many types of people that you can reach therefore you distribute many types of social media posts. Here are three focal points in establishing your church’s message via social media:

• Inspiration – Make sure to provide inspiration and motivation via your social networks. These are the best types of posts, whether they are quotes, scriptures or photos with encouraging words on them, everyone wants some type of inspiration in their life.
• Information – Provide information about your church via your social networks, don’t assume that everyone comes to church, reads your website or saw your eblast. Distribute the information about events and other happenings within the church via your social networks. You can repurpose flyers, newsletters, eblasts and other marketing materials and send them out via social networks.
• Communication – Social media is “Social”, therefore it should be two way communication. If you post to a network and people comment, ask questions and take time out of their busy day to respond, then make sure your church takes time to acknowledge them and respond back. Don’t let your church appear to arrogant to respond to its social network fans. Even if you don’t have the staff or time to answer every comment or question, at least answer some. Show that the ministry is seeing people’s comments and questions.

4. What social networks do you want to use: There are numerous social networks out there and each one has its own audience. Your church needs to establish which social network(s) they are going to start with, master how to use and then progress to other ones. For example, many churches start with Twitter, learn how to interact and send out content via Twitter and then they progress to Facebook. Here are the top social networks, their benefits and what types of content can be distributed via them.

• Facebook – This is the largest network in the world with over 900 million members. Facebook is the gold standard in social media and has literally defined how we use social media. Facebook fan pages have status updates that can be text or links to other websites. You can also posts photos and videos on facebook and create fan pages that can have millions of fans. (Google+ is similar as well)
• Twitter – Twitter is the “convenient” social network because its posts (tweets) are limited to 140 characters. This gives churches, pastors and people on the go an easy way to communicate, share photos, links to websites, videos and variety of other information. The benefits of Twitter are that its an easy network to learn and reach people quickly using short message and photos.
• Youtube - The #1 video network in the world is often overlooked as a social network. With a focus on only videos, Youtube has built a community where people can comment, share and build a following around multimedia video content. This allows churches to post inspirational sermons and gospel messages that can visually appeal to people and reach them on their computers or mobile devices.
• Pinterest – Pinterest is the new kid on the block with its focus on photos and the sharing (pinning) of them in a poster board format. With this network churches can create inspirational photos that can be posted to boards that are based around certain themes that people can search for. For example, if your church creates a board on Prayer, then they can post photos of people praying at your church and let other pinners repin those photos. You can also post links to videos on Pinterest, which is a largely unknown feature, thus you in addition to prayer photos, you can post actual video prayers on your board to help people get through difficult times in their lives. Now that’s living the gospel!! (Instagram is similar to Pinterest but is mainly on mobile devices only)

5. When to post: Lastly, how often to post is a question that many churches face. How much is too much? Can we post 5 times a day? Should we post items twice in case people didn’t see it the first time? These are questions that many churches ask when they start using social networks. Here are some posting tips to keep in mind:

Facebook – Post at least 1 – 3 times a day
Twitter – Post at least 4 – 6 times a day
Youtube – Post at least 1 video per week
Pinterest – Post at least 1 photo per week
Instagram – Post at least 1 photo per week
Google+ – Post at least 1 – 3 times a day

http://ichurchmethod.com/5-steps-to-develop-a-social-media-plan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=5-steps-to-develop-a-social-media-plan

How Churches can use Social Media – Google+ Hangout – The iChurch Method

Thursday, Sept 20, 2012, The iChurch Method conducted a Google Hangout on Air about Social Media usage in the Church. We recorded the video and here are some of the highlights.

Danielle Willis of New Beginnings Church of Chicago/ Project H.O.O.D.
- Have an organic social media conversation
- Adding online forms to Facebook using frames
- How to find a platform and master it
- Intensify Conference Oct 17 – 19

E.C. Cunningham of Salem Baptist Church of Chicago
- Integrating Facebook and Twitter into your service
- Helping your Pastor buy into Social Media
- Finding the social media savvy person in your congregation that will help you get started.

Jason Caston, Author of The iChurch Method and Internet Church Developer at T.D. Jakes Ministries
- Social Media Strategy of Inspiration, Information and Communication
- The rise of the Visual Social Media Networks
- Integrating Social Media and letting people share your church website.

http://ichurchmethod.com/how-churches-can-use-social-media/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-churches-can-use-social-media

Google Reader

After high school, the average person reads about 1 book per year, educated people read between 4 – 8 books per year and experts read around a book per month. Now I used to read a book every two months but now I have changed up my approach since the information I need has to be more current and readily available. Now I read blogs and ebooks, usually an ebook every month or two and I read blogs daily. Google Reader is how I am able to keep up with so much information and changing trends in technology. Ranging from online business to technology to digital ministry and everything in between, Google Reader is how I keep up and read any and everything.

Google Reader is an online software that takes RSS Feeds and lets you categorize them for reading. These RSS feeds come from websites and blogs that distribute them for people to subscribe to and receive notifications when they update their sites or post new content. Therefore, when I subscribe to a site like Techcrunch.com, every time they post a new article, my Google Reader is updated and I am able to read it immediately. Everyday, I receive around 1000 or so blog updates and I take an hour or two to read through many of them and stay current on all the latest and greatest in technology, digital ministry and online business.

Here is a screenshot of my Google Reader.

To setup your Google Reader go to Google.com/reader and login with you gmail account. If you don’t have a gmail account then create one.

Once it’s setup, you can add blogs or news readers to your site by clicking the “Add Subscription” button on the left-hand side of the screen. This will open a dialog box where you can input either search terms or the actual web address of sites you want to include in your RSS reader. Or you can click on the RSS icon on a website and if you are logged into your Google Reader, it will automatically be added.

Enjoy and stay educated and updated via Google Reader.

http://ichurchmethod.com/google-reader/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-reader

Introducing The iChurch Method Live

I have been testing and utilizing Google Hangouts on Air over the last few months and I believe the product is a game changer. I am always looking for new ways to use the service and I realized that with a macbook, HD webcam and a built-in mic, you can live stream any event. Well for the numerous events that I speak or teach at, I always have my macbook with me since I am training from it, and then the lightbulb moment occurred…I could stream all of my events live. And with that, The iChurch Method Live was born.

I have been teaching The iChurch Method classes (Phase 1) at The Potter’s Institute, a training division of The Potter’s House of Dallas, where I work as an Internet Church Developer. Last week I conducted a test where I used Google Hangouts on Air to stream my class live and record it. I wanted to make sure that it would work and that the audio would be good on my laptop. Well after conducting a test last week via a hidden link, I saw that the audio was video was good to go. So starting Tuesday September 18, I will broadcast my classes every Tuesday for the next 4 weeks until October 9, 2012. Then we will start another session of The iChurch Method classes, Phase II, from October 30, 2012 – December 11, 2012. Each session is five courses where I will teach from The iChurch Method book.

I will also live stream my speaking/training event, October 19, 2012 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Social Media and various dates of Google Hangouts in between. Tune in to http://www.ichurchmethod.com/live for dates on upcoming events and I look forward to your comments and participation. We are very excited about this new venture.

http://ichurchmethod.com/introducing-the-ichurch-method-live/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=introducing-the-ichurch-method-live

Make sure to use Google Alerts

Google Alerts is by far one of the best google services available. I have been using it for about a year now and believe that all businesses, companies, ministries and churches should use it to monitor their brands. There’s no reason to continue Googling yourself, your business or your ministry, you can now just setup a Google alert and anytime your brand is mentioned online, you will receive an alert/email.

Here’s how it works:

Go go http://www.google.com/alerts
For Search query: Type in the name of your business or church or the phrase that you want to monitor
For Result Type: Choose Everything
For How often: Choose how often you want to be alerted (once a day is good)
For How many: Choose only the best results
Deliver to: Input your email address

Finally, click on the red “Create Alert” button and you will be taken to your alerts page where you can see and manage all your alerts. I currently manage all my brands, my name and my books and find this tool to be extremely useful.

For example, I just found out that a college was using The iChurch Method in their 2013 curriculum. Thanks Google Alerts!!

http://ichurchmethod.com/google-alerts/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-alerts