Who is your audience for your social media strategy? – Part 2

In case you missed Part 1 you can read it here

So let’s ask some questions: What’s your ministry’s message? What’s 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 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 should distribute many types of social media posts. Here are three focal points in establishing your church’s message via social media:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. Communication – Social media is “Social” therefore it should be a 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 too 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 their comments and questions.

Notice how I haven’t stated whether to use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other social media network yet. The network that you push content out to your online users is irrelevant if there isn’t a consistent strategy behind it. Ten years ago, everyone was using AOL email to communicate with the masses. Five years ago it was MySpace. Three years ago Facebook and Twitter became popular. Just recently, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram have been introduced to the masses. The networks will come and go but the strategy remains the same: make sure the content from your ministry flows consistently via your online properties to your online users.

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of “The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online.” or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/audience-social-media-strategy-part-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=audience-social-media-strategy-part-2

Who is your audience for your social media strategy? – Part 1

Begin 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.

There are times when we need to speak to church members via social media and update them on local ministries activities and events. Also, there are times when we need to speak to non-church members and offer them information, wisdom, guidance, compassion and a variety of other solutions that the gospel has for those that are not a part of the local body. We even need to offer messages that are tailored for those that are on the fence, looking for a reason to step in as well as a reason to step out. Social Media has the advantage of reaching people right where they are, speaking to them in a way they need to receive and moving them to make necessary changes for the better. This is one of the best ways to take ministry to the people.

Look at the content you currently generate. Social media is an excellent use for repurposed content. Take a careful inventory of your weekly production of content and make a list of how many different items your staff can produce. Content is king. If you have plenty of staff and time to post to social media sites yet have poor or inconsistent content, the effectiveness of the iChurch is greatly diminished.

Another aspect to consider when assessing the ministry’s content for social media is the impact of visual content. With the rise of visual social media (which we will get into later), we see the impact of visual content. Visual content such as photos and videos have a much larger impact on your social media audience. Photos have quickly become the most uploaded and shared form of social media content. 250 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day with an additional 5 million uploaded to Instagram daily. Imagine the impact that your ministry could have by sharing photos of your ministry in action, worship photos from service and images that showcase the impact of your church in your community. Likewise, videos are the most engaging form of multimedia on the Internet. The term “going viral” appeared due to the massive sharing and popularity of certain videos passed around via social media. Here’s a great stat to consider, every minute 72 hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube. Therefore, when developing social media content, video must be included.

Part 2 Coming later this week!!

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of “The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online.” or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/audience-social-media-strategy-part-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=audience-social-media-strategy-part-1

Top 5 Social Media Predictions for this Year

It’s 2014 and I am looking forward to this year in terms of social media and online web technologies. There are so many new advancements that we will see this year and I can’t wait till they are released. But first, I wanted to talk about my top 5 predictions I have for social media this year. Check out the video above and if you don’t have time, here is a quick summary.

1.Diversity Your Networks – There’s more to social media than Facebook and Twitter and this year many organizations will realize that. More specifically, Facebook will make it much more difficult for organizations to use that network as their only social media presence. There are many social networks (in addition to Facebook and Twitter) that are effective for reaching your online audience such as YouTube, Instagram, Vine, Pinterest, Google+ and more.

2. Visual Social Media – Use more photos and videos to tell your story via social media. Photos are the most shared form of multimedia on social networks and video is the most engaging form of multimedia on social networks. Therefore, we need to incorporate more photos and videos to better tell our stories and connect with people via social media.

3. Pay to Play – Facebook Promoted Posts, Twitter Ads and Google Ads will become more important to reach your online audience. You may not have to have a large budget but you will need to consider spending something in order to reach people online more effectively.

4. Mobile – Think Mobile first and then Desktop. Mobile is growing by leaps and bounds and online users are connecting with our web properties (social networks and websites) with mobile first and then desktops. Therefore, we need to make sure our website strategies and social media strategies take into account people on the go using mobile devices.

5. Analyze, Optimize, Repeat – Have a strategy, just don’t Wing it! Use your Google Analytics, your Facebook Insights, your Twitter Stats and other data to develop a strategy and see how effective your social media efforts are. This year we need to work for efficiently, streamline our processes and get measurable results.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/top-5-social-media-predictions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=top-5-social-media-predictions