Where is Social Media going?

Here’s a question that many people are asking, where is social media going in the future?

More Mobile Device Integration – Right now we see social media integrated into many aspects of our lives and that will continue to grow. Facebook Home is a newly released platform that integrates Facebook very deeply into your Android Phone experience, basically putting your social media network front and center on the phone. This makes social media the main focus of the phone instead of the traditional focus of emails, text and phone calls. This advancements shows how deeply integrated social media will look to become since millions of people carry their mobile devices with them. Social media is looking to be the #1 use of your mobile device. Facebook has been the #1 app downloaded on mobile devices for quite some time.

More Website Integration – With Twitter cards now being more accessible via websites and the Facebook graph becoming more utilized, our social networks will play a role in our browsing and online usage. We will consult our social networks’ opinions in our shopping, online decisions and therefore make sure we are logged into our networks so that each website is catered to our likes. Facebook and Google look primed to lead this evolution.

Share as much video as we do photos – Right now it’s not as easy to share and consume videos like we do photos. Social networks and bandwidth restrictions make it much easier to share photos than video. Videos are increasing in consumption but they do not have the volume of creation and distribution that photos and graphics currently have. As technology progresses and networks continue to focus on visual content, video will become just as important as photos.

Social media will continue to integrate into new industries – Education and Health Care are two great examples of industries that are starting to use social features much more. This will continue to increase over time and more industries will see the benefits of having social sharing features more integrated into their online processes.

For more information on this and other Social Media topics, get your copy or How to Get One Million Social Media Fans today.

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How to Manage Your Social Media Networks

The first question that a ministry needs to answer is how many people will participate in the social media strategy of the ministry. My recommendation is that you have two people at the beginning and see how that goes. The reason that I suggest two people is that one person should be in charge of gathering content for the ministry and the other person should be in charge of pushing it out. Of course you can have more people do this because you may want to have people commenting and responding to users on the social networks. But initially, the main focus is gathering content and pushing it out.

How many hours per day? Social media operates 24 hours a day. However, it’s unrealistic to believe that someone will be managing your social media properties for the ministry 24 hours a day. Instead, dedicate 2 – 4 hours daily gathering content, scheduling it for social networks and responding to online users. As time progresses and you get more people involved on behalf of the ministry, you will increase those hours. Hopefully though, your process will be much more streamlined.

Software to help – Hootsuite.com is a free scheduling software that makes social media management much easier. Hootsuite connects with social networks Facebook and Twitter and allows you to schedule updates, add files and coordinate a full social media strategy from one location. The main benefit of Hootsuite is that you can schedule out all your Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter posts for the week (or month) at one time and let the software automatically post items for you. This will keep a continuous stream of content coming from the ministry and allow you to focus on other things such as gathering more content or responding to online users from various social networks. Hootsuite also has great reporting features that can help you identify some key metrics in your social media campaign such as who are your top 10 followers, how many people clicked the link you sent out and how many people are “liking/subscribing to” you weekly on social networks. Add this capability in with the Google Analytics for Social Media features where you can track social media links coming to your website and you can start to see how effective your social media campaigns are on a grand scale.

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.

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Online Church is Effective

Normally I would talk about how to implement an online church or quote stats on how it has impacted churches but today, I just want to do something different. I want to tell a great story.

This past weekend I taught quite a few sessions at the econnect conference and it was one of the greatest experiences I have ever had for a variety of reasons. Here are the reasons:

1. I was able to meet the great people at Group Publishing (including Brian Abbot and Bob D’Ambrosio) and they truly took care of me and Nils Smith.

2. I was able to teach, fellowship and serve with my friend Nils Smith, a great guy and as I always tell him, my long lost brother in digital ministry.

3. I taught, interacted and engaged with a diverse crowd of people that were eager to learn how to utilize online tools more effectively for ministry. This crowd was hungry for knowledge and they were open to everything we were teaching. Even with their past traditions and church informal ways, they looked past all of that and said how can we reach the millions that are online and do church in a new way! And best of all, I cannot say how many times people mentioned to me that they were appreciative of what I taught….that blessed me immensely.

4. This is the most important thing, I heard a story that encouraged and transformed the way I think about what I do. First let me say that I have had moments where I wondered how effective The iChurch Method was and should I change my focus from churches to businesses and teach in that realm. Well after this story I am about to share with you, I will surely let you know that I am on the right path and The iChurch Method will continue well into the future. I was talking with a guy and he mentioned that his wife recently passed due to cancer but prior to passing she spent much of her time bed-ridden. But she managed to worship by watching T.D. Jakes Online and to be more specific, the internet church page that I played a role in creating. His wife also used Social Media to form a facebook group for women with cancer and they communicated and shared what they thought heaven would be like. And he just wanted to thank me for what I was doing and he was happy that he met the guy who created the page that helped his wife worship prior to her passing. Those words encouraged me so much that I knew I was on the right path.

I feel blessed!!

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