This blog is usually written for hope, resilience, and living victoriously however, I have written the do's and don'ts for Christians on social media and today I want to write about social media marketing for ministry's. Effectively, social media done right is ultimately resilience, hope, and living victoriously for the Church (ministry) or those who see the posts written by the social media manager.
A question may come to mind why write this post about social media and ministry or why do I need to market it? The first reply is "Why not"? If you take a look around, the world is winning. One reason the world is winning is because they market to anyone and everyone. The church is being drowned out by advertisements everywhere by the world and they offer what the world desires.
On the other hand the church really has what people really yearn for and that is Hope. Yet, for many reasons the church isn't doing what it needs to reach those people. Maybe, some church leaders or administrators feel that they shouldn't "have" to do what the world does. Or maybe, there are those who feel like we should only be associating with our own cliché; the church and it's people.
While in the military I pursued a degree in information technology and an area that I really liked was marketing and social media. I did several consulting "side jobs" to help people with building an audience with their social media. I feel like social media is one of the greatest tools to reach the world with any product especially if it is Hope and Jesus Christ. But, while researching for a current project that I'm working on I discovered that there was very little material on marketing and social media for ministry's.
There are a couple of reasons why there is very little material on the subject. The first is that in the past we marketed our churches and ministries by foot and snail mail (at least that is how we did it when I first became a Christian). It's still effective, but we need to enter the 21st century. The second reason is that marketing and social media is a new game for all organizations in general. In the marketing and IT field we are learning more and more everyday about social media capabilities and marketing with it.
Let me first give a brief background to the internet and social media (I don't think I need to give a history of Christianity). As far as the "internet" is concerned it has been around for many years. One of the first public internet services was offered by CompuServe in 1969. The first email was delivered in 1971. In 1978 one of the first web based "bulletin" boards was created and was actually one of the first "virtual communities". The following year in 1979 Duke University and the University of North Carolina both offered the same type of "bulletin boards" so that faculty and students could interact.
It wasn't until 2002 that the first "social media" site was launched which was Friendstar after the dot.com bubble burst in 2000. The following year in 2003 MySpace was created and launched. MySpace really started the trend in social media for individuals.
In 2004 Facebook was created and launched for Harvard. The following few years other social networking sites was created and launched trying to scrape to the top. However, in 2009 Facebook became the top social media site with the most users.
This year, 2013, social media has seen some of the best activity since the conception of it; with no end in sight for it. YouTube averages about 4 Billion views per day, Facebook has over 1 billion users, and Twitter has over 500 million registered users. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are the top ranking social media sites, but there are countless others out there on the world wide web. Others include Tumblr, Flicker, LinkedIn, Reddit, Google+, Pinterest, and many more.
With those kind of stats wouldn't it be smart to tap into the social media game to reach the world for Christ and let the world know about your church. The whole point for social media really is about having a presence on the web isn't it? Most usually! Everyone that I have talked to and helped with their social media they always say that they want to be noticed on the web. The only way to do that is to either pay lots of money or be patient and be very active on it.
First things first! Yes, the easy part is opening the free account, throw a picture up, and just start typing. But, there should be care into how your social media site looks. That social media site represents you and/or your organization. It should look professional and when there is a new status or tweet added there should be few or NO! grammatical errors. People will make an assumption of the organization that your site represents by the way it looks.
There are several ways to make your social media sites successful. Many organizations will spend a ton of money on social media using the extra tools that help to do analytics and paid advertisements. A few of the tools are Addvocate, Swayy, and Compfight. Most of all the good tools such as the one's mentioned may start out with a free trial period, but usually end up being very expensive. The free tools tend to be very inaccurate and not work very well at all.
The cost for advertisement can also be very high. Advertising will cost more than running an ad in the local paper. Often when you start a new website they will offer social media advertising "bucks". Usually it is a low amount and will not get you past a day or two of advertising.
So, what do you do on a budget or with no money? I have taken new social media sites and made them noticed on search engines within a couple of weeks; this takes time and patience. (At the time of writing this if you Google searched my name, Dale Griggs, my twitter would be the first to come up in the feed). Below I will share the most basic ways of doing that while still maintaining your Christian "status".
*As mentioned above, make your social media sites look professional. Whether you believe it or not eventually those sites will be found on search engines and when people find them they will make a judgment about your organization from the way your sites look. If someone is new in town and they are looking for a new church they will go to the web and search. If the site looks awful more than likely they will find another church to attend. There are a lot of people who travel that look for churches to attend because they are missing their regular home church. APPEARANCE IS EVERYTHING!
*Note: Your ministry and/or church social media sites should display links to other social media sites and especially the website of the ministry or church. The physical location should also be displayed as well.
*After the appearance is up to par you have to gain followers otherwise you DO NOT have an audience (or a presence on the web). You can follow all of the people you want, but when you put up a new status no one will read the good things that you will be putting out there. This is more the case on sites like instagram, twitter, and tumblr. On facebook you need to get people to like your page otherwise no one will read your status's.
When trying to get followers the free way the only way to do it is to follow others. In most cases people will follow back.. that is a huge deal on twitter. The best way is to find like minded people such as others in the ministry and follow some of their followers. The work other than putting status's on your social media comes in by maintaining a good followers and following ratio. It is key to stay within 50-100 followers either more or less. It is wise to un-follow those who do not follow back unless you actually want to follow them. Find those inactive accounts as well and un-follow them.
Note: There are many people including ministers and ministries that will buy followers that are inactive. The only need for buying followers is to boost the followers number because again appearance is everything.
Does it matter who likes or follows your social media site? What if they aren't Christian? On one hand it does if you are partaking in their behavior (check out my Do's and Dont's for Christians on Social Media). On the other hand you are on a social media site and it is true on there as it is in the world; you may be the only Gospel they see or hear.
Should I only follow people locally? It is a social media site so, I say yes and no again. You obviously want local people to follow your social media, but odds are "if" you are wanting to boost your social media efforts you will need to go beyond your local area. If you are a Christian or a ministry your first ambition should be to reach others for Christ. So, if someone a thousand miles away accepts the Gospel because of one of your status's or tweets you may not have helped fill your pews, but you helped the Kingdom.
Not only just those who may happen to accept the Gospel, but if your status's or tweets are good they will get shared or re-tweeted. If someone with 10,000 or more followers share your status chances are someone locally will see it even if they aren't following you. Again, it goes back to travelers that are looking for a church to attend for a Sunday or even for the summer. ALOT of people are on social media (as stated above) and many of those travel and when you have represented the church well they will remember that when looking for an out of town church to attend.
Note: In the ministry there is no such thing as "target" marketing! Everyone is the target whether local or not or believer or not. It should be every Christian's desire to reach everyone with the Gospel!
*Ok. So, the social media site looks good and you're starting to get an audience what's next? Status's and tweets! First you will want to share or tweet status's that represent your church or ministry well. Your status's will also need to share event's that is going on at the ministry or church. Think of it as a bulletin board.
Another good thing to share is links to the ministry website and sermons. This allows people to further discover what the ministry or church is about. Finally share status's that others will enjoy and share on their social media sites (or re-tweet). This help's to gain more of a presence on the web and social media. After all, isn't that what we should be doing.. Making Him Known!
This just skimmed the top and is definitely not all there is to the social media "trade". Hope this will give you a great start. Don't hesitate in contacting me by e-mail at: rogergriggsministry@gmail.com for any assistance and questions.
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