“Do you have some suggestions for HOW to foster two-way communication through a website? Or how Facebook/Twitter factor into that?”

Rather than answer this excellent question as a comment reply, I figured it warranted a post of its own!

Integrate Media

Today, web sites, if they are “good” are far more than online brochures.  Yes, your site provides basic information for first-time visitors but it needs to go deeper.  Your church has a golden opportunity to connect, engage, and minister to people:

• when they are ready to engage
• where they can “replay” what they need to learn
• in a dialogue that is respectful and encourages them to grow

How can you do this?  It is not simple but the opportunities are there if you are willing to implement them.  So what kinds of media am I talking about?

Online Video

Services like YouTube, Vimeo, and Blip.tv allow you free broadcast of video that can be integrated into your site.  Yes, this requires you video taping your service or creating some other video teaching piece.  It takes work – but it is very affordable.  Essentially the cost of a video camera and your time.  The more editing you do, the more time.  The impact however is undeniable.  This resource will also allow people to leave comments, ask questions, and create online conversation on the topic if your site is built using a CMS (Content Management System).

Audio

Like video, you could create podcasts which are replicas of your Sunday service or a more content specific podcast that specifically is oriented around web-teaching.  Again, the ability to generate conversation around this is powerful.  The beauty of audio over video is that with today’s mobile devices like iPods, your content goes where people go and they listen when they are ready.

Blogs

Integrating a blog into your site is an excellent way to share teaching, life applications, and the pastor’s personal thoughts.  The pastor (if the one writing the blog) has a venue to become more transparent and “real”.  Their personality comes out more than it often does behind the pulpit.  The cost is time.  The benefit is online conversation and the potential to engage the church community beyond the Sunday service – several times a week.

Social Media

The most common social media to integrate into a church website today are Facebook and Twitter.  These may become more extensions of the site than actual active components within the church website.  They are real-time life relational elements.  A church gets to see the lives of their people outside the church.  Pictures, comments, thoughts, and emotions.  People share a lot about themselves through these tools.  You get to listen and engage at the same time.  By developing a Facebook site for your church gives people a common place to connect and share their pictures of church events and add commentary on any topic that resonates with them.  There are a ton of additional social media tools emerging.  The opportunities will continue to grow.

The Challenge

In closing, though all these tools are great ways to foster two-way communication, there is one challenge to all of them.  They need an “owner”.  People in your church have to drive this stuff.  A Facebook site without someone to drive, monitor, and encourage the content will die a painful death.   A blog that only has one post a month becomes quickly stale.  Your church needs to build and maintain momentum with these tools and the only way that happens is if someone with passion for the conversation is willing to “own” it.

So, those are my thoughts.  What are yours?  Share some of your experiences (good and bad) in using these tools.  If you haven’t tried any of these things…what are your hesitations?

A friend sent me this video last week.  When researching for this post, I discovered that sadly, Ben died from cancer in January of this year at the age of 16.  He made the most of his situation.  He loved life.  Most importantly, he had a relationship with Jesus – which made all the difference in his life on this earth.  I look forward to meeting Ben in heaven.  Thanks for encouraging us Ben…you are an inspiration!

Where are the real relationships?  Are there people online in your relationships who you would go out of the way for or that would go out of their way for you?

Personally, I have made some incredible connections with people online that I have never met physically or talked to by phone or Skype.  Yet, they have done things for me.  I have done things for them.  The key to successful social networking for business or for your ministry is to make sure you invest in the relationships you have.  Having thousands of followers means nothing if you don’t invest in them.

What has been your experience with your social networking?

• The printed book
• The printed periodical (newspaper/magazines)
• Radio
• Television
• The Internet

As these has been introduced, the newer medium has not replaced to older one(s).  So, for example, the TV did not replace the radio, nor did it eliminate it.  It just added another layer of communication by which organizations could reach out to a lot of people at one time.

For your ministry, your web site gives you a tool that transforms how you communicate.  The sheer cost for your church to write a book, take out an ad in a newspaper, on radio, or on TV is prohibitive.  Most churches in North America have fewer than 200 people.  These churches do not have budgets that can even consider using any of these mediums.

Your church web site on the other hand has a cost but a much smaller one with a much broader scope and reach than any of these other mediums.  As I have said before, it is important to invest in your church web site.  The payoff is the opportunity to each those inside and outside your church community.  Best of all, you reach them on their terms and time, not by being invasive and interrupting their lives when they are not ready for the interruption.  A well developed site and communication strategy enables you to speak through the site, make the interaction engaging through the use of audio, video, stories, and sharing your organizational “life” with those who want to listen.  Also, unlike the other channels, your web site if developed correctly allows you to have two-way conversation.  You are not just yelling out your message…you speak and your community can speak back…forming a dialogue around subjects that are filled with compassion and hope.

Please, take you church web site seriously.  You must be a good steward of your resources and leverage this communication medium so you can communicate effectively and with excellence – to spread the greatest message on the planet.

Image courtesy Flickr: Naku

There are many free RSS Readers available to you.  My reader of choice is Google Reader.  If you are not familiar with how to implement Google Reader, please read my post called 8 Simple Steps To Google Reader.

Today, John Saddington at ChurchCrunch wrote a blog post titled 5 RSS Tips That Helped Me Stay Afloat.  John’s tips will indeed help you manage the information flow of the web more effectively.

With regard to his 3rd point about “Organizing Your Feeds” – it is important to regularly assess which blogs add the most value to your life.  Because it is so easy to subscribe with RSS, it is easy to get your feed reader overflowing with information.  You need to determine which blogs truly are RSS Worthy so you don’t become cluttered and overwhelmed.

This also ties to John’s 4th point about “Limiting Yourself“.  Yes, you should but you should always give new blogs you discover a chance.  Every week you will discover new blogs that on the surface seem interesting.  I often will trial subscribe to these.  I give them a chance for a two week period or so.  After a fair shot like this I determine if the writer is indeed contributing to my learning and if so I keep them.  If they are not, then I deem them not RSS Worthy and I unsubscribe.

Always be open to reviewing and organizing your subscriptions to maintain the efficiency of the the information flow.

What has your experience been with RSS?  If you use it, what reader do you prefer?

Today, my friends Randy and Donny Vaughn, The Marketing Twins, released their first (I believe) free e-book titled Join the Conversation! The Benefits of Social Media.  It is a short 14-page, nicely illustrated, PDF e-Book that will help ministry leaders obtain valuable insights on how leveraging free social media tools will positively enhance their church communication.

When explaining their seventh reason to use social media, Knowledge Is Your Bridge, they state:

“Shepherds who encounter their flock in a crowed church foyer will get the typical lame Sunday morning line: “I’m fine.” But when you are connected to their world during the week, you have access to know things about their lives that they are freely sharing with other people. They talk about their sick kids, their spouse’s job loss, their mother’s sudden news about cancer. You are connecting with them on a 24/7 basis rather than simply once-a-week. This is knowledge that allows you to minister to your people better or simply connect with their world on a regular basis. Would you like to be more connected to your people or less?“

I have read it and I endorse it.  Take this opportunity to download the e-book.  Tell your leadership team, your pastors, elders, and those in other churches.  This little e-book will help start the conversation within your church of what you can do to implement social media communication tools that will broaden the impact of your ministry.  When churches begin the social media journey they grow, become more relevant, and have greater impact inside and outside the walls of their building.  Start building deeper community in your church today!

Download the free e-book Join the Conversation! The Benefits of Social Media here.

Marketing is a journey…

Not a quick fix.

Marketing is tied into everything your organization does every day.  It is how you represent yourself in everything you do.  Marketing is about the impressions you make – the first impressions and the on-going ones.  Marketing is all about the relationships you develop.

Marketing Is:

• how you answer the phone
• what your web site looks like and how easy it is to navigate
  
• what the sign looks like on your building
• how you keep the landscaping around your building
• how clean your customer bathrooms are
• how you determine and meet your customer’s real needs
• how you deal with problems that arise when your customer interacts with your products
• how you dress
• what your business card looks
• the impression your customer has when thy pull in the parking lot…and then walk in the door
  

I could go on and on.  Marketing in my opinion, is connected to everything you do.  Think about that. Everything you do when interacting with a customer whether you provide a product or a service is marketing.  It is everything they experience when connecting in any way shape or form with you and your organization.

The Marketing Journey

So, marketing is not just a one off advertising campaign.  It is not just an e-mail you send.  It is not just a flier you create.  Marketing starts when your organization opens the doors and goes on every day in everything you do.

So, that should make all of us reflect on the organizations we are connected with and be determined to do everything with our highest level of excellence (not perfection).  Just keep in mind the impressions you make with your customers at every contact point they have with your organization. The better the customer experience, the better the chance of earning the relationship – not just once but in an on-going capacity.

What do you think – is marketing wrapped up in everything you or your organization does? How are you doing on your marketing journey?

A blog is low cost in dollars but high-cost in time investment.  The time and creativity angle is the biggest challenge for most small business owners or ministries.  However, the value-add for your organization is massive.

The Marketing Value of a Blog:

• establishes your credibility and industry expertise
• gives your web site credibility with Google so you rank higher in search engines (good SEO)
  
• keeps your web site fresh with valuable content for your target market
• builds trust with your customers
• gives you a voice and makes your organization more personal
• provides a conversation mechanism with your customers – a way to dialogue with them

I started blogging almost two years ago.  It started as an experiment…a marketing experiment.  All the cutting edge marketing theory was that a blog was an excellent new marketing tool for organizations.  So, I started blogging to test the theory.

My Conclusion:

It works.  I have seen all the above value points play out for myself and for other small businesses over the past two years.   Blogging on one level is hard because you have to maintain momentum.

For me personally, most of the time, I don’t find it hard to find something to write about each day.  The landscape of marketing is changing all the time with new technologies, new social media, new perspectives that can help small business owners and ministry leaders.  I have found that the more I write the more I want to write.  Interestingly, I don’t really consider myself a writer…but I have now written over 330 blog posts.

Sadly however, I have seen many blogs started and many of those fade out.  My Google Reader is littered with blogs that I was subscribed to but who’s owners have not written a post in months.  Marketing is a journey – not a quick fix. It is an investment.  A blog is part of that investment, one that is very worth starting and sticking with.

If you have a small business and you don’t have a blog – I challenge you to consider starting one – experiment with it.  If you have one but you are not writing consistently – I challenge you to pick up your socks and invest in your blog, your business, your customers, and your online reputation.  There are few other marketing things that you could do that in the grand scheme of it all cost so little but yield such great marketing impact.

What has your experience been with writing a blog?  If you haven’t why not?

• realizing and accepting the gift that Jesus gave to me
• a wife that is my best friend and encourages me to be who I am
• a family (parents, brother, and sister) who I have been blessed to journey through life with
• awesome nieces and nephews
• friends that rock
• a church community (LifeBridge) that cares for each other and is passionate to reach out to our community
• my health – physical, spiritual, emotional, mental
• opportunity and wisdom to move towards change
• my home, Nova Scotia, and Canada!
• how marketing and technology are converging
• this blog and the community that is growing around it.  I am learning so much through this!

I am also thankful for this view!  This is what you would see looking out my sun-room window.  Awesome!

So, what are you thankful for?