It looks like the case for social media and the church can continue on a bit. . .In this post, I wanted to do two things: A) share some of the actual benefits of social media in a non-profit context. The social web has been hyped so much, so sometimes it is good to hear about real results. …and B) briefly address one of the most common questions asked by people and organizations that haven’t jumped into social media just yet, but understand that they need to sometime real soon. So here goes:

Beth Kanter, one of the gurus of non-profit social media strategy offers a model of the “networked nonprofit.” Kanter and her co-author Alison Fine argue that many non-profits are full of “firewalls” and bureaucracy that create stand-alone organizations.

But networked nonprofits end up looking more like social networks than like traditional organizations.  Open, simple, connected with other similar entities, transparent, successful.  One key take away is that taking on the new mental posture organizationally will enable and empower your organization to take on social media.

The bottom line?  . . . (more…)

It’s the end of the year, and I’m sure you are experiencing what I am experiencing in my email box.   I’m getting tons of them.  I’m spending way too much time figuring out which ones are important to read and which ones to ditch.  You know what I mean, right?

Usually the email goes something like this:

“Hi [FIRSTNAME HERE]! You’re such an important customer to us, and I, the CEO or leader of this organization, who has never ever communicated with you directly before until this moment, wanted to send you a personalized message of “Happy New Year” or “Merry Christmas” or plain old “Thanks For Being Our Customer.”  Sincerely yours, Big Wig.

That’s it?! Oh yes, some of these time sink emails come with fancy graphics.  Some send the basic message wrapped in a totally-too-long verbose message.  Some have the audacity to give you a clickable link to a video message that ends up being nothing more than  a waste of my time.  Just some silly Hallmark card without any purpose.

Why am I ranting about this all-too-popular tactic?  It’s because of a couple of important things.  While most of these examples of SPAM are coming from corporate and large nationwide organizations, the rules they violate are still in play for your church or ministry as well.  I hope you see what is wrong with these shallow end of year email blasts.  Because, when you send these types of emails, they trigger some really basic rules of engagement for email:

• Sending a “personal” email to someone you don’t personally know, is not being authentic. It’s more often received as an annoyance because you just forced the person reading it to figure out who you are and why they are reading your email right now.  You really should know that personal greeting cards’ online equivalent are still meant for interpersonal relationships.  If you don’t have a direct relationship with the recipient, please don’t spam them with generic greetings or mass emailed thank you notes.  You’re trivializing personal relationship development when you treat your supporters and community like just a name on a list.

• Emails without any valuable content or call-to-action weakens future responsiveness of your list. Each time you hit up your email list with a message, there should be something in it for the person receiving it or some kind of call-to-action that is aimed at a specific behavior from the reader.  The next time when you need them to actually pay attention to your email for a donation to your ministry or cause, the last thing they remember about you is that email-without-a-purpose which you sent them. How annoying. And what do you want them to do now?

• Emails that only act as a megaphone functions shows that you aren’t really interested in them. No one likes self-centered people who just want to talk about what they want, or just keep talking about anything and everything without figuring out if it interests you, or . . . you get it, right?  Your need to share your greeting or gratitude is great.  But stopping right there isn’t enough. Here’s one lesson my kids brought home from school: “Show, don’t just tell.”  Why not show me how you are grateful?  What special downloadable or viewable content have you prepared for me?  What kind of interaction can I have with you because you are thankful?  If you’re so “Merry” or “Happy” this time of year, what are some examples of things I did (or fellow supporters did) this past year that contributed to your success?  How about using this time to lavish upon your supporters?

• If you’re real purpose is to ask for a donation, making it an afterthought will let me think it the same way. If you have been monitoring your inbox and snailmail mailbox, you know that cause-related and ministry organizations use the end of year season to ask for financial support.  According to NetworkForGood, supporters are in the giving mode too with a whopping 22% of online donations being made in the last 2 days of December!  If you act casual or shy about your need, it must not be a critical need, right?  And with tons of other solicitations for my wallet, your ministry’s support requests are easy to push to the bottom of the list.  If you are going to ask for money, don’t be afraid to be upfront, clear about the need and why I should give now. It’s the least you can do to help me make an informed decision.

These are only some of the reasons why you should never send an anti-personal personalized email greeting to your list just because you can.  Am I missing anything?  Can you add to this list or give me some reasons why it’s ok to spam me like this? Show your vote of support or rebuttal in the comment section below.

Last time, I shared a video of the digital nativity story.

It has garnered a lot of press around the world because of its timely and smart execution.

Kudos to the Portual-based team that produced it.

Now, others are jumping on the bandwagon after all the buzz that’s been going around (that’s the power of social media, right?).

I present to you this time . . . A Facebook Christmas story. . .

While there are critics who’s knee-jerk reactions will be to shout out how shallow and trendy these versions are — I wonder if you really quizzed people, especially younger ones, about the actual storyline — would they be able to tell the story better before they saw these videos or afterwards?

I would be willing to bet that since this video is so contextualized to the Facebook generation, a good portion of the group would be able to reconstruct the basics of the storyline in much better fashion than through the accumulated exposure to all the Christmas plays at church over the year as they were growing up.

Take a look for yourself at this video:

QUESTION: Does this video tell the story well enough?

Contextualization.

Mobilization.

Social Media Nation.

Nativity.

Creativity.

Levity.

Merry Christmas.

HT: Jason Locy of FiveStone

Well, the other posts in this series touched upon how your ministry should view the social web as an extension of your social community and also seeing that social media is not just a passing fad at this point.

Today, I’ll share three factors of the social web that makes it compelling to use for church communications, especially for outreach into the communities around you.

At the foundation of today’s discussion is basically whether you want to remain nameless without any familiarity or trust. Do you want to be some anonymous entity stuck in a corner of your community or do you want to be a dynamic community participant that befriends people so you can invite them into relationships — with you and / or your ministry?

Here we go:

1) Better visibility – Managing your online presence across the social web gives you a position of infinitely better visibility to those that are in your community.  These days, the Googlopoly has invaded our life, not just our computers.  People don’t let their fingers to the walking anymore, they  travel the world of mouth.   In fact, with any serious effort, you’ll personally gain a lot more “friends” that can now know you exist than ever before.

2) Increased familiarity – This benefit does not require exteme lifestreaming, but it can be found from intentional utilization of the social media networks out there. If you are wiling to take on some simple proactive strategies, the social web allows you to converse with a much wider range of people about a much diverse range of topics than you probably would in your normal offline routine around town.  As people begin to regularly have a view into your daily activities (regular as well as those seat of the pants last minute activities), thoughts /reactions to various happenings around town, and your overall posture regarding both -  things that excite you and things that really really really matter to you, your local online social network becomes increasingly familiar with you, your personality / humor as well as your general willingness to engage.

3) Trust - This can only be achieved over time with authentic exchanges pointing the way to a God-honoring relationship built on trust. If you are consistent, outward facing, and responsive to people’s questions, needs, and just plain ol’ calls for social engagement, it is a start to quickly establishing trust with other individuals in your social networks. This last factor category cannot be overstated enough in terms of effects.

Visibility, Familiarity, and Trust. These are the ingredients of any evangelistic outreach efforts whether you are online or offline.

Do you see how utilizing the social web successfully is not that different?  You really should leave a comment below.

Recently, I’ve been getting into more discussions with people regarding the question – should churches be using social media? If so, why and how?

There are plenty of reasons why we should look at the social web and see ways that the church should be evaluating and embracing it as just another extension of the offline social web that is the basis for our church communities.  I posted a video here of a recent talk that walked through the super high level basics of why the church should be social media positive.

Further in the conversation, the question arises whether social media is here to stay or just another fad.  I ask, was faxing or texting a fad?  Because they both were viewed the same way at the very beginning, but both in their own contexts are heavily relied upon for communicating these days.

Social media seems to be everywhere. There’s an important distinction here. Talking about social media might be a fad. But social media itself as a communications medium or approach, is probably something different. . .

Here’s a video from the Socialnomics author Erik Qualman that has made the rounds (based off an original version of socialnomics that went viral a long time ago in internet time) that presents that case regarding social media and diagnosing it as a fad. . .

AFTER WATCHING THE VIDEO ABOVE, WHAT DO YOU THINK?  ANYTHING SURPRISE YOU? Please leave a comment here to encourage or challenge others about churches embracing the social web!

It is amazing how divisive the topic of using social media in the church setting can be these days.

It’s being treated like a completely wild animal on the loose by some.  Some pastors’ take is to ban all social media and prohibit church staff and lay leaders from using Facebook and other social media — people in this camp position it as Satan’s work.

But what happens when social media becomes more than a fad?  But a new mode of communication like the telephone, or fax, or email, or . . .is it proper to ban it altogether vs. find some other creative approaches to address the concerns at hand?

I’m guessing the fundamental position on social media in the church is largely determined by how one perceives how and where the social web fits into the picture today and in the future.

Here’s one take that makes the bare bones basic appeal for the church to use social media.   On one hand, I’m surprised that such arguments have to be articulated out loud.  On the other hand, I guess the web 2.0 world has evolved so fast relative to other emergent technological innovations in communication that it can’t be addressed enough.

Check out this short video segment of a presentation on social media any why the church should embrace it. . . (more…)

Peering into the future is something that TED talks often do.

Somehow Religion doesn’t usually make it as a regular topic for the think tank conference phenomenon.

And while Billy Graham has spoken in over 100 countries in his lifetime, somehow, the TED audience is not something he’s used to.  But when Rev. Graham shows up, everyone in the crowd welcomed him with raucous applause — pleasantly surprising to me, personally.

It is interesting to see his reflections on technology + faith and the future.

Rev. Graham talks about three aspects of humanity and the application of technology. . . (more…)

Sometimes we forget that the Bible is an amazing story with tons of smaller transformational stories within that can capture the heart and mind of those listening.

This little girl reminds us of this with her Story of Jonah. What do you see or hear in this video clip below? What strikes you?

With over 3 Million views, one thing this girls shows us is that understanding story is important. Imagine if we had such captivating stories told each week from the pulpit.

“Yeah for God!” she says. Yeah for God indeed.

Christmas and Easter are the two big weekends each year where congregations make an all out push to invite people to come visit the worship community.

Some churches have used the occasion of Christmas to make a big splash and catch the attention of seekers and non-believers. One tactic is to take a look at what’s happening in secular culture and integrate it into the media mix for church communications and worship.

Here’s one church that has appropriated the 3-D technology which the masses have been increasingly seeing on the big screen and small screen.

Check out how Church By The Glades in Florida is using 3D in their pass along marketing collateral — to whet people’s appetites for the Christmas service this year. . . (more…)