Monday, January 3rd is the official ”grand opening” of Ministry Story and that will coincide with the launch of a church marketing education tool – The Ministry Story Podcast.  This new podcast is geared specifically to help pastors and ministry leaders in smaller churches.  The majority of churches in North America are less than 300 people in size and these churches are resource challenged and in need of communication help.  Each week, I will be interviewing people who have expertise in the areas of church marketing, communication, strategy, social media, and technology.  It is my hope that these conversations will broaden the scope of understanding on how churches can leverage some strategies and tools that will enable them to tell their ministry story more effectively.

I hope you will join me on the journey in 2011.  Please subscribe to the blog and the podcast.  I alos welcome you to leave a comment in writing or record an MP3 comment and e-mail it to me – some podcasts will feature listener comments and questions that I and others will answer.  I want this to be a conversation and a community that participates to help all church leaders so more churches can increase their effectiveness.

Earlier this year, Old Spice created a new ad campaign in mainstream media that they then began to support through social media.  The campaign has been deemed a business, marketing, an cultural icon success story.  Even their commercial version on YouTube (inset below) has received over 21 million views (as of this writing).  This campaign success was achieved through a unique creative concept and the expenditure of millions of advertising dollars.

Copy-Cats

Many people will parody a successful YouTube concept –  copying the styling, and trying desperately to ride the wave of someone else’s viral video success.  The Old Spice ad is no different – it has spawned a wealth of mimicry but few of these copy-cats have garnered the eyeballs and viral sharing they have sought.

Occasionally someone will catch a viral wave – Grover has!  His Sesame Street Smell Like A Monster parody (inset below) has captured 4.5 million views in just its first 10 days on YouTube!  Just goes to show – it can be done but a viral video needs uniqueness and creativity - people need to be captivated and impressed by the concept or they will just shut you off and tune you out in disgust.

Is A Viral Christian Video Possible?

I guess as a marketer of ministries and churches, I am left wondering – could a church create a viral YouTube video that would represent Jesus well (not be about a church controversy or contain a cynical spiritual view) and be compelling enough to cause people to forward the link to their friends?  What would compel people to blog about it and mention it on Facebook and Twitter?  If we have the best message on the planet to tell – how can we tell it more creatively and virally?  Maybe you have an idea – if so please share it!

So, what do you think…is it possible for a church to create a viral video?

Enjoy the Grover video:

Five Months. Twenty seven weeks. One hundred and ninety days ago.

Over this time period I also refrained from active use of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels of our day.  I went cold-turkey – off the grid…because I had to.

Burnout

Without going into it in too much depth, I hit the wall, burnt the candle, fried a circuit.  Plain and simple I was exhausted.  I knew in September and October that I was really tired, but it wasn’t until I was placed on doctor sanctioned rest that the full realization of just how exhausted I really was.  I had suppressed a lot of exhaustion – and far further and deeper than I had even realized.  I was off work, off line, and essentially spent the first 6-8 weeks of the rest period sleeping.  Yes sleeping.  It even amazed me.  I slept 14-16 hours a day for weeks.  Thankfully, this really helped.  The crazy physical symptoms that manifested in my body in October began to subside and by Christmas I was about 50% of the way towards recovery.  My doctor continued the rest prescription and I remained on medical leave until March 8th, 2010 – 18 weeks!

The Social Gap

Through this season of recuperation I laid low.  I was silent.    I had plenty of support – from my family, close personal friends, and my church community.  The physical relationships were strong networks of support and healing.  I am very grateful for all those who compassionately poured into my life.

However, social media proved its weakness during this time for me.

My social media community is relatively small compared to many.  I have just over 200 friends on Facebook, 666 followers (ya, I know) on Twitter, and 71 subscribers to my blog.  A tight little online community.  Granted, I never specifically said anything about my plight.  But given the immediate and outright absence of posts and tweets, only one “follower” noticed.  Michael Holmes.  Michael sent me a couple direct and personal messages throughout my ordeal.  He noticed the silence.  He was paying attention.  He saw the “quiet on Twitter”.  He noticed the missing blog posts.  He was tuned in…and he responded.  I have never met Michael face-to-face.  Our entire friendship is in the pixels.  Yet Michael acted as a true friend.  Thanks Michael!

People Not Pixels

This is not meant as an indictment on my other friends and followers.  I know that I have failed others in the same way.  Social media loses the personal-connection amidst in the noise of distribution.  Social media’s primary benefit is for relaying and collation of information.  Sure, there are ways to deepen the relational-divide online.  Yet social media in its essence is best for keeping a social “tab” on people’s lives who you feel an informational connectivity with.  It is not a substitution for the real value of genuine community.  We are after all people, not pixels.  We are conversations not keyboard characters.  Sure we can post pictures, details, stories, and sagas.  All this is still limited and often drowned out in the rush and noise of the-online-life and can easily get lost in the “feed”.

Spring

With the dawn of spring I return refreshed, rested, rejuvenated, and restored.  I feel better physically, mentally, emotionally, and most importantly spiritually, than I have in years.  With great anticipation, I look forward to the dawn of a new season, new career, and new online influence.  I know personally that God has used the last 5-months to teach me alot about himself, myself, and my career.  This is the dawn of a new day and I spring forward on the adventure that will continue to unfold over the coming months.  For you my friends and followers…I appreciate you and I look forward to sharing new insights and perspectives on how churches can embrace technology and marketing tools to communicate with greater excellence and impact in our culture.

Please join me on the journey!

Image via Flickr: gfpeck

“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 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?

Most churches in North America are single pastor congregations.  These churches are under 120 attendees and their budgets can only afford one full-time staff minister.  Hence, the pastor must manage all the ministry responsibility as well as oversee and manage all the organizational fundamentals.  One human can simply not do this effectively!  Pastors come into their position having to learn organizational management duties such as accounting, human resources, finance, leadership, marketing, and counselling.

So, how is one minister to equip themselves in the things they have not been trained in?  Today, with the Internet, the simplest solution is to rely on free online resources to learn some of the basics.  There are great podcasts, blogs, and forums from which a pastor can glean some deeper insights into organizational management.

Church Marketing/Media/Technology Blogs I Read and Recommend

From the marketing education angle, here are some excellent ministry related blogs that any church leader can read and begin to learn basic concepts from to apply marketing and media principles into their ministry.  Subscribing to these blogs will give you some basic knowledge that will help you as a church leader understand church marketing and communication concepts.  This will give you enough foundational material so that you can make proper church marketing management decisions.  I would still recommend hiring a professional church marketer to help you plan and execute the marketing strategy for your church but with basic knowledge you will at least understand your church’s need for a marketing plan and strategy and grasp the impact that marketing can have on your ministry as it pushes forward to impact and change your community.

• Church Marketing Sucks
• Church Relevance
• Church Crunch
• Phil Cooke
• 1429 Creative
• Outreach Mojo

My simple recommendation would be to subscribe to these blogs vis an RSS reader.  If you are not sure how to do that please read my 8 Simple Steps to Google Reader.  Through RSS, new articles will be delivered straight to your desktop as they are published and with a few minutes of reading each day you will grow in your understanding of church marketing principles.

There are many more resources out there that will help church leaders.  If you have a favorite that I have not listed, please share that by proving the link in the comments section below.

Also please share this list of recommended blogs with all the pastors you know.  Let’s do our part to educate church leaders so they can represent Jesus with greater excellence!

Print publishing in its many forms is bleeding.  Big metropolitan newspapers, magazines of all genres, and books are suffering.  Some of it is the current condition of the economy, more of it is the influence of digital platforms online that are killing the need for print products.  As a result advertising revenues have dropped significantly and the print publications are becoming dated and irrelevant in our culture.

So, what does this mean for the church?  Churches need to be aware that information distribution is decidedly moving to electronic platforms.  Debates can be had for the love of “print” and I for one still love a good printed book.  But let’s be realistic.  As more information travels through online channels and through mobile devices like laptop computers, smart phones, and portable reading devices like the Kindle, ministries must begin to transition as well.

Some Don’ts

• Don’t waste money advertising your church in the Yellow Pages – take your listing but don’t buy an ad.
• Don’t advertise in your local newspaper – feed them a press release and maybe they’ll do a story on you but don’t spend money on ad space.
• Stop printing church newsletters – start using e-mail, your web site, and social media to communicate.

Some Do’s

• Do make sure you have a well designed and up-to date web site – a professional web presence for your ministry is critical for getting information to potential new visitors and connecting and communicating regularly to your current members.
• Do use e-mail to communicate within your church – using an e-mail management tool will give you better looking messages for newsletters and can manage multiple lists if you have a larger church.
• Do experiment with social media – tools like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, and other social media platforms can give you exciting and cost effective ways to engage with congregation members online.

As print media is being left in the dust I would encourage you and your church to build an electronic tools strategy. You don’t have to do it all.  You don’t have to do many things all at once either.  Rolling it out in steps, phases, or stages can keep the shock factor to a minimum and can let people embrace the changes slowly.

Please, do something and do it well – with excellence.  Once you can prove the effective integration of one or a couple electronic platforms or tools the better they will be embraced by any who may be hesitant.

What are your thoughts?  What have been your experiences?  Do you agree that it is best for churches to minimize their purchasing of print media?

They are looking for your nomination for your favorite blog written by a pastor or church leader.  Take a moment and share with them your vote.  Maybe we can all connect with some great blogs that others know about!

Nominations for Best Church Blogs

Do I Need to Be A Marketing Expert?

Does that mean you have to become an expert on marketing and technology?  No, that is not your forte in all likelihood.  You have leadership and entrepreneurial strengths that you need to keep leveraging in order for your organization to maximize it’s success.  However, you need to know what is going on and how today’s new marketing techniques and technology applications and resources can help you and your organization.

Start Reading Here!

I want to encourage you to subscribe to some blogs on marketing, technology, and social media.  There are so many good resources of information and there are great writers who are on the cutting edge.  With a small investment of time each day (15-20 minutes or so) you can utilize an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader like Google Reader and subscribe to some of these forward thinking blogs and learn.  You can learn the terminology, the applications, and strategies that are working.  You probably still should hire a company to help you navigate your marketing and build a customized marketing integration plan for your organization, but at least by learning you will know the “language”.  It will help you discern truth and integrity when you see if from potential marketing suppliers.

Here is the challenge to you today:

1. Watch this video if you do not understand what RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is.
2. Register for Google Reader – 8 Simple Steps to Google Reader.
3. Subscribe to some blogs.  I have some good blog resources that I recommend on my marketing resources page.  I would be honoured if you subscribed to my Marketing Integrity blog too!
   
4. Try this for a month.  Dedicate 15-20 minutes each day to reading the posts and articles that come into your Google Reader.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised how much you will learn.  The more you learn, the more you will help yourself and your organization.

Who’s up for the challenge?!  If you are going to give it a try, please let me know by leaving a comment and check back here to let us know how it is working.  If you already are subscribing to blogs, please share some encouraging words on how this activity has made a difference to you personally and to your organization.

What do you think of this recent advertisement by the Catholic Churches in New York City?

They have the site for you to check out too: SoulWoW.com

95,000 views of the video in 2 weeks…good viral marketing by a denomination!