They appropriately created this video to celebrate their special day. (Click here if you cannot see it embedded in the post)

Important Statistics

Some key stats for you to know:

• On January 23, 2012 Youtube surpassed over 4 Billion views per day
• As of May 2012 there are over 72 hours of video uploaded to Youtube every minute
• 65% of the North American population is projected to own a smart-phone or tablet by 2015

The Search Story

Two weeks ago I was talking with a couple that was new to our church.  As I frequently do, I asked,

“How was it that you came to be here at LifeBridge today?“

They told me their story of how they had just been transferred to the city and then the husband said

“the other night we were on Youtube and we typed in Churches in Halifax, discovered a sermon by your pastor and decided we would come check out this church”.

Did you get that? They searched in Youtube not in Google. Youtube is now the Internet’s second largest search engine and people are using it to find churches.  Youtube is a channel for you to give life to your church. To promote your events, tell your story, and post your sermons.

In my opinion, a one minute Youtube video can communicate more of your ministry culture and your passion for people than all the written text in the world.  Your church needs to use Youtube.  Imagine the creative ways you could leverage it!

Please feel free to tell some stories of how your church has used or is using Youtube to support your ministry in the comments below.

Listen to How to Position Your Church

Listen to How To Effectively Promote Your Christian Event

I welcome your feedback and comments.  If you or anyone you know would like a copy of the print version send me your mailing address (via email @ David@DavidTonen.com) and I will gladly mail you a free copy.

You may read the digital magazine embedded below or via this link.

Listen to Are You are Card-Carrying Reverse-Networking Leader? 

2011 was a phenomenal year for me.  I ran my church marketing and communications company full-time for the full-calendar year. It was an amazing journey and an amazing privilege to work with so many ministry-passionate clients.  I started a church communications podcast, teamed up with a great bunch of guys to launch a Christian Business Magazine, and served in my Halifax church as a leader.  The year was busy and a blast.  I have never enjoyed my career more.

I love writing. I love sharing my knowledge, experience, and opinions.  So, I really have enjoyed blogging here in the past.  In 2011 however, my writing was sparse and inconsistent.  I want to recalibrate my schedule in 2012 so I can be “here” more often.  I really feel that one of my mandates from God is to educate church leaders on why and how they can communicate their ministry story with greater effectiveness.

So, I a coming back online and I am actually scheduling my writing times with the intent that this will bring forth consistency.  I am praying God will keep me on track.

As I start 2012, I want to re-affirm that I love Jesus.  I am taking many purposeful steps to spend more time in relationship with Him every day in my personal and business life.  This is not about me being religious.  I hate religion and so did Jesus.  I love my ever growing relationship with him and I love representing him in all I do.  I would encourage you to recalibrate some things in your life this year in the pursuit of relationship too.  I know from personal experience…that you’ll never regret it.

So, this video below (click here if you cannot see it) really resonates with me and it sums up my pursuit for relationship with God because I Hate Religion too!

I created the image below in Wordle.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

I created the one below from the RSS feed of my church marketing podcast.  Interesting way to display in words what you are really all about. Try for yourself!

This week, I spent some time talking with Kerry Bural from The Resonate Group about church branding.

Kerry very passionately believes that good church branding is about connecting with people.  He asks – what really drives what your ministry is doing?  As a church leader, you’ll want to think this through as you listen in to his vast experience working with ministries on branding.  He said the best brands are built when focused on relationship.

Kerry also quoted his favorite branding definition that comes from John Jantsch:

“Branding is the art of becoming knowable, likeable, and trustable.“

If you are serious about building an effective brand for your church – you’ll want to spend a few minutes and learn from Kerry.  I published the first half of our conversation today and will publish part 2 next Monday.

Listen to Episode #12 of the Ministry Story Podcast: Church Branding That Resonates – a conversation with Kerry Bural.

I can best explain it with my STORY process.  Let me expalin it to you in this short 1-minute video:

If you can’t see the video - you can link to it directly on YouTube here…

You may want to consider a church marketing plan for your ministry. Contact me and we will begin that dialogue!

What do you think?

Anthony wrote a blog post earlier this year which he called The Disney Experience at Church. We discuss his five key observations:

1. Leverage the Web – User Testimonials
2. On-Site Arrival
   
3. Deliver What Your Selling
   
4. Consistent Impressions
   
5. Have a Heart
   

So, please take some time to listen to part one and then part two so you can implement some of the concepts Anthony shares so your church can generate a great experience for your visitors.