How can Social Media be

beneficial to ministry?

Practical applications

By John Roland, MDiv

Social Media Defined

• Social Media, defined: Activities that involve

socializing and networking online through

words, pictures and video

• Invented: for fun and to meet girls (Facebook)

• Uses: relationship building, interaction and

community, networking

• Conversations: Listen, Learn & Share

Social Media Benefits . . .

• Social Media Provides four main

benefits:

• communication

• collaboration

• community

• collective intelligence opportunities.

• Social Media (SM) and the Donut Factor---We can define social

media in terms of donuts, but think of SM more like an appetizer

or dessert in your marketing mix. It’s certainly NOT the main

entrée and won’t fill you up … yet.

“We don’t need social media.”

• You may be ignoring social media, but it’s not ignoring you.

• Ignore Social Media at Your Own Risk

• Members, students, and the entire community are active in

social media.

• They engage in peer discussion.

• If you don’t engage with them, the conversation continues.

• But, it goes on without you.

Is Social Media just a fad??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SuNx

0UrnEo&feature=youtu.be&hd=1

Is Social Media just a fad??

• While U.S. unemployment hovers around 8%, job postings

requiring social media skills rose 87% from 2011 to 2012,

topping 13,000 in one month alone earlier this year.

• Among Fortune 500 companies, 73% now have company

Twitter accounts and 66% have Facebook Pages (FB).

• Corporate America is racing to apply social tools to

everything from building customer relationships to

connecting teams of employees around the world.

• Analysts estimate that $1.3 trillion in value stands to be

unlocked by new social technologies.

• Fortune magazine

Who are your followers??

• To truly take advantage of the benefits, we need to

know who is in our network or “tribe.”

• Seth Godin defines a tribe as “a group of people

connected to one another, connected to a leader,

and connected to an idea. For millions of years,

human beings have been part of one tribe or another.

A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared

interest and a way to communicate.”

Tribes—we need you to lead us

Who are your followers??

• NASCAR driver tweeted a picture of a crash at

the Dayton 500 race while inside his car and

added 100,000 new followers in under 2 hours.

Who are you followers??

• Understanding who your followers are is at the heart of

developing a great social media strategy and campaigns.

• Create a number of personas that fit your target audience.

• Personas will help us identify the different needs of key

market segments and the places where they are online

helping us understand their goals, wants, needs and

frustrations.

• We can start by sending out a questionnaire using survey

monkey to survey current followers of your Social Media

Channels

Social Vs. Sociality

Social vs. Sociality

• What people are looking for is not participating in a

democracy where they are asked to vote once in a

while, but be part of an environment where they

can have an active role as leaders or as followers,

dynamically sharing goals and emotions with others.

• As an alternative to an overly rationalized society,

people are tempted to choose the empathic

atmosphere of tribes.

• http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/2/Social_Networking_France

What do you want to POST?

•P: People (Who do you want to reach?)

•O: Objective (What do you want them to

do?)

•S: Strategy (How to do it?)

•T: Technology (Implementing

Technology)

What do you want to post?

• Upcoming class information, interesting articles, photos

and videos of your students/instructors

• Don’t post just to post. In other words, have something to

say or don’t say anything.

• Post on your top channels at least once a day.

• If you’re stumped, think about what you would talk about

with a friend.

• Don’t constantly “Sell” your program; it turns people off.

Pick 5 Social Media channels and stick

with them

• Quick way to connect in 140 characters, receive feedback, market

church or university, etc.

• Twitter, with its brevity and informality, makes it possible for the Pastor

or CEO or VPs to engage with hundreds of employees, interns, and

students, in a way that would be inconceivable on email or in person.

• Some of the most powerful advocates any organization has are its very

own employees.

• It empowers internal employees to become external and become brand

ambassadors and brand evangelists as they are doing ministry.

• Better teamwork and access to a steady flow of company news are

essential ingredients for cooking up an educated and passionate

workforce.

• Allows members and volunteers to tell

the minister or university’s story,

through their own pictures.

• As the saying goes, “a picture is worth a

1000 words.”

• Announce upcoming events

• Link to your church or pastor’s blog

• Post photos

• Create a Facebook List centered on a relevant topic that

includes key value-adding people and Pages.

• Use the networks of the people and pages included to fuel

initial growth of the list.

• Get your students to “like” your page by offering incentives

• Connect small groups

• People watch video, and if we are not using this medium to

share at least part of our message, we are not effectively

reaching most prospects, current students or alums.

• By using video it allows every organization to share their

unique message; tell their story; and paint the picture of

their mission through video for their consumers in a way

that can connect with them at a more personal and

interactive level.

• Videos can be made FREE from one’s iPhone.

• Create a living resume with active recommendations,

connections, and links.

• Allows one to jump in on the discussions and share best

practices from your ministry.

• By providing the Linkedin profile URL for each employee, it

is a subtle way of sharing (i.e. bragging) about their

background, education, recommendations, and credibility.

Listen to the voices . . .

• What is being said about your organization in Social Media?

• Set up Google Alerts that notifies you when someone

mentions LRU on the internet.

• Set up a listening station. Great example on how to do it:

www.zephyrmarketing.net

• Respond to (don’t delete) any negative comments.

• Social Mention* searches across multiple channels for

mentions of our college in real time

Brand yourself & your ministry

• What do you want to be known for as a person & as a ministry? Provide relevant

content, articles, opinions, and information in that direction.

• Thanks to social media, recruiting is no longer a top-down, closed-door process.

The employer-candidate relationship is becoming highly transparent and

conversational.

• By having a well-defined online presence—whether it’s through a ministry blog or

Twitter profile—employers can shout out to the world exactly what kind of people

they’re looking for. This can dramatically cut costs and time involved in the

recruitment process.

• Candidates can now go online and scour a potential employer’s Facebook page or

website, even read through the Twitter profiles, blog posts or comments of

current and ex-employees, then decide whether to still pursue the job.

It is all about REACHING

people.