Pinning down your ministry

During a recent social media workshop, my brief description about the possibilities of Pinterest as a social media outlet was met with a few giggles. The medium has quite the reputation as the site where women go to disappear for a few minutes...which turn into hours.

In that same workshop, though, I shared a quote that stated: "Stop trying to DO social and just BE social." And many of the ways that we as a church are now social -- church suppers, craft fair fundraisers, our services, our formation activities -- all lend themselves very well to the most visual of social media.

And a quick search of Pinterest for 'Episcopal Church' shows that many churches have a good sense of the possibilities this medium has. Here are just a few examples:

Children/Adult Formation:
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
Stuart, Florida
Crafty Ideas for Sunday School

Trinity Episcopal - Tulsa, Oklahoma
VBS

Church of the Redeemer - Sarasota, Florida
Activities for Formation

Good Shepherd - Dallas
Godly Play

Church Suppers/Craft Fairs
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
Stuart, Florida
Church Supper Ideas

St. Paul’s Mt. Lebanon, PA
St.P Canterbury Fair Crafts

Resources: Books, Formation Resources, Music
St. Cuthbert Episcopal Church (no location given)
Resources

St. Mark’s Episcopal - Waterville, Maine
Books

Good Samaritan Episcopal Church - Knoxville, TN
Music

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church & School
Books & Authors

Grace Saint Paul’s - Tucson, AZ
Lenten Meditations

Your church and community
St. Francis Episcopal, Great Falls, Virginia
Our Church Home

St. Mark’s Episcopal - Waterville, Maine
Parish Life

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church & School
Houston

St. Anthony on the Desert
Tour of St. Anthony

Mission
St. Cuthbert Episcopal Church (no location given)
Companies that Love

St. Mary the Virgin - San Francisco
Helping Others

St. Mark’s Episcopal - Waterville, Maine
Acting on our Faith

Episcopal things/misc.
St. Mark’s Episcopal - Waterville, Maine
Episcopal Connections

Good Samaritan Episcopal Church - Knoxville, TN
Stained Glass

Church of the Good Shepherd
Red Doors
 
Want to see more? Here you go, but be aware...Pinterest is very addictive. Happy Pinning.

Connecting Google Analytics to Hootsuite

 As we briefly covered both Hootsuite and Google Analytics at the workshop today, it seems fortuitous that I should stumble upon this article tonight -- "How to connect Google Analytics to your HootSuite Account" -- for those at that level of readiness.

I stumbled across this gem by following Daniel Sharkov on Twitter. You might give him a follow.

Social Media, Via Media

Sorry to go all "denominational" on you but I have a workshop tomorrow for church communicators in the Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri. So, in addition to a couple of Powerpoints, I want them to be able to download later, I wanted to add some resources specifically targeted at the Episcopal Church. Of course, being 'via media,' we welcome all to the table. Enjoy.

Thanks, Episcopalshare!

We actually have "Episcopalshare: Tips for Church Social Media" to thank for the first batch of resources. A great site to like, follow and subscribe to. And she's from the other side of Missouri, St. Louis.

Top Episcopal Church Resource Pages on Facebook

The Top Episcopal Church Resources on Twitter

A few others:

Safe Church Guidelines for Social Media from the EpiscopalDiocese of Connecticut

The social media page on the Episcopal Church website

And if you're really serious

Here's a whitepaper titled "Social Media and the Episcopal Church," published in 2011 by the Office of Communication of the Episcopal Church Center.

From the workshop

And here are the Introduction and the Strategy Powerpoints I will be sharing at the workshop tomorrow.

Making a plan

(The following information is from an Etsy workshop I did in Kansas City, in April 2010)

Introduction: Building a social media strategy
A valuable tool for treating social media as a strategic tool is the Expansion Plus 'Social Media Marketing Strategy.'


Listen
Before you start talking, you need to listen
Examine the various free tools available to see what's out there
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
LinkedIn
Mashable Guides:
Build Your Brand on Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
Take Me to Your Leader
TrendsMap
GeoChirp


Share of Voice
What is already being said about your company/products?
What is already being said about your competitors?
Listening Tools


Exercise:
Using the tools given in class, we will do a search for your company's presence in the social media sphere as well as your clients. We'll try various keyword searches in different social media. We'll also learn how to identify positive, negative and neutral comments as well as identify trends that may help with product ideas and development


Set Goals/Benchmarks
What are some usual goals for small businesses in social media?
How do those goals match with your goals for your business?
Common Social Media Goals

Finding Communities and Influencers
We want to talk to the right people and have the right people talking about us

The Poor Man's Guide to Finding Influencers
Exercise:
Using the tools from before, we will learn how to identify niche communities and identify influencers (people who are already doing a lot of talking about our area of interest)

Develop a Strategy
Now that we know what's there and what we hope to gain (goals), we'll get down to developing a strategic approach with specific goals and action plans

Pick the Right Tools
Avoiding 'GMOOT'
What social media platform(s) is best for what you want to do; you don't have to be everywhere
Exercise:
Develop a one-year goal of where you want your business to be (a vision, a message); identify which tools are best for that message. Outline how we can make time to make it all happen.

Create and Deliver the Content
We'll look at the rules and limitations of each platform and work on developing messages that focus on our goals and fit the expectations of the social media platforms we want to use
10 foolproof steps to writing hot social media content
How to write tweets that get clicks
Exercise:
Write at least one message that can be adapted for the various platforms, and/or write a variety messages based on the platforms.

Engage and Facilitate Conversations
We've built it and they will come. Now what do we do? We'll look at maintaining an active conversation online.
HootSuite

Measure Results
Did all of our hard work pay off? What can of results do you want (set goals) and how do we know if we got those results?
How to Measure Social Media ROI
Google Analytics


Take-home exercise:
Create a one-year plan that includes 'events' from your business year. Match these events with messages in various platforms as appropriate; set up time each week where you can spend an hour working on your social media strategy.

Social Media in Ministry

(This is a post I originally published on SocialU, a blog I use for my university class, but it seems more appropriate here.)
 
Social Media in Ministry 
Nov. 4, 2011 
Gathering and Convention, Diocese of West Missouri
(powerpoint on slideshare)

A Social Media Strategy for Beginners:

1. Know Who You Are

• If you had to summarize your message into one or two sentences, what would it be? 
• What is your goal as a church in joining social media?  

2. Listen to What Others are Saying

• Listen to what others are talking about
•  How does your message relate to their concerns?
  

3. Stay Focused

• Don't try to be all things to all people. 
• Pick one or two channels to start with  

4. Share the Joy/We All Have Gifts

• You don't have to do it all by yourself 
• Divide and conquer 
• When in doubt, ask a young person 

5. Make a Plan 

• Failure to plan is a plan for failure 
• Divide the task by church year 
• What messages will be coming up that you want to share 
• Create a calendar of social media messages 
• Update regularly  

6. Read, Learn, Immerse

• Take some time to understand a bit about social media before jumping in. 
• Use the free resources that are available and don't be afraid to try different tools. 
• Read Mashable.com 
• Learn from others; steal ideas and make them your own (God will understand) 

Social Media:

Facebook

www.facebook.com

Twitter

www.twitter.com

YouTube

www.youtube.com

Blogger

www.blogger.com

Tweetdeck

www.tweetdeck.com

Free Info/Tools/Links:

Making a plan:

Downloadable Social Media Strategy Plan

http://www.expansionplus.com/impr/social-media.html

Mashable Guide - Building Your Brand

http://mashable.com/2009/04/02/facebook-personal-brand/

Listening:

Free Social Media Monitoring Tools

http://www.robgonda.com/2009/03/24/free-social-media-monitoring-tools/

Social Media Listening Tools

http://socialmedia-listening.wikispaces.com/Tools

Trends Map

http://trendsmap.com/

Writing for social media:

10 foolproof steps to writing social media content

http://www.digitallabz.com/blogs/10-foolproof-steps-to-writing-hot-social-media-content.html

Writing tips for Twitter users
http://exciramedia.com/11-successful-writing-tips-for-twitter-users/

Top 200 Church Blogs

http://churchrelevance.com/resources/top-church-blogs/

The Church and Social Media

Church Social Media Bad Practices

http://www.sharefaithblog.com/2011/01/church-social-media-bad-practices/#more-2662

Church & Social Media

http://churchsmo.com/

Why Should Your Church Invest In Social Media?

http://www.ministrybestpractices.com/2009/02/why-should-your-church-invest-in-social.html

Top 10 tips for Church Blogging

http://www.faithandweb.com/2007/06/26/top-10-tips-for-church-blogging/

AND

from the Episcopal Cafe

Social media and the Episcopal Church

http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/church_20/social_media_and_the_episcopal.html

includes link to Office of Communication's white paper on social media.

The 10 Commandments of Social Media

This is a post I originally published on my SocialU blog (for my university class). I created it for a presentation at our diocesan convention a couple of years ago, so thought it deserved a repeat here.


1. Thou Shalt Not Be Afraid
Take the plunge by just getting on your own Facebook account. People will not immediately begin writing false checks on your bank accounts or staking out your home to rob it. Start with just a few friends and it will grow from there.

2. Thou Shalt Not Dominate The Conversation
The best way to get the conversation going is to ask a question; the fastest way to end the conversation is by attacking the answers. You must be open to the critical, to the hard question. Also, if the only comments or contributions on your page are from you, something is wrong.

3. Thou Shalt Make Social Media Part of the Job
Most small organizations fail with social media because they see it as a toy, or at best an extracurricular activity. This is how young people communicate. Get used to it. Enjoy it. It will keep you young.

4. Thou Shalt Plan
Having a plan of what you want to communicate, to whom, and where will help keep you on track. Use your church year to plan out the messages. And stay focused: what is my mission?

5. Thou Shalt Update Regularly
No one will have a conversation with you if you only speak twice a year. However, they may tell you to shut up if you update or post every 5 minutes. Two or three times a week is a good place to start; a couple times a day is nice, too.

6. Thou Shalt Not Sell
Even for-profit companies know that the social media community does not tolerate the hard sell. However, sharing information and asking for feedback can promote your cause as well as soften the message.

7. Thou Shalt Not Steal
Be sure to give credit where credit is due when quoting someone else’s work or passing on something fun. It’s a small world in social media, and it’s bound to get back to the original person.

8. Thou Shalt Use Proper Grammar and Spelling
If you want to increase the flow of traffic on your blog, use bad spelling and improper grammar. You will have an explosion of comments (which, funny enough, will be themselves filled with misspelled words.) You can get away with some abbreviations (especially on Twitter) but don’t try to be cute. These words represent you; make them solid.

9. Thou Shalt Not Try to Be All Things to All People
Don’t try to be a part of every social media group out there. Know where ‘your people’ hang out and hang out there. That said, Facebook and Twitter are the two biggies. That said, tomorrow all that could change.

10. Thou Shalt Not Forget The Analogs
Don’t become so enamored with the speed (and low cost) of digital media and forget that not everybody lives there. Know whom you need to email, call or even snail mail. And remember, if someone needs a shoulder, you can’t do that online.

(copyright, 2011: Dr. Jody Strauch)