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Archive for communication

Tell How to Connect

July 27th, 2015

enter hereWhen you use your website to promote an event or group, don’t forget to provide a way for readers to connect and join in!

It’s a good practice to skew your communications efforts toward newcomers or “outsiders”, inviting wider participation.  Explain the event or group in a brief, easy-to-understand way, without assuming that “everyone” knows what that event/group is all about.  And always, always, provide some way to connect.  Telling readers how to connect is a call to action and an invitation to participation.

That can be as simple as:  “To join the choir, simply show up at the Thursday, 7 pm rehearsal.”  It can be an email address, as in: “To volunteer, email Suzy”  (embed Suzy’s email address as a link to look more professional).  Since you’re using digital media, the preference would be to let people respond by digital media (ie. an email or on social media like Facebook) instead of having them make a phone call, which requires a much higher social inertia to overcome (that is, it’s easier and preferable for most to email rather than call).  While you are at it, make sure you are providing ways to connect when using other digital media like an email newsletter or social media.

Do you make an invitation to connect a part of your promotions?  What’s been most effective for you?

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Think: “Conversation”

July 12th, 2015

conversationWe need to think of our web, email and social media less as bulletin boards and more as conversations.

Many of us use our church websites, our social media (like Facebook) pages, and our email newsletters as little more than bulletin boards on which we metaphorically tack up wordy informational announcements. Sometimes we dress up our bulletin boards with nice graphics, or link to an article, but we tend to think of these media as one-way communication tools. They’re not. Or at least if we only think of them that way, we are missing their vast potential for expanding our mission.

While the content for our churches’ web and emails will still need to be somewhat information-based (what is the date of that fundraiser?), we need to shift our thinking more toward facilitating conversations and building connections between our readers/users. This is a shift away from a monologue by leaders and toward a shared dialogue by both leaders and members.

This shift has some demographic weight to it: younger readers/users will expect this kind of interaction and view not providing a way to access it as outmoded.  [Just an aside: Pastors, this paradigm shift has HUGE implications for preaching, which will need to find some way to become more interactive or conversational— although not necessarily in the worship service itself. Monologue is on its way out!]

One way to start moving in this direction is simply to invite dialogue and model it. If this is a foreign concept for your organization you may have to coach a few folks to grasp the vision. It’s easiest to start this on a social network like a Facebook page, and most people have already “gotten” the conversational ethos there, although you may still have to encourage them to post conversationally on an organization page, even when they do this all the time with friends and family. State explicitly that you are hoping for discussion. Toss out a question for response. Ask for an opinion. Gather ideas for a program or study. Remember to reply to all or most posts (especially at first), even if it’s just to say “thanks for posting”.

You can also invite people to (briefly?) tell stories or experiences. Posting pictures is also a powerful way to invite conversation. Invite members to post photos from events (with permissions, of course!). Most website hosts now have some sort of blog capability built in, which can be used by pastors or other staff. Or, perhaps the staff blog needs to be on a blog site separate from the church website.

Again, the real power for churches in a blog or news feed is in the interaction of the comments. Think about a blog as less of a monologue-like journal, and more of a guided conversation: here’s the topic and what I think; now what do you think? Even your email newsletters can be a part of fostering conversation, although mostly you’ll have to invite conversations there, and point them toward your website or FB page. (I guess you could invite people to email you back with responses, but that would limit the conversation to one-on-one, and the real aim is a broader conversation.)

Churches, of course, are not exclusively online communities. They have real live, face-to-face interaction too. Getting conversations going on your website or social media pages will never be a substitute for that, but online interaction can deepen and widen the potential for member connections and strengthen the organization. I’ve sometimes been surprised at how introverts will jump into an online conversation when they are far less likely to do that in person, and then having “met” someone through that conversation, they have an easier time connecting in person.

So in the spirit of fostering a dialogue…. how are you using your media to create conversations? How has it worked for you? Or, if you’re not doing that yet, what kinds of ideas come to mind for getting more interaction going online with your members?

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Be Consistent in your “Branding”

May 30th, 2015

brandingThe human brain recognizes shape & color before words.  This is why companies large and small have logos and branding.  Quick: if you see a brown liquid in a cup with a red curvy font and a white background, what are you drinking?

You have precious seconds of time and attention span before your communication recipients may tune out. You want everyone from your own members to people who are just learning about your organization to recognize immediately that your communications are coming from a trusted source — as immediately as we might recognize a cup of Coca-Cola™.

To make this work effectively, you need to develop “branding” – that is, you need to use the same fonts, colors, and logos consistently across all your communications channels.  Your channels might include: print publications (not only your bulletin and newsletter, but also brochures, welcome materials and staff business cards), your website, social media profiles and visual media like worship slides.  You don’t have to use exactly the same configuration in each channel, but the “look” should be recognizably connected.

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Inter-connect Your Communication

March 31st, 2015

loopDon’t forget to inter-connect all your digital media efforts.  Think of all the information and content you publish about your organization as a circular information loop.

Your readers might enter that information loop through your Facebook page, but from there, they should be able to find your website or your email newsletter. Don’t forget to include in your traditional media, like print newsletters, ways to find your digital media content.  In general, the trend is toward the more dynamic digital media loop, so you don’t have to worry so much about getting folks to subscribe to your print newsletter.

Sit down and list out the different ways that your organization communicates information: newsletters (print & email), websites, blogs, Facebook page, Twitter feed.  Churches shouldn’t forget the weekly bulletin.  Does every mode have an invitation to find the Facebook page (with the specific name/acronym of your organization) and the website?  To subscribe to the email newsletter?

It might be helpful to start asking your more digitally-oriented members how they are using the different parts of your content.  It might help you see “weak links” between modes, or where you need to focus more energy in developing content. The primary reason organizations don’t inter-connect their media is that it takes a little extra time, and requires a step back for a “big picture” view.  But I do think that for most groups, the time and “big picture”  do pay off in promoting the organization. What’s your experience of inter-connecting your media?  What’s the hardest part?  Does it pay off for your organization?

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Arc of Technology Adoption: What Comes First?

October 20th, 2014
arc of adoption

The Arc of Adoption

Nonprofits in general, and churches in particular, tend to be late adopters of new technologies. There’s a good reason for this: we don’t usually have money to experiment with technologies that may or may not be helpful for our particular situation. Sometimes, churches and nonprofits have benefited by their delay because they could skip a technology cycle, and thereby save money.

Today, the proliferation and rapid deployment cycles of new communications technologies and platforms (websites, email newsletters, social media, texting, etc.) make it really difficult to decide where to invest precious resources in terms of getting your organization “up to date”. Some of these technologies and platforms are interrelated in terms of their effective use however, an understanding those relationships can be helpful when making decisions about technologies.

As we work with churches and nonprofits (and also many small businesses on a budget), we see a logical rational pattern in effectively utilizing newer communications technologies. This pattern is represented in what we call the “Arc of Adoption”, graphically represented on this page.

The place to start (if you haven’t already) is with a website. You might start with a static website – that is, a website whose content doesn’t change very often. A static website might say on its homepage: “Worship is at 10 AM on Sunday morning”. The next step would be to move to a dynamic website, where the content changes more frequently, usually in terms of dated material. A dynamic website might say on its homepage: “Worship is at 10 AM on Sunday morning, and this week’s sermon title is…”

After a dynamic website, generally we see organizations begin to develop either a Facebook page or an email newsletter, and then develop the other soon after. These communications channels come next because to make effective use of them depends on a dynamic website. You can certainly use either of these channels without a website, but the most effective use of a Facebook page or an email newsletter comes when you are able to put short bits of content in either of those channels, with a link back to the full content on your website.

This level of communication – dynamic website, Facebook page & email newsletter – is where most churches we work with find that they are maxed out in terms of either people resources (staff or volunteer) and/or financial resources.

Churches with additional resources of either people or finances might go on to look at blogs (generally by the senior pastor or other clergy staff), Twitter (although you will need to assess whether Twitter will actually be helpful for you), and very infrequently SMS text messaging.

I am interested in a dialogue in the comments around how your church has made decisions about new communications technologies. Did your church consider something like our Arc of Adoption? What were the limitations and/or hopes around the decisions for one technology over another? What factors play into your church’s decisions about using or not using these new technologies?

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When Not to Use Twitter on Your Site

June 2nd, 2014

twitter-birdSo it happened again. I was consulting with a church about their new website, and one of the church members said, “Oh yeah! We need to remember to put Twitter and Facebook icons on the site.”

Knowing that they were barely getting their website started I asked, “Are you active on Twitter and Facebook?”

“No, not really,” was the answer. It turns out they did have a Facebook page, but it hadn’t been updated or interacted with for over 2 months. They did not have a Twitter account, nor did they know of anyone in the church that had a Twitter account.

It happens again and again: faith-community folks who are not digital-natives, but are trying to learn this new media, hear again and again that they “need social media”.  And they want to “do this right”.

Here’s the crucial thing to understand: social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are communications channels. When you create Facebook and Twitter accounts, and when you put those logos on your website, what you are saying is: “Here is a way to communicate with us.”  And when you have put this channel out there, then WHETHER you use this channel or not – and HOW you use it – communicate something about you, whether you want it to or not.

If you say “here is a channel to communicate with us”, and then ignore the channel by not using it (or worse, only using it to “broadcast” or sell your own events, but never to listen), what you communicate is at best that you are clueless about social media.  It’s like inviting someone to call you, but never answering their calls or voicemails.  Or only using phone calls to talk AT people.  At the worst, you send the message that you know people are having conversations all on these channels, but you don’t care enough to join those conversations.

All churches and faith-communities have some limit on the resources – mostly people-resources, but sometimes financial – that they can devote to social media. Be honest about your assessment of your resources and what channels you might be able to sustain conversations in.

For instance, your church may have members who are already active on Facebook, comfortable in using it, and people who are willing to invest in conversations via that channel. In that case, promote and strive to communicate well with Facebook. Your organization may not have members already on Twitter, or people willing to invest in communicating there – in that case, don’t create or promote a Twitter channel.  Definitely don’t just slap a Twitter icon on your site because all the “cool kids” are doing it.

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Get a Signup for Emails on Your Site

May 20th, 2014

email signupIf you send out an email newsletter – if you’re even THINKING about sending out an email newsletter – you should have a way for people to sign themselves up for your list on your website.  Being able to sign themselves up is a far lower threshold for responding than say, calling or even emailing the church office.  You will get more signups if people can sign themselves up.

If you’re using a service like Constant Contact or MailChimp, they make it easy to generate a bit of code, and you can drop that into a text widget for your sidebar.

If you’re not yet using a service – perhaps your thinking that you will start an email newsletter in the next few months – you should still get a sign up onto your website, so that you can start to build up your email list.

You can do this by creating a special contact form for email sign-ups. Pro tip: add in a way to store these submitted emails in your database, so that they can be easily exported into a CSV file, and quickly uploaded to the email service of your choice. The free way to do this would be to use the Contact Form 7 plugin, plus Contact Form DB plugin.  If you use the premium plugin Gravity Forms, submitted info is automatically saved for you.  (ACWP participant sites have automatic access to Gravity Forms through our developer license.)

Actually, if you use something like Gravity Forms, you can get much more sophisticated in your email sign-ups. You can sign people up for multiple specific lists, for example, all from one simple form.

If all this sounds a little complicated for your technical-ability, shoot us an email – this is a relatively low-cost job to outsource.

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