Why Should Your Church Be on Twitter?

Throughout the past couple of years, I’ve made my pleas about giving Twitter a try. This is another plea for you to claim your “digital real estate” and get on Twitter for your church, business, non-profit or organization. We’re past the point of Twitter being a fad. Twitter now has over 50 million users and has gone mainstream. Businesses everywhere are using Twitter to be seen and get heard. They’re using Twitter to get by the roadblocks of old media and create a powerful presence online. You have the same opportunities and potential for an effective online presence with your church or organization.

The best part about Twitter users, unlike Facebook or YouTube, is that most Twitter users are over the age of 30. What does that mean for you? Paying Customers in the business world or your target for your church. Most modern churches target young couples with small kids – this is who is on Twitter. Make sense?

The 2nd reason? Laser Targeted Marketing:

When you use Twitter to build your brand online, you’re not relying on random Google searches. You’re not relying on expensive PPC methods that bring lukewarm consumers (in business) or people that aren’t located near your church and will never visit. You are using Twitter to filter out the tire kickers and bring you the people that want to hear your voice. Enter – a surge of traffic that is hungry for what you have to offer!

Now, I realize that a lot of what I just said is exactly what I tell my clients. Again, I’m just trying to share with you for free what I get paid to share with others. Please know my heart is to reach people for Christ. I’m not pushing a consumer-focused church or trying to scratch itching ears. I’m one of those, like Perry Noble, that will do anything short of sin to see people come to Jesus – realizing that it’s the Holy Spirit that draws men and women unto Himself. I’m just referring to the part where we are partners of the Gospel and work with the Spirit to share Christ and reach out to our community.

Still not convinced you should be on Twitter? Tomorrow I will blog an updated or revised version of my “Digital Real Estate” plea. Stay tuned. In the meantime, how many of you have a Twitter account for your church? How many of you update it regularly? Are you conversational and not just a broadcast mechanism? Please share.

What Is SMO?

In last week’s blog post “An Introduction to Social Media Marketing”, I referred to SMO. (SMO) Social media optimization, sometimes known as social media marketing, is a branch of search engine optimization that isn’t as mainstream as it should be. Every business and church can benefit from some form of engagement with social media networks, but not every business (or church) does engage. In the very near future, any business ignoring SMO will do so to their severe detriment. This is why I do my social media marketing company (GTK Solutions) and something I help educate business owners about.

Here’s just a few of the functions an SMO campaign serves:

*Exposure. This is the main thing most businesses aim for when they engage in social media optimisation. Many companies let increased exposure remain as the limit of a campaign’s advantages. A little thought can make social media work harder for your website optimisation campaign.

*Customer service. As more of the average businesses can be contacted through social media than in any other forum, it makes sense to use social media networks as a kind of customer service line. The publicly viewable nature of social media communication means that positive customer interactions get your business some excellent coverage, although for the same reasons negative encounters are best taken offline.

*Brand and reputation management. One of the major changes social media has wrought upon the internet is the need for results in real time. This aspect of social media comes in as an advantage when your brand needs a little support. Businesses are using social media to respond to bad press in their own words, getting in before the media does too much damage.

*Media coverage. The social media can be used as your own little media network, without the trouble of bothering with journalists.

*** I hope you know that my heart is to educate, inform, train and equip you as Church leaders. Any mention to my company (GTK Solutions) in my blogs is just a passing reference to what I do during the day. Please know that my business is not geared to churches (they can’t afford it). I’m not writing this for any other purpose than to share for free what others pay me to tell them. My clients for GTK Solutions are businesses only.

However, I do offer consulting (not marketing) to churches and am passionate about teaching and equipping church leaders and pastors about social media. Let me know if you’d like to talk with me about consulting with your church or organization for SMO. I also include social media and online strategy in my report when I do a secret shopper for a church. If you have interest in that, go HERE for more details.

Social Media – It’s Not About ROI

I thought this was a great article/blog post by Michael R. Macias on that I came across on the Small Business Tech blog. This is what I try to get across to clients that I work with: social media marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Just like I said in my older blog post “Diving into Social Media” – you have to be in it for the long haul. Read what Michael had to say to business leaders:

Far too often in the business world the term return on investment (ROI) is used to justify actions or strategies. Though the term certainly has a place in the small business sector, it doesn’t fit everywhere. And there is one place it should never be used-social media. Imagine if all of us treated our “real” friends based on the concept of “ROI” like we do with our “virtual” ones. Chances are it would look a little something like this: “Today I hung out with Billy, but got nothing in return, so I won’t be doing that again, even if we’ve been friends for 20 years.” We’d all end up without any friends if we lived our lives that way. Well, the same rule should apply to any social media efforts your small business engages in. Using Facebook shouldn’t be about tracking ROI, or measuring the benefits of your friends.

Granted, there are metrics or insights, available to show you how effective your messages are, but that shouldn’t define your efforts. Social media is about more than just sales conversions or coupon deliveries…it’s really about relationships. Today’s consumers want to feel connected to a brand, and have a personal relationship with it. It’s about engaging people, inspiring them, motivating them, and encouraging them to appreciate your brand. When you decide to dive into social media, think about treating it exactly as you would a new friend. As you get to know them, and they get to know you, you start to like each other more, and the next thing you know, you are introducing each other to new people. I believe in the business world we refer to that as word of mouth marketing. So before you try to rate your “virtual” friends, or create a system to track their value, stop and think, “Would I do this to Billy?”

This was a guest post and thank you Michael for taking the time to write this great post. You can find out more about Michael and his business at his website www.insidethecube.com . An impressive website and it is worth taking the time visit. Also you can follow Michael and his business on twitter http://twitter.com/CreativeQube.

An Introduction To Social Media Marketing

Did you know I do social media marketing for businesses? I never really talk about my day job on here. I consult with churches from time to time and do secret shoppers at churches on weekends, but during the week I run a social media marketing company called GTK Solutions. The “GTK” is named after my three kids: Grace, Tommy and Katie. By the way, if you want to get social media and social media marketing tips and quotes and links to blogs that educate and inform, follow my company on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gtksolutions.

I consult and market for clients in the social media realm, dealing with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SMO (Social Media Optimization). I thought I’d do a couple of blogs on here that educate you on things like this and share with you what I share with my clients.

If I can help out doctors and businesses, you know I want to help out Church leaders. So what do I do with businesses? I first do a discovery meeting with the client to learn more about their business, their target (who they want to reach), their existing online presence and their goals. The discovery process and questions I ask are some of the following (these are things you need to think through in your situation):

GTK Solutions Discovery Questions

1.         Do you believe in what you do?

2.         Would you buy what you are selling?

3.         What social marketing are you currently doing? Even unintentional communication about your business.

4.         If I searched social media sites today what would I learn about your business?

5.         How do your customers use social media?

6.         What is your brand?

7.         What is your reputation among those you serve?

8.         What social media marketing seems to be working?

9.         What social media marketing seems to not be working? What will it take to stop this?

10.       Who is your target audience?

11.       What date are you thinking of going public with this new campaign?

12.       What goals do you hope to see met as a result of this social media campaign?

***  First, things first. If you’ve never read my blog post “Diving into Social Media” – stop and read that. It’s a great place to start. So before I start answering questions you’re not asking: What questions do you guys have about social media marketing and how it can benefit your church and boost your online presence? Of course, I’m assuming you’ve seen the Social Media Revolution video, know how important social media is, how many people can be reached by it and that you want to reach more people for Christ.

The Most Beautiful Churches in America

I’m going to list the most beautiful churches in the country. Are you ready? Follow me: If I said, “You have a beautiful church”, would you reply “Thanks. When did you visit our building?” or would you reply “Thanks. Who did you meet?”

It’s simple and subtle, but potentially dangerous. So often we refer to churches’ facilities or campuses and define that as a “church”, as if they’re synonymous. One of the reasons that I love church plants and those in portable facilities is that they don’t have to overcome this hurdle like churches with their own building.

We don’t go TO church. We ARE the church. If you want to see the most beautiful churches in America, you’ve got to spend some time with believers that are sold out to Jesus, filled with His love and grace, display the fruits of the Spirit and have a passion to serve their community.

While I’m thinking about it, read Dino Rizzo’s book Servolution – that’s a beautiful church. Each time I’ve visited a church that has a Dream Center, including the LA Dream Center led by pastor Matthew Barnett, I’ve seen a beautiful church. The ironic thing about this is churches with Dream Centers often are doing messy ministry and get their hands dirty; still, they are what I consider to be a beautiful church.

I remember years ago being at the Evangelism Conference at Willow Creek and hearing Bill Hybels share his heart and vision. What I left with is at the end of the day, it’s about people sharing their faith and life with other people. Please know I run a social media marketing company. I’m all for marketing and branding and using tools like social media, but when it comes down to it – people are the church and they, by their word of mouth, are used by God to grow a church and be salt and light in a dark world.

How can your church be a beautiful church? By making disciples and growing up people in their faith. Spiritually mature Christians are beautiful in their own way. They’ve had years to practice spiritual disciplines and give off the scent of Christ. New Christians are beautiful in their own way. Yes, they’re sometimes rough around the edges, but their passion and zeal is inspiring and their new found “first love” is a breath of fresh air.

I’m curious: If I came to your community, would I experience a beautiful church?

Love At Last Sight—30 Days to Grow and Deepen Your Closest Relationships

The New York Times best-selling authors of One Month to Live are back with another 30-day plan in Love At Last Sight: Thirty Days to Grow and Deepen Your Closest Relationships.

The new book by Senior Pastor Kerry Shook and Chris Shook, co-founders of Woodlands Church in The Woodlands, Texas, helps readers focus on their key relationships—spouse, children, close friends—with the aim of deepening each. Instead of what they call “love at first sight,” the authors are encouraging a “love at last sight” mentality.

With regard to marriage, Chris Shook said: “Love at first sight is the idea that you meet that one and fall in love and that’s it. As Kerry and I found out in our 26 years of marriage and in raising four children, we found that love is really what happens in the in-between times, what you do in the tough times and in the times when you aren’t filled with butterflies and roses and music.

“We want the last time that we see each other, we want us to be more in love than ever before,” Shook added. “Since that’s our goal, it means working on that every day.”

Readers are challenged “to think of three key relationships in your life—and it could be family members, friends, co-workers—and tell them they are important to you,” Shook said. “Find people in your life that mean a lot to you and then really focus on those three relationships during the first 30 days, and we hope that after that month, this will become a lifestyle, a ‘love at last sight’ lifestyle.”

The book divides the 30 days into four weeks and the four keys behind the “love at last sight” lifestyle: being all there, acting intentionally, risking awkwardness and letting go.

As with their previous book, Love At Last Sight can be used by an individual, group or whole church. Drumming up interest among churches, Shook said: “There are actually many churches who did a campaign for One Month to Live who have already expressed a lot of interest in doing this as well, so we will be launching and meeting a lot of churches this fall with churches across the country.”

As one part of the book’s launch, the Shooks are encouraging participation in a Facebook Fast on Aug. 25.

“We do feel like it’s really important to recognize that we’re becoming too dependent on social-networking sites to conduct everyday affairs of relating to each other, to the people we love,” Shook said. “So we are encouraging a national Facebook Fast where for a day you don’t go to social-networking sites and only use your computer for necessary things that day for work or school or whatever—not texting if possible, but calling people or seeing them face to face.”

To order the book, go HERE.

Where’s the Fruit?

Yesterday, I had about 6 hours of flight time as I traveled back from my trip to Salt Lake City, Utah. When I fly, I have time to think. I started thinking about the fruits of the Spirit and how they seem to be missing from some Christians that I deal with from time to time.

I thought back to the time I read the book The Spirit of the Disciplines. What impacted me about that book was I was brought up in the church to be trained how to react to tough situations. I was told to practice being gentle or to reflect on joy and one by one try to act out the fruits of the Spirit.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. - Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)

What dawned on me as I read that book many years ago is that the fruits of the Spirit are not to be drilled into us; rather they are what comes out of us naturally when we’re walking with Jesus. When you’re walking step in step with Christ and spending time in prayer and His Word, your natural reaction to troubles and trials are love and joy and peace and patience, etc. Get it?

Do I always display the fruits of the Spirit? No. Unfortunately, I go through dry spells in my walk and sometimes get too busy for the devotional time that I so desperately need and truly want. But, when I do get in the Word and spend time in prayer, I find myself more kind, more gentle, more self-controlled, etc.

My prayer for you, dear friend, is that you walk step in step with Christ, seek Him daily, pray continually and let the fruits of the Spirit be (naturally) evident in your life.

God Bless America

This blog post has been on my heart for quite some time. I don’t want to come across as negative or a party pooper, but I feel this is something we need to openly and honestly discuss. I started thinking about how blessed we are as a nation and how well we live compared to the rest of the world. I started to question if the average American takes that for granted and if we realize we’ve been blessed to bless others.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I was watching a comedian (I’m a big fan of comedy). In one of this comedian’s jokes he laughed about how in other countries they don’t have clean water and how here in the US we play in water. He went on to pretend he was at a water park and splashing around in water and going down a water slide. Something deep inside me hurt when he made his joke and I sobered up to the fact that we do play with our water.

When I go to Six Flags, I love the water rides. I stand on a bridge and get splashed. I felt sick thinking about washing my car and how I have taken having clean water available for granted for too long. I have blogged about clean water before – as you know, I’m passionate about social justice issues. I also supported a Twitter campaign to raise money to build wells in other countries. I was also on staff at a church that raised money to build wells.

All that to say, I’m no stranger to the facts, but to hear the comedian laughing about it really stung. It upset me and made me want to do something about it. If you’re wondering how serious this issue is, here are the cold, hard facts:

Almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean drinking water. Unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all disease and kill more people than all forms of violence, including war.

Want some more hard truth? In many countries, people wait in line for food. Here we wait in line for iPhones. Let that sink in. Again, my heart is not to be negative, but to speak the truth in love. I sincerely believe we have been blessed to bless others.

If you have safe, clean drinking water and you’re not waiting in line for food (which is probably all of you reading this), then what can we do to make a difference? I’ve decided to add a free ad for Charity: Water on my blog (over to the right). I encourage you to click on it, read more about them and support them. I’ve blogged about organizations I support on here before. Here are a quick few that you can get started with right away.

• Charity: Water
• Food for the Hungry
• World Vision – My wife and I have supported WV for 15 years.

What will you give? What can your church do? How can we make a difference? We MUST wrestle with this and not ignore this part of God’s creation. If you’re up for donating something to one of these organizations, please leave a comment. Your action may inspire someone else to act. Together we can make a difference.

Have You Checked Out MinistryFlix.com?

Top Christian media website, Evangelize.com, has rebranded it’s video download site as MinistryFlix.com. To celebrate this name change, the site is giving away brand new exclusive content each week throughout the summer, created by some of its top selling producers. Please know some of this content you can’t find anywhere else on the web!

The site offers thousands of short videos that give viewers an opportunity to hear about important themes. Videos tackle issues such as gossip, worship, relationships and forgiveness – all from a Christian perspective. Many of the videos feature stars from such hit television shows as “The Office,” “Community,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Glee,” “Saturday Night Live” and more.

The site’s founder, Tom Rice, says “We are constantly bombarded with stories and visual imagery that compete for our imagination and aim to influence the way we view our world. Our imaginations are often led to value what is contrary to God’s teaching. MinistryFlix.com thinks it’s time to reclaim our imaginations,” says Rice.

MinistryFlix.com believes that parables and imagery are just as influential today as they were when Jesus delivered his sermon on the mount. They have put together a vast resource of materials that they believe will help capture the imagination of their audience and lead them closer to Christ.

“People yearn to hear truth that will set them free. Your audience might be your church, your family or perhaps your friends who don’t know Jesus. They’re ready to listen,” says Rice. Rice wants people to view MinistryFlix.com as the top digital resource for offering the best in Christian media for church, small group or individual use. The downloadable videos range from inspirational videos, documentary testimonials, and comedies and often feature recognizable actors. The content on the site is produced through a partnership of top Christian media producers.

Don’t miss that last point – it separates MinistryFlix.com from most of it’s competitors. They screen and filter their videos and won’t put up just anybody. My problem with some companies is they have so much junk on their website that you have to search for hours to find anything usable. Only the top Christian media producers have been selected to be on MinistryFlix.com. It’s really a who’s who of Christian media resources. If you want to save yourself time, it’s worth you bookmarking them and checking them first when you’re looking for a video clip for your ministry.

In case you missed it in the opening paragraph: They’re giving away FREE videos every week. The new Deidox film is only on their site and available as a FREE download. At least go get your free video!

On the Plane Again

Today I leave for my good old hometown of Dallas, TX. I’ll be hanging out at the ECHO Conference for the next few days. If you’re going to be there, please find me and say “hello”. I’m looking forward to being back in a city that I love and getting to see several friends from around the country that are coming to the conference.

Friday, I’ll be leaving Dallas and flying to Salt Lake City, Utah to hang out for six days with my friend, Charles Hill (founder of The Sticks Conference). Charles is planting a church near Salt Lake City, Utah (which happens to be the most un-churched city in the US) and I’ll get to attend his second preview service this Sunday. I can’t wait to share with you all what God shows me from my time with Charles.

As you know, I have a big heart for church planters and church plants in general. I love all church planters, regardless of where they plant, but I’m very passionate about hard to reach and unchurched areas like the Northeast, Pacific Northwest and where I’m going to be in Utah.

I’m also praying through some big decisions these days and would appreciate your prayers, as I believe God is leading me to start a church planting movement. I’ll be blogging more about the vision of this movement in the near future, but for now – please just pray for me. I feel God is up to something and stirring something inside of me and I feel my time with Charles in Utah is going to mess me up (for good)!

Can you believe it’s almost August?