#ThatCC 2018: Day 2 Notes

Robert Carnes

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The Brain Share

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7 min read

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Sep 26, 2018

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NONA JONES: From Social Media to Social Ministry

• Works as Facebook’s representative for churches and communities of faith
• “God rewards your obedience. He will meet you where you are in your faith.”
• Wrote the book: From Social Media to Social Ministry

Church online

• 246 million people who say their Christians in the US. 350,000 local churches in the US.
• 40% of Americans report attending church weekly. Actual weekly church attendance is 20%.
• Over 30,000 searches for “church online” on Google.
• 74% people in organized religions found it meaningful, but only 2% of of the 200 million Facebook groups are faith-based.
• When the church become a program to watch instead of a people to be?
• Is church an event for a few hours per week, or a way of life during the entire week?

What comes next?

• People see verification as a sign of notoriety and legitimacy.
• It doesn’t how many people follow our church on social media, but how many follow Jesus through us.
• If someone followed Jesus because of us, what would we do next?
• Inviting them to attend church is not enough of a next step.
• True ministry happens in community

Start a revolution

• A revolution is a change of how we think about or do something.
• How can we leverage social media to build God’s kingdom?
• God wants to change the paradigm of how we view social media & the church.
• If church only happens in a building, we’re missing 80% of the people.
• We’ve been commanded to make disciples of all nations, and social media is in all nations.
• Jesus didn’t preach in a temple. He spent time among people.
• We need to equip people to make disciples — and social media allows us to do that for free.

Online discipleship

• Social media is about marketing. Social ministry is about discipleship.
• Build a world of disciples through digital communities.
• Every church in the world should have an online campus where they can be discipled.
• Discipleship happens in community and with relationship.
• Move beyond content about your ministry to making disciples through your ministry.
• Facebook developing social learning units for online education
• Group mentorship: develop 1-to-1 connections between group members

KATIE VOGEL: Digitizing Word of Mouth Marketing

Growing the church

• Healthy things grow. It takes work to stay healthy.
• Plants outgrow their pots. So you have to replant them to give them more space.
• Culture and technology is constantly growing, so we have to be willing to expand.
• The church is stubborn about not changing our beliefs. So it takes work to convince our leaders to allow us to grow with technology.
• Develop a culture that is comfortable with growth and change.

Word of mouth

• Social media gives us the opportunity to make word of mouth digital.
• Average American will spend 5 years of their life on social media.
• We have to be where people are.
• Opportunities online: give testimony, have a conversation, make an invitation.
• Online that person has an immediate opportunity to connect with the church.
• They also have direct access to the church staff to ask questions.

Speak to needs

• It’s crucial that we care about people. Empathy is everything.
• Social media is an opportunity to learn and help the needs of real people.
• Start by analyzing what people need. Then move to how we can help.
• Humor has the opportunity to lift the spirit in moments when it’s darkest.

• Customize your content to the felt needs of your audience
• Everybody is going through something. People like knowing that you see them.

Resource your social media team

• Church communicators aren’t selling a product. We’re just trying to help people.
• Make thoughtfulness your social media strategy.
• We have to expand how we think about communications to let more people in.
• Sunday services are important, but we can reach even more people online.
• Print marketing is losing its effectiveness. How much are you spending on it?
• Print marketing cannot compare to social ads in terms of effectiveness.
• Social media is a creative ministry. Give it the access to allow it to succeed.
• Your social media manager is your champion for your church’s vision online.

MEI LING STARKEY: Mastering Public Relations for the Church

The power of story

• You have stories in your church and they need to be shared with your community.
• Stories have the power to impact the church and the people who will never attend.
• Proactive PR helps minimize the effects of negative (reactive) PR.
• The best part of public relations is that it’s free. Paid advertising is expensive.

Tell your story

• What events, ministries, and life changes will resonate with people outside the church?
• What were stories from the past that were well received? What did people like about it?
• Pitch these successful stories to the local media.
• What other topics and events on a wider scale can your church lend your voice to?

Writing tips

• Develop an editorial calendar — look at what major events are coming up.
• Write a media alert or press release — look up a template online.
  If you write a good press release, most media outlets will use it verbatim. They’re busy.
• Write an eye-catching headline — use action verbs & descriptive words to stand out.
• Avoid overly spiritual language — write stuff average people understand.
• Get quotes from people outside of the organization.
• Have someone else proofread and edit what you write.
• Have a non-believer read your releases to ensure it avoids jargon.

Develop media relationships

• Do an audit of your church attendees — some might be in the media.
• Set-up coffee or lunch with local journalists.
• Have honest dialogue with them.
• Ask journalists how you can help them.
• Offer to contribute content to their media platform.
• If you have media relationships, they’ll come to you first when a crisis hits.

Pitching a story

• Baseball pitchers pitch their pitch. You should do the same with the stories you pitch. Not every story is worth pitching.
• What is the audience going to get from the community?
• Is there something already like this being done? How can you be unique?
• Develop a timeline so that you can work 6–8 weeks in advance.
• Follow up regularly, just shy of stalking.

Build a team of reporters

• Ask what church volunteers would be interested in helping with media relations.
  There are people who are waiting to be asked how they can help.
• Don’t limit these people — empower them to be reporters and photographers.
• Build relationships with bloggers and micro influencers in the community.
• Organize events that reach out to these online media platforms.
• Allow them to amplify your stories through social media.
• Do internal PR to get your church on the same page.

PHIL BOWDLE: Rethinking Communications in the Church

People aren’t listening

• The inflight announcements are a boring routine — until an emergency happens.
• Vital information is communicated, but people aren’t listening.
• The church doesn’t have a message problem. We have a message delivery problem.
• The good news is that’s it’s easier than ever to communicate.
• The bad news is that it’s harder than ever to cut through the noise.

Rethink communication

• Communication impacts everything that a church does.
• Getting ready to release a book called Rethink Communication
• What do we do with all of the content that we’ve got? What now?
• The average church hasn’t changed how we communicate in the last 30 years. But the average person the church is trying to reach has changed.
• We have new tools to use, but we haven’t changed the philosophy how we approach them.
• We communicate what we want from people, not what we want for people.

Attendance is changing

• Weekly attendance is declining, but the people who call you church home might increase.
• People are only attending church once every 5–6 weeks.
• What if you only had 8–10 times/year to speak to attendees in person?
• Attendance shouldn’t be our key metric. Discipleship is the key metric.
• If they’re attending less frequently, how do we engage them?
• Best engagement tools used to be in the church. Now, it’s online.
• Our communication strategy must be physical + digital. A combination.

Pay attention

• Our attention span is decreasing. It’s only 8 seconds.
• Attention can never be assumed. It must be earned.
• More than ever, church leaders are realizing something has to change.
• Change is never easy, but it’s worth it for what’s at stake.
• We win when we put Jesus on display for what we do.

Ministry shift

• We have to rethink communications as a ministry, not a service department.
• It makes the job overwhelming and often leads to burnout.
• The creative team gets to preach to more people than the lead pastor.
• Service is still a part of what you do — partner with other ministries.
• Use the talents and resources that you have to empower other ministries.

What does it take from you?

• #1: Don’t just do — lead. Move beyond the to-do list.
• Leadership is not being the quarterback. Leadership is being the lead blocker.
• Make sure you’ve got the back of other staff and volunteers.
• Creating a content calendar provides clarity for where you are.
• #2: Dream outside of the box. We feel stuck with our existing strategy.
• Create margin for yourself to dream about things no one else is asking for.
• #3: Learn the art of pitching your ideas. It takes practice.
• Who is your audience? What are you trying to accomplish? What problem will this solve?

Put Jesus on Display

• #4: Keep it simple — put Jesus on display.
• No matter what our role is, we can all elevate Jesus through what we do.
• If we lift him up, it allows him to work through what we do.
• It’s easy to get discouraged that no one understands what we do.