Let's discuss how churches can communicate well using websites, social media, and other tools.
Gail
Ken
Staci
Jodi
Church
Using social media well is more than setting up an account and pushing out information about yourself or organization. By nature it’s relational. Whether you’re new to social media, or someone who’s been doing it for years, here are five things to consider that could make your online relationships stronger.
Visiting your website should feel like stepping onto your church’s physical property. This is especially true when you’re thinking about catering to a first time visitor.
In upcoming weeks, Facebook will roll out a redesigned, less cluttered News Feed to users, and there are some things your church needs to think about to be ready. While it’s hard to know exactly how the modifications will affect how you administer your Facebook page, here are a few things to consider.
Twitter may not be the biggest social media platform, but it’s growing. Its short-form, 140-character style of posting makes it a unique arena to quickly communicate with your followers. If your church is thinking about tweeting, here are a few things to consider as you get started.
There is an art to creating a social media page. You have header images to make, background pictures to add and content to create before you can even start sharing. Here's a free guide to help you figure out the sizing of all those different images so you can get the most out of your various social media sites.
It's getting increasingly difficult to reach your fans if you're not in tune with how Facebook works. We'll take a look at recent changes and share some best practices for getting the most out of Facebook.
Last week, Facebook gave a preview of its new search feature that looks for answers by exploring your Facebook experience as well as what your friends have shared. While Google searches the entire web, Facebook Graph Search gives you results based solely on your Facebook social life. It’s personalizing search.
We may be doing everything right in terms of good communication, great Sunday worship and connecting people with the community, yet personal preference may keep someone from making a first (or return) visit to your church. It’s the classic relationship line, “It’s not you, it’s me.” So if we know that people’s preferences play a role in determining where they go to church, there are a few things I think we should always keep in mind ...
Building and maintaining good, useable websites are a struggle for churches of all sizes. Large and small alike have websites that don’t accurately represent who they are and don’t help people better connect with their church. There are many reasons why websites don’t reach their potential, but here are three things I think churches commonly underestimate about the web.
Managing a Facebook page has become a frustratingly depressing task for many. But like many things we do, managing a Facebook page isn’t easy. You have to look at how all the features of Facebook work together and also understand the realities of how Facebook fits into your overall communication strategy.
Are you familiar with the concept of responsive web design? If not, then it may be time to learn a little bit about it. Responsive web design is a new way of building websites that eliminates the need to think about a separate mobile version of your website for each of a variety of platforms. Instead, you spend time designing one site that works on any platform: desktops, tablets or smartphones.
There's a great PBS short video that explored the art of web design. It’s not only a brief look at the history of where the web’s been, but also a guide to what’s happening now. As I watched, nine greats points emerged that I think are useful for both web design veterans and newbies.
We often talk about the importance of a website acting as your church’s front door. It’s a way to make a good first impression about who you are and what you believe. Yet often times our websites are full of barriers that keep people from fully being a part of our congregations.
It’s tempting to link all of your social media accounts together. If you post something to Facebook, it’s simple to have it automatically feed to Twitter. While linking accounts may feel like a way to simplify your work flow, I would argue it’s weakening the community and impact of your social media accounts.
One of the biggest changes Facebook has made in recent memory is the switch to Timeline. With that came the ability to upload a cover photo that displays across the top of your Facebook Page. This large, central picture is sure to make a strong first impression to your Facebook friends. Yet, some churches aren’t utilizing that space the best they can.
Hopefully we realize church websites have a growing role in leading visitors to our church while also helping our congregations better connect with their church community. Some new statistics on church websites show how people are using them and what they expect to find.
Church Juice, a project of Back to God Ministries, is giving away two $2,000 grants to churches that have great vision for effectively using communications tools to reach their congregations and surrounding communities. We know communications can be the thankless job in a church. So we want to stand up and say “You’re doing an awesome job! Now, here’s some cash for your next great idea.”
Pictures tell stories in a way words alone cannot. Pictures on websites are important and I think they’ll become even more predominant in the future. As I paged through websites, there were a few things I noticed about the images churches decide to use. And there are a few common themes...
Internet hackers are finding church websites to be easy targets for installing viruses and malware. In fact, church websites have unseated pornographic sites as one of the riskiest places for the safety of your computer. Web users are three times more likely to encounter malware on a church website than an adult site.
Creating website wireframes is the step we skip far too often when designing a new website. It’s easy to get excited about picking colors, style and a fancy new look, but it can be hard to get passionate about a bunch of empty black and white boxes on a sheet of paper. But wireframing may be the most important step ...
Churches are increasingly investing more time into social media. It can be a great way to connect with members, regular attenders and new folks in a place where people are already hanging out. Whether you’re just getting started in social media or have been at it for awhile, here are three tips for avoiding a few common mistakes.
For many, spring is a time of motivation. The changing of the seasons get people excited to do new things or clean up old stuff. So why not give a little seasonal makeover to your church’s website? Here are three things you could do to spruce up your website to make it more effective.
For those of us involved in working on web stuff for our churches, I think we often times forget about the importance of good writing. Yet without solid writing, lots of the other work you do becomes less effective.
In the church world, there are lots of things we do for the sake of communicating with first-time visitors. We add snazzy “I’m New Here” buttons to our website. We create slick brochures as part of a welcome packet. Now there’s one more thing to add to the list: Facebook Timeline.
As Easter is quickly approaching, it’s time to make sure you’re equipping your members with ways to share your church.