Categories
Social Media

7 Simple Ways to Improve Your Live Video on Social Media

With many work positions moving online, and recent recognition that online can be much more efficient for so many things that we thought HAD to be in person, a lot of businesses, churches, and organizations are growing to realize the importance of connecting with their social media followers online.

While I would emphasize the importance of getting it done rather than getting it perfect (now is not the time for perfectionism – never is), is it true that increasing the quality of your video to a minimum standard does result in longer viewing time and more engagement (likes, comments, and shares).

Here are 7 ways to improve your next live video on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram or Twitter

Be in a quiet space

Man doing live video on phoneThis may seem obvious, but it’s increasingly difficult from home. Sometimes your co-workers (ie. kids and pets) can’t just move to another space or know how to keep it down while you’re making a live video from the kitchen table.

Trying to address your audience while the dog barks in the background or your kids ask you to put new batteries in their favorite toy siren is just plain distracting, making your viewers switch away or keep scrolling.

It’s not always possible to be in a silent space (if an ambulance drives by with sirens, there’s nothing you can do about that), but be intentional about going live during your kids nap time, while on a walk, in the evening after bedtime, or in your own space.

The less obvious distractions are fans, vents, or wind noise if you’re outside. As much as possible, get into a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed and you can focus on connecting with people watching your video.

 

Use a microphone

This doesn’t mean you have to jump on Amazon and wait a few weeks before your mic arrives. Using the headset that came in the box with your phone or Bluetooth headphones with a built-in mic can reduce the ambient noise around you and make your voice clearer.

Your goal is not to sound like a radio announcer but to bring clarity to your voice so viewers can understand what you’re saying without distraction.

 

Lighting

No shame: I’ve gone live from the kitchen with a table lamp behind my laptop with the shade off. Don’t hurt your eyes stating into a 100-watt bulb (the squinting won’t translate well on video anyway) but be in a room with ambient light from the sun, open the curtains if the window is beside you or in front of you, and turn on ALL of the lights in the room as long as they’re not behind you.

Be sure light sources are in front of you, not behind you. Light sources behind you (like open windows or lamps) will cause your camera to adjust to the brightness from the window and turn you into a silhouette.

In these 2 shots below from the webcam built into my laptop, the only difference is that the patio door’s blinds are open on the left and closed on the right. The room lighting is the same in both cases.

On the left, the camera adjusts to the brightest point on the screen (the sun outside) and on the right, it adjusts to the brightest point (probably my forehead glare?)

Side note: I haven’t shaved for a few days… I’ll get that done once I’m done this blog post…

 

Ask for engagement

Every 4-5 minutes of your video, ask for engagement from your viewers. Engagement drives the organic reach of your post so more people will have a chance to see your video. Ask your viewers to like your post, or ask them a question so they can respond in the comments.

Good starter questions could be:

  • Leave a comment to let me know where you’re watching from today
  • I’m here enjoying my morning coffee. I take mine black. Leave a comment about how you like your coffee!
  • An A/B question that has 2 options: We’re talking about getting up early or staying up late. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Tell us in the comments.


Starter questions are purely meant to drive engagement. Don’t start out with something controversial or in-depth – just a simple question that’s easy to answer.

The longer the video, the more times you’ll want to ask for engagement. Some people will tune in late. Some people will watch later in the day, and some people will be happy to respond multiple times during your broadcast, so ask an engagement question at the beginning, and at the end, and every 4-5 minutes in the middle.

Middle engagement questions would be open-ended questions about your topic:

  • Do you have a question about our organization or service?
  • What would you like to see change with this topic moving forward?
  • How can we better serve you in this area?

 

Ending engagement questions could be about the next broadcast:

  • Next time we’re talking about that topic. What questions can we answer for you?

 

Respond to engagement as it’s happening

When someone responds to your question, read it out during the broadcast and respond back. Ask them a follow-up question. Answer a question they put in the comments about your topic. Create a conversation in your video with the comments rather than just a monologue.

 

Aim for longer than 10 minutes

In this article from VidYard, they notice that it takes at least 10 minutes for your online viewers to find out you’re doing a live video:

Don’t draw our a 60-second announcement to 10 minutes to hit this metric, but instead of 2 or 3 videos at 4 minutes each, for example, go longer on a single video with multiple topics.

 

Go live with someone else

For me, going live is about connection and conversation. Also, knowing that we want to hit a metric of 10 minutes in a best-case scenario, having a partner can really help the conversation feel more like a conversation, and less like a monologue for 10 minutes.

It’s also helpful if one person is ‘interviewing’ the other – asking questions, watching comments for more questions, and introducing the topic.

My personal favorite tool for this is Be.Live because there is no software to download so it’s always ready to go, you can ‘produce’ on the fly (meaning switching from shared screen to full-screen of you or your guest) and you can see comments in real-time and put them up on the screen like a lower third.

You can also add subtitles (like your website address) and now media to show during your broadcast.

 

Have an idea about going live on Social Media that didn’t make this list? Share it below so we can learn together:

 

 

 

Categories
Marketing Social Media

Your church’s social media strategy is confusing your community

The 2 categories of your church’s social media content:

We’re past the point of needing to have a discussion about the value of using Social Media to reach your community. Hey, if your church is still having that discussion, that’s cool, but most of us are on social media so much that we’re using it like skip button on our PVR.

For most of us, it would be like discussing whether or not to have the name of your church on your building or signage outside your portable church to let people know where to find you. Social Media has become second nature to most of us, and with the simplicity of setting up an managing an account, it should be taken for granted that your church is using Social Media to connect and engage with people in your community.

That being said, we’re now moving into a world where Social Media is getting noisy – there are facebook ads, pop-ups, event reminders, notification, friend request, DMs and way more than I can handle listing here, so like social media has evolved, your strategy around social media has to evolve as well.

There are 2 categories to consider when posting on your church’s social media accounts.

Internal or External:

Think of a big brand – Apple, Starbucks, Nike, Hilton, Disney – imagine they used Facebook on Tuesday to let their customers know about a new product, then used their facebook page on Wednesday to remind their staff that there’s a mandatory staff meeting on Monday morning.

Whatever engagement they garnered from their new product promotion would be crushed by very few people in their followers finding any value in a reminder about a staff meeting on Monday.

Consider your church members like the front line of your church making it all happen –  the cashiers, shelf stockers, maintenance, customer service, guest relations, chefs in the kitchen.

Too many times when I’m stalking a church’s social media channel (side note: Yes, I do this in my spare time) I see an all-too-familiar mix of internal memos and external promotions which is taking your audience on a confusing roller coaster of “Cool, I’ll like and share this” to “What does that have to do with me?”

I’ve been guilty of this myself, both in business and with churches I’ve worked with. It’s possible for all of us to fall into this trap.

Ultimately, too many posts that are irrelevant to the end-user is going to cause them to unfollow your account – Maybe not the first or second time, but eventually seeing what could be considered “ads” for irrelevant products is going to find it’s limit.

The litmus test for internal and external content:

If I don’t yet go to your church, do I care or could it affect me?

Pretty simple: If I know nothing about your church, other than it’s in the same city as me, do I care about what you’re going to post.

We have to move away from using our facebook page, twitter account, snap chat and Instagram (or whatever else you’re on this week) to communicate things to our church members and focus that content on content for our community to engage with.

 

Men’s Breakfast Invitation: External. We need people to bring eggs to the Men’s breakfast: Internal.

Family circus day: External. We need someone to work in the nursery this Sunday since our teacher is sick: Internal.

Here is a sermon clip with some tips from Pastor Bob on parenting: External. In future services, we’re asking parents to please take your kids to the foyer to watch service if they’re causing a distraction: Internal.

We’re looking for community volunteers to help with our Christmas Dinner for our city. External. Sister so and so just got home from the hospital. Click this link to volunteer to bring her a meal. Internal.

Just imagine for a second a billboard in a city that says “Mary is sick this weekend. Please call the office if you know someone who can fill in the nursery on Sunday.”

 

BUT, what about the children?!

Ok, maybe not “the children” but what about the people in our church? This is the pushback I get all the time as if your facebook page is the only way to communicate with your church during the week.

(side note: if announcements are the “Holy Grail” of communication at church, then a social media post is perceived as the “Holy Grail” during the week.)

 

Tools that are perfect for internal communication:

  • Email Newsletter segmented to specific audiences (ie. men/women, parents of kids/parents of youth, singles, young married couples, middle-aged couples, retired couples – you get the idea. Many people will fall into more than one category).
  • Facebook Group – Build facebook groups for your small groups, or demographics of people at your church, or areas of the city where they live, etc. Groups are perfect for connecting and having conversations, plus great for mentioning a need or encouraging an internal effort without promoting it to your community audience.
  • Text message services, like Text In Church, allow you to build multiple segmented lists so you can get the right information to the right people. Text beats out an email for urgent needs, or reminders (ie. Thanks for volunteering to help at the family fun day tomorrow. Setup starts at 4 pm! See you there!)
  • Provide a 2-3 sentence announcement for your small group leaders to announce to their groups. Be sure the information matches the people represented in the small group.

 

Internal Communication goal: Right information to the right people at the right time.

Forget telling your retired couples about the singles night, or your young parents about youth retreat, or your campus 1 families about a campus 2 event in another town. Get the right information to the right people at the right time – including information you provide to your community.

 

To sum it up; Tools for Internal or External communication

Internal

  • Email
  • Text
  • Facebook Groups
  • Small-Group Leaders
  • Service Announcements
  • Bulletin
  • Signage in your church

 

External

  • Social Media pages
  • Website
  • External Advertising – billboards, radio ads, mailers

 

How have you seen this working for your church? Leave a comment below so we can all learn together!

 

 

 

Categories
Advertising Social Media

Your Church’s Biggest Missed Opportunity on Social Media

More and more, our churches are looking for strategies to cut through the noise of Social Media (and life in general) and reach our community. We know that a large part of our community using Social Media, and so it stands to reason that this is a practical way that we can take the hope of Jesus to them.

The question remains: How?

We’ve made great strides on Social Media in the last few years. Many (hopefully most) churches recognize it’s importance in their communications and outreach strategy (compared to 5 years ago for instance when churches were having discussions about whether or not to have a Facebook presence).

Now a social media presence is understood as a necessity. We’ve moved from conversations about whether or not to have social media accounts, and moved toward asking the question:

 

What do we post on our Social Media accounts to be most effective?

There are 2 concepts when it comes to social media: Content and Format.

Content is WHAT we post and format is HOW we post it, so follow my thought process here for a moment to realize that the intersection of engaging content and engaging format is a sweet spot for Social Media.

How can we be effective? We’re going to give our community the content they’re looking for in their preferred format.

Great content without a great format: Imagine your favorite dessert (warm cherry pie with vanilla ice cream – just for example) and then serve it on a dirty plate. You’re serving content someone wants, but in a format that would make them turn the other way.

Great format without great content: Imagine a perfectly clean plate with a beautiful dessert that you put in salt instead of sugar, and the first bite is repelling. Your format is great, but your content isn’t enjoyable.

NOW, what if we could serve a delicious warm cherry pie with vanilla ice cream, beautifully set on a perfectly clean plate. Bingo.

 

The question is where is that intersection. We’ll look at content and format individually, then talk about where they intersect.

 

What type of CONTENT is our community looking for?

“About half of U.S. adults have looked for a new religious congregation at some point in their lives, most commonly because they have moved. And when they search for a new house of worship, a new Pew Research Center study shows, Americans look first and foremost for a place where they like the preaching and the tone set by the congregation’s leaders.”

This is from a Pew Research article here (from 2016) that later goes on to say that those numbers are 83% of people are considering the quality of the sermons and 79% are looking to feel welcomed by, and a connection to the leaders.

In this Pew Research article, (also 2016) it shows that the younger someone’s age group, the more connected they are to the quality of sermons – Quality of sermons matters to 77% of ages 65 and older, but matters 87% to ages 18-29, and both age groups are highly interested in feeling welcomed by leaders.

Younger people are also more likely to take a recommendation from a friend or family member about their church – a recommendation like a shared post on Social media, perhaps?

An overwhelming majority of people want to find a connection to the leader – through the quality of their sermons and feeling welcomed by their leaders.

The people who are looking for a church like yours want to experience your sermon and get to know your leaders: These are both key factors in their decision about where to go to church.

It’s also a growing trend that people are checking out your church’s website and social media channels to aid in their decision about visiting.

We can help in someone’s decision by featuring our leaders and sermons on Social Media to help people get to know our leaders and hear their sermons to build a level of comfort and trust before visiting.

Answer: Sermons are the type of content our community is looking for!

 

Which FORMAT is most engaging on Social Media?

You probably don’t even need to keep reading to recognize that the answer is VIDEO, but for fun, let’s drive it home like a rental car.

Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and image content combined.

By posting video, you’re more likely to have people in your church sharing and posting with their friends – and a recommendation from friends or family is a key reason people will check out a church.

That, and 54 other stats about social media video come from this article from Biteable: Here are a few more:

 

  • 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than TV.
  • By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017.
  • 78% of people watch online videos every week, and 55% view online videos every day.
  • 59% of executives say they would rather watch a video than read text.
  • Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text.
  • Social media posts with video have 48% more views.

 

Good News For Churches: The intersection is SERMON VIDEOS!

The good news for churches is that the intersection for us between content and format is SERMON VIDEOS – a content and format combination that many of us are already creating, but underutilizing on Social Media.

How to make the most of your sermon videos on Social Media:

Now that we know where the intersection is, here are a few tips to maximize your impact.

  1. Post sermon clips with links rather than full-length messages. Maybe your Pastor’s sweet spot is in the middle of the message from last week, or maybe there’s a great story that clipped away from a Christmas Message is actually a great lesson to be learned year-round. Create clips to help people cut to the meat, really learn what a sermon is like at your church, and create an “evergreen” or “year-round” content library that you can pull from.
  2. The sweet spot for videos is around 60-90 seconds. People will watch longer sometimes, but this is where most engagement happens according to Animoto. 
  3. Post sermon clips that aren’t just teaching, but also stories that help people make a personal connection to your leaders. This could be a story from your pastor’s sermon about their life growing up, a recent conversation with their kids, a friend that came to Jesus, or a funny joke that really shows off his or her personality.
  4. Format the clips for each Social Media channel specifically. Instagram timeline is best suited to a square video and has a max running time of 60 seconds. Instagram Stories are vertical video and are cut into 15-second clips. Facebook allows for a longer format and is best in widescreen, so if someone wants to, they can turn their phone sideways and the video fills their screen.
  5. Add Subtitles: 95% of users watch video on mute. Think about when you’re lying in bed, hanging out in the break room scrolling social media, at the doctor’s office or “indisposed.” While your Pastor may be a very expressive communicator, someone waving their hands on stage isn’t enough for viewers to get the message or stick around for 3 minutes. Use a service like Rev.com to have your videos transcribed for $1/minute, then they’ll send you a file that you upload with your facebook video so a users sees the captions if they’re muted, and the captions go away if they turn on the audio.
  6. Be consistent. Using a video strategy one week and not the next will just take your facebook reach on a rollercoaster of ups and downs. The best strategy is to pick a regular quantity of videos and stick with it.

 

Sermon Video Clips are the intersection of content and format for your church’s Social Media strategy to reach your community!

 

I’ve created a service that will help your church with editing and repurposing your sermon clips. Each week you’ll receive:

3 – FACEBOOK CLIPS (UP TO 5:00)

3 – INSTAGRAM FEED CLIPS (UP TO 1:00)

4 – INSTAGRAM STORIES (0:15 EACH)

1 -IGTV CLIP (UP TO 5:00)

Categories
Build a Team Marketing Social Media Tools

Dear Pastor, Your Communications Department is Overwhelmed

Dear Pastor,

Whether your key communications and marketing person is staff or volunteer, you’ve probably run into hearing that he or she is overwhelmed from time to time.

You need to know that it’s not unusual for the position, not always something they are doing wrong, and not something that can be fixed overnight (or debatably, not something that can ever be permanently resolved).

(I also wrote this blog post to help Communications Teams avoid using “overwhelm” as an excuse.)

There are some strategies that you can implement to help them address feeling overwhelmed and reduce the likeliness of it recurring.

My goal is not to defend or justify laziness, disorganization or an entitlement mentality. My goal is to give you a peek into our world – a world we can’t always articulate – with some practical tools to help so your communications department can reduce the likelihood of being overwhelmed and be as effective as possible in helping your church introduce your community to Jesus.

My hope is that this article will help start conversations between communications teams and their leaders. If you need help having what may seem like a difficult conversation, I would recommend reading the 5 dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lencioni, and Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute.

 

Why is feeling ‘Overwhelmed’ affecting your church communications department?

Before we dig into strategies to mitigate and address overwhelming situations, I wanted to dig in a bit about why they affect the communications department specifically. I know these details are different for every church, community, and culture, but generally speaking, here are some of the ideas that affect most churches.

Consideration 1) Vertical: The Communication Leader is Middle Management

The communications department is somewhere in middle management in the organization’s structure. Usually, the communications person is not the lead Pastor, and often they have someone working under them that they oversee – whether this is a graphic design contractor like Church Media Squad, or working with external software and teams like Text In Church, or a volunteer team on-site at your church.

While not making the decision, or sometimes getting input into decisions, the Church Communications person represents the decision as if it’s their own and communicates on behalf of the leadership and the church (internally or externally).

This can be taxing when we have an idea of how to best communicate something, which channel to use, or how to position an announcement, but we’re considered robots – following directions about how, when and where from someone who may not understand our tools – rather than considering us creative people who specialize understanding our tools and presenting ideas in a unique way.

Consideration 2) Horizontal: We primarily serve other departments.

Some leaders are in a solely-focussed role, while other leaders who are wearing a few hats may have to work in 2 or 3 categories. Your communications person needs to have their ears to the ground in almost every category, event and department at your church.

For example, the youth leader has a full plate getting youth services ready, preparing games, food, missions trips, weekends away, counseling students, communicating with parents and executing midweek services or small groups. While the responsibilities are diverse, all of those items fall in the category of the youth department.

A week in a communication person’s world may look like:

  • When is VBS?
  • How many new small groups are we adding this year?
  • What is our Social Media strategy leading up to Back to School / Back to Church?
  • Did the printer quit partway through printing the bulletins?
  • What are we including in announcements this weekend?
  • Did we get that email sent out about the food drive coming up this weekend?
  • Where did last week’s volunteer photographer leave the battery when they were done?
  • Is it time for us to rebuild the website? Kids ministry pictures are outdated.
  • Should our church get an app?
  • Oh, there’s a text message from the 70’s and over married couples skydiving small group asking why they aren’t getting an announcement during service this weekend!
  • Why aren’t we getting as many new likes on facebook this month as we got last month?
  • I need to get a quote from the printer on new banners for our parking lot.
  • Which graphic would best suit the upcoming series?

my way or the highway signWe often have to make decisions that are going to lead to some amount of disappointment in other departments:

  • We’re announcing this but not that (one person is happy and another is not.)
  • We only have one spot to hang a banner, so we’re hanging this banner up, but not that one (one department gets promoted, and another isn’t).
  • We’re not going to promote small groups in that way (now a whole group of people is disappointed because they wanted their small group to get an announcement, bulletin mention, yard signs, billboard, radio ad, a personal Instagram video from Pastor, and a parade downtown are all upset that you “don’t value their group as much as they do”)

Consideration 3) How long does that really take?

In addition to having both Vertical and Horizontal responsibilities, our “to do” list is often misunderstood or misrepresented. The question of “How long does that really take?” is an important part of the ongoing conversation that you can have with your team.

With the perception that “Posting on facebook is as quick as sending a text message” or “Creating a 2-minute video is hitting record on your phone and recording for 2 minutes,” or  “I write a 3 paragraph email in 10 minutes, so writing a 3 paragraph email newsletter should only take 10 minutes,” or “Just send the bulletin to the printer and pick it up when it’s done in an hour.” (I could go on…)

In light of those perceptions, the ACTUAL time it takes to craft a Facebook post, or shoot an announcement video or write an email newsletter may seem too long and can create a sense that the communications person is unproductive or needs more on their plate to fill their work hours.

Did it really take you 20 minutes to edit a photo and create a 1-sentence caption for Instagram? Did it really take a whole afternoon to film and edit a 4-minute announcement video? You’ve been working on that email newsletter for how long?!

Keep in mind that a 40-minute sermon may take you days to craft at times, and other times, could literally take only 40 minutes, and many care and counselling roles at churches are driven by meetings: a 1-hour meeting takes one hour. A 15-minute meeting takes 15 minutes. Surprises and overruns don’t happen often when you have back-to-back meetings – you can simply schedule another meeting if needed for a future date.

The same isn’t true when creativity and technology meet at a crossroads.

While we have tools that make us more efficient, creatives often use the tools to do better work, not faster work – we may use a tool that gives us a better final outcome, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we spend less time picking a color, or choosing our words, or adding in final touches to a video.

Consideration 4) How much energy does that take?

It’s not uncommon for a creative person to be exhausted by 2 pm or 3 pm.

Sometimes we’re night owls, so our best ideas (and best work) happen late at night. It’s possible we were up until 3 am night working on graphics for church this weekend, then at the office at 9 am the next day for a staff meeting.

Maybe it’s that we’re morning people, so we’re able to knock out a creative video in an hour at 9 am, but that level of energy is going to leave us unable to put together a perfect tagline for the next series at 3 pm.

Inversely, someone who is a night owl who has a flex-schedule may work until 2 am, get into the office at 11 am and have some of their most productive time mid-afternoon with a great project to show from the night before.

Being “less productive” from mid-afternoon until the end of the day isn’t always a symptom of laziness (although, let’s be clear that sometimes it may), but it may be a symptom that we’ve given our best for the organization at other times through the day, and we need to recharge.

Just because something took 1 hour this morning, doesn’t mean we can turn around and repeat it in 1 hour this afternoon.

Consider a creative day like a boxing match. A punch is a punch, but that doesn’t mean that round 5 has the same level of sustained energy as round 1.

I’ve heard from many Pastors that they are exhausted after preaching for an hour on Sunday. It would be ridiculous to assume that one hour of replying to emails on Monday might take the same energy as presenting a one hour message on Sunday. The same is true for someone who is spending their creative energy.

The same thing may be true early in the week compared to later in the week. It’s different for every person, but there has to be some flex built into the schedule for considerations about “How much energy does that take?”

Consideration 5) Our world is always changing.

…And I don’t mean that every few years a new channel shows up. What I mean is that what you see another church doing on Instagram may not be able to reproducible the next week, or what you see someone with a large following doing on facebook may be a feature that requires 100K or more ‘likes’ on their page, and you simply aren’t there.

What you did on facebook last month to get an incredible response may fall flat this month, Instagram may add or remove a feature, and twitter may change how their timeline functions altogether.

You may not get the results you’re used to from one day to another, or your communications person might have built a strategy around a particular feature which is no longer accessible one week into a campaign.

A program they’re used to using could run an update and change the layout of the toolbar that takes them an extra half hour to get re-oriented, and Google may change what constitutes as “spam” email, and way fewer people may open the email this week compared to last week.

Unlike the worship team that turns on the same sound system each week or the kid’s team that has the same classroom space in your building, their world, tools (and the communication strategies/tools they use) are always a moving target.

Consideration 6) We execute with a strategy in mind.

While you may think that it’s only going to take a few minutes to publish a simple “last-minute” post on facebook, that may actually hurt your big-picture strategy.

In this example, Facebook wants to see engagement on each individual post to determine how often to share the next. If you had just posted on facebook a few minutes ago, it can actually hurt the impact of both posts by publishing too quickly again since there wasn’t much time for people to see and engage with the first post.

If your communications team has a strategy about what gets included in Sunday announcements, it could actually hurt the impact of the 3 important things they want to share when you insist on Sunday morning that there are 4 additional things that need to be mentioned without discussion.

They love your church. They’re doing this because they love the community, your vision, and they want to communicate effectively. They’ve made decisions that lead to a certain result (and your team would probably love to have a conversation with you about that.)

I imagine that you wouldn’t randomly walk into a youth service and tell the youth leader to add in a new song that night or tell the kids teachers on a Sunday morning to change their lesson plan. A random “I need you to do this now” doesn’t reflect an appreciation for the strategy your communications person brings to the table.

Something more like “We need to communicate this urgently. How can we best do that?” shows that you trust what they’re doing and you’re trusting them to handle the details.

Consideration 7) Our work is on public display

Ask your communications person how many communications they get per month about a typo on the screens or a detail incorrect on a facebook post (that instead of commenting privately, the event co-ordinator decided to make a public comment on the post to correct the details). It’s not that your communications person is sloppy, but we’re human and mistakes happen – and ours are often public.

Worse than actual, identifiable mistakes, we also get to hear everyone’s opinion about “Why would you choose that background?” or “Can we do something a little more subtle?” or “I don’t like that font” – and often from people who are unrelated to the event being promoted.

I once had a gentleman come to me after church to tell me that he noticed a typo in someone’s name on the screen during a video I made for our building campaign. He said “If we’re raising that much money, it’s disappointing that we can’t even spell someone’s name correctly.” (this was only one of the three times the name appeared during the video.)

I asked if he would like to help and preview the videos like a “proof reader.” He said he wasn’t the one getting paid to be sure it was right, that’s my job.

Most departments may have an internal memo with a spelling error, or the youth leader has an off night during his message, or in a meeting, something is said that could have been worded differently.

Our work is getting mailed out to the community, posted on the front lawn, shared on facebook, seen on the screens, or hung in the lobby.

How would you handle it if every time you misspoke during a sermon, someone stood up and let you know like it was urgent?

A fire alarm is urgent. Misspeaking, having an unclear thought, mentioning one scripture reference but turning to another, or tripping over your words is not worth someone yelling “FIRE!”

I realize that you’ll often get a follow-up email from someone about your message, but even that person knows to distinguish between what they think is important (important enough to send an email) and urgent (like jumping up in the middle of church service).

 

How can you help reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed?

Consideration 1) Vertical: Middle Management.

Move towards giving your communications person a seat at the decision table and allow them to earn your trust. You don’t have to flippantly toss decisions to them or take their recommendation every time, but a simple “What do you think?” or “If this was your decision, what would you do?” along with hearing the rest of the discussion is going to be helpful in communicating the big picture.

Consideration 2) Horizontal: Serving other departments.

Equip your communications team with tools to help them be more efficient and give their best. Here is a toolbox of what I would consider essentials for less than $100/month.

With the help of that toolbox, you’ll equip your team do their best in tracking projects, create incoming request forms, and work with other departments in your church as efficiently as possible.

Delegate communications decisions to the Communications person, support them as the decision-maker, and bring them into a conversation if someone comes to you to request that you veto a decision.

Consideration 3) How long does that really take?

Ask the question when you delegate the responsibility and ask it again when a project is completed.

Come to an agreement on what is a reasonable expectation, and where time consumed on one project may not provide the best return compared to that same time spent elsewhere.

Be slow to assume that making a request is so simple that it can be easily fit into the workload instantly.

Build time into the schedule for your communications person to be creative, dream and explore new ideas. Stuffing every minute of their day is going to be exhausting, and you’ll get the same recurring results… which leads us to the next point.

Consideration 4) How much energy does that really take?

Have conversations like “What is your most creative time of day?” and “When do you do your best work?” and “What would an ideal schedule look like for you to bring your best to the team?”

Push back against the tendency you may have to set office hours. When Sunday rolls around, do you want to present your best work or do you want to check the box that said someone was present at their desk from 9 am – 5 pm all week? Of course, nobody at your church cares how many hours a project took, or whether it was completed at 2 pm or 2 am.

What matters when all is said and done is the end result, not the schedule necessary to create the result.

This isn’t to say that your communications leader can miss morning meetings if they’re a night person, or miss afternoon meetings if they like to start earlier in the day. But if there’s nothing scheduled at 9 am, and they worked an extra 4 hours last night, what difference will it make on Sunday if they show up at the office at 9 am or not?

Earn the best from your communications person by having clear goals and helping them meet those goals in whatever time it takes.

Consideration 5) Our world is always changing.

Have regular conversations that start with “What strategy do you have in mind for this event?” or “How are you planning to promote this?” or “What have you seen others doing that could work here?” Understand that we can’t promise the same results since the tools we use are always changing, and those changes are outside of our control.

Avoid saying, “We’ve done it like this before. Do that again!” or “They’re doing it. Why can’t we?”

Instead, have conversations with your communications person that lean into their wisdom, experience, and hands-on knowledge of the tools they have available to them. Ask questions that start with “What would you suggest for…?”

We’ll never get away from changing social media tools, but you can reduce the stress that keeping up with those details can cause by giving us some freedom to try new things, and explore. Recognize that at any time, the answer might be “That’s not how it works any longer.”

Consideration 6) We execute with a strategy in mind.

While we can technically post something quickly on facebook, it may not be the best strategic decision based on the technology, the way we want to present that information or the timing.

The same goes for what we plan to include in announcements, (or how many announcements), what we post on facebook, twitter or Instagram, how we’ll send out text messages or our email newsletter.

By all means, have conversations with your communications person about their decisions, their strategy, pick their brain about what and why, and be clear about what you’re hoping to achieve so they can help your church get to that end goal…

…AND, remember that this is our life and focus. We don’t take the responsibility lightly, and we’re not (usually) trying to be flippant or lazy or territorial if we say that your suggestion about how we communicate something may have some better options.

Consideration 7) Our work is public.

Learn to distinguish the difference between important and urgent. Important means “That’s worth noting and talking about later so that we try to avoid that mistake next time.” Urgent means “This needs to be addressed now.”

When you walk up on stage after an announcement video and make a joke about a typo on the screen, or send off a text message about the bulletin when it’s already printed and can’t be adjusted, then that’s come across as “Urgent: This can’t wait and has to be addressed now.”

It’s a bit overwhelming to be told that “This is urgent, but you won’t be able to do anything about it until next Sunday.”

 

Here’s an example of the distinction between urgent and important:

Urgent: “The time was incorrect on that announcement, and we need you to be here tomorrow at 7 pm instead of 7:30 pm” – That’s worth addressing now.

Important: “There’s an extra “w” before the website address in the bulletin. I’ll send an email Monday so a correction can be made before the bulletin goes to print next week.”

Support your communications team and recognize team effort if someone else points out an imperfection.

“We’ve been working on a lot as a team. I’ll have someone take a look this week,” causes much less stress than “So and So looks after our marketing. Go point it out to them” or “Here’s some public shaming in the form of a joke because I don’t want someone to think I’m responsible for the issue.”

 

 

Learn to delegate to and trust your communications department:

This could be difficult. This may not seem ideal. They have probably made mistakes before, and they are publicly representing your church, so if you don’t feel like the person in place is the right person for the job, please correct the situation sooner than later.

It doesn’t serve anyone to keep someone around whom you don’t trust, you won’t delegate responsibilty to, and you don’t believe knows what they’re doing in their job position. However, if you trust that they know what they’re doing, then let them do it.

If the person overseeing your marekting and communications is not someone that you trust to take the reigns, either get them the training they need to become that person, have the conversations about what indicators you need to see in order to build trust with them, or release them from the position. It’s not an easy request, but neither is the veil of trust when there’s no foundation to support it.

Lastly,

I want to be clear that your communications person is not against you if they have different ideas.

They’re not trying to steer the public side of the church in a different direction through social media or public relations. If they want to discuss a decision further, it’s because they see an opportunity for improvement, not that they’re looking for a reason to tear down. Please give him or her an open line to have conversations about what is working and what they think could improve.

They love the church. They love your vision. They love you. They need your support when they’re feeling overwhelmed.

-Adam 

 

Categories
Advertising Branding Social Media

Don’t post about Daylight Saving on your Church’s Social Media

Hot Take: Don’t post Daylight Saving Images on your Church’s Social Media

I’m going to get angry emails about this one. I can feel it already. Even worse than this post about church music.

Let’s take a step back before we jump into opinions on this one, and consider some facts, then we’ll talk about the real issues of why churches want to communicate Daylight Saving and time changes.

(by the way, my concern has nothing to do with Daylight Saving – that’s just a clear symptom of something else… keep reading).

Fact: According to Pew Research, 77% of Americans own a smartphone (full article). This means that the device they most likely use to tell time automatically updates with the time change.

Fact: Another 22% own a cell phone, not designated as a smartphone, so we can’t say for sure what percentage of those automatically update, but some will.

95% of Americans own a cell phone.

Besides smartphone owners, there are many other avenues of hearing about time changes in the spring and fall:

  • Listening to the radio
  • Watching the news on TV
  • Reading the paper
  • Reminders from friends and family
  • Someone else who lives in your house owns a smartphone (if you’re not in the 77+%)
  • It’s printed on the calendar in your kitchen
  • You just remember because this happens every spring and fall

In order to factually justify that YOUR CHURCH’S SOCIAL MEDIA POST is the reason someone remembered the time change and showed up on time for church would be to find someone who meets all 5 of the following criteria:

  1. Doesn’t own a smartphone
  2. Doesn’t live with someone who owns a smartphone
  3. Attends your church
  4. Follows you on social media
  5. Happens to be in the 10% of the people who see that particular post (based on facebook / Instagrams algorithms)

My point: Churches (as with any online entity on Social Media) have limited attention given to us. We all get a piece of the puzzle in Facebook, Twitter or Instagram’s algorithm. Knowing that (statistically) your ‘social media audience’ is not relying on us to learn about or remember the time change, why waste that attention?

(if you’re not sure what to post instead, check out this article on 31 social media post ideas for your church!)

An exception could be if you’re posting something that pushes your church culture forward, or actually creates attention from people who don’t attend your church – a funny video about being able to sleep in and still come to church, or a values-centered discussion about how your church is using that extra hour to clean up garbage at a local park before service starts, for example. 

If that’s your exception, go for it, because you’re actually communicating your culture, with the time change as a topic. If you’re just posting a “don’t forget” graphic then just forget it.

This isn’t about Daylight Saving…

My concern is not about whether or not to communicate Daylight Saving. My concern is that churches, given the information above, think this is an efficient use of communication and attention, attribute time to making or finding graphics, writing content and wasting attention.

Why does this happen? Here are some possibilities.

 

1. This is how we’ve always done it.

Great! That’s worked before, but it’s no longer valid. We don’t put diapers on our child once they’re potty trained, put gas in a car that doesn’t run any longer or purchase a new fax machine for every new employee. Be willing to say “up until now we’ve been doing X, and from now on we’ll be doing Y” (hint: in 5 days, 5 weeks, 5 months or 5 years, you may be saying “up until now we’ve been doing Y, and from now on we’ll be doing Z”)

 

2. I don’t feel like being creative today

Let’s be honest. This is a simple way to check the box of “posted something on facebook today.” Maybe this is because you’ve got too much on your plate, you’re not feeling creative, you try and figure things out day-to-day without a long-term strategy, or you simply don’t care, other than checking the box that says “I posted something on facebook today.”

We’ve got to be more intentional. People need our church. They need Jesus. They need to learn about the hope we have. Getting lazy isn’t serving them or you. It’s time to build a strategy, delegate strategy building or have some conversations about whether or not this position is for you.

 

3. The concern that “if we don’t post this, someone won’t find out.”

If this reason resonated with you, then I’m sorry I haven’t been able to communicate how blatantly ineffective this is. It’s also possible, you’re looking for a reason not to change, and if that’s the case, despite facts, logic and the opportunity to use that attention towards helping your followers and community learn more about your church’s culture and pointing them to Jesus, it’s time for a gut check.

 

This doesn’t have to be a touchy subject, but for some reason it is. If you need to talk, let it out, or help me see something I’m missing: adam@adammclaughlin.net

 

If you’re not sure what to post instead, check out this article on 31 social media post ideas for your church!

 

Categories
Social Media

Developing A Social Media Policy

Different churches take different approaches to Social Media.  Some have single channels for every piece of online communication, but we’ve taken the approach to let all of our small groups, and departments in the church have their own independent Social Media Channels.  For consistency, and to maximize effectiveness, we created a Social Media Policy.

I hope that the information we’ve created in ours helps you in developing and deciding what’s most effective for your church.  Be ready to revise as different leaders ask new questions, and ask Social Media channels change their features (I’ve made 21 revisions to ours!)

Life Church Social Media Policy:

Each Channel on Social Media that represents a group within Life Church may be the first (or only) interaction someone has with Life Church.  Here are some ideas and resources to maximize the impact of our Social Media Strategy: Brand Strategy, How to Maximize Engagement, Avoiding Common Traps and Image resources you can use.

 

Brand Consistency:

redcircle-logo1) Life Church Name & Logo: The circle icon may not be your profile picture.  This must be reserved for the Life Church page, however, include Life Church in the name of your page or group and use our logo in your image.  It needs to be clear that you’re a part of Life Church.  If you need help creating an image with the Life Church Logo for your Social Media Profile, please request help.

2) Will this information help someone Encounter God or Experience Life? If the answer is no, it’s not going to help us move the culture of Life Church forward.  No one’s goal is to detract from the culture we’re creating.  If your post draws unwanted attention (even if the content 100% accurate) and may take substantial time to manage and explain, something as public as social media representing Life Church isn’t the place for it.

3) Point to Life Church often: Share a picture or video that is posted on the Life Church Facebook page, retweet service quotes, or generate your own quotes and tag @LifechurchFMY.  Tag @LifeChurchFMY in your Facebook posts so they appear on our Facebook page too.  Ask people on your page how they heard about Life Church, where they serve at church and encourage them to join us for weekend services.  Use the resources at the bottom of this page that are branded with our logo.

 

Maximize Engagement:

1) Use Images: Images have a higher level of interaction than text or video updates.  Quotes from a recent message are great way to build an image. (Click here for some quote ideas) Next is Video – not shared as often, but sometimes the best way to communicate information in a short period of time.

How-did-you-hear-about-Life-Church2) Ask Open Ended Questions: People love sharing their opinion.  Rather than just broadcasting one-sided information “This week we talked about XYZ” instead try “What did you take home this week?” to start a conversation.

3) Engage in conversation: If someone answers or asks a question on your page, respond right away. (According to a recent poll from Facebook on fan engagement, people anticipate receiving an answer within 1 hour of asking on Social Media… Make it a goal, but not a rule.  You have a life outside of Facebook too.)

4) Mix It Up: If you’re always posting the same message, followers will start to tune you out, or unfollow.  Add in a comic that people can relate to, link to an article that relates to your current topic or demographic and point to things on LifeChurch.net like Live Broadcasts, Video On demand from current series or the online calendar for upcoming events.

5) Use a Hashtag to group thoughts: If your topic includes something that ties in with our current series, use the hashtag to connect the thoughts, or if it’s simply inviting people to #LifeOnFriday or #LifeOnSunday for example. (Side note: #LifeOnFriday and #LifeOnSunday are the names we’ve given to our weekend services: Fridays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 10am.)

 

Common Traps on Social Media:

1) Posting Frequency: Posting too much or too little will disengage followers.  This is an issue more with Facebook.  With Twitter, you can post much more frequently for the same impact. Rather than focussing on posting multiple things at one time, click the drop down arrow on your Facebook status box and click the “Schedule” option. You can schedule a few posts through the week and they’ll appear even if you’re not logged in.

Screenshot 2015-07-07 13.34.24

 

2) Temperature Rising: Some people chose to use Social Media as a place to vent a frustration or share an opposite opinion.  If this happens, respond promptly and positively.  If their comments continue to escalate, or the comment is not appropriate, delete the conversation, delete the post and reach out to that person with a private message (of course, use your discretion.)  At any time you can let me know at adam@lifechurch.net about an incident on Facebook that may affect a Life Church member so we can address it with leadership after you’ve connected privately with that person.

3) Be aware of who you’re endorsing.  Sharing a post or quote is an endorsement at some level, and since your page is representing Life Church, this is can look like an endorsement from Life Church.  A writer or speaker’s perspective can cover a large range of topics.  Even if you’re posting a link to a blog post that is entirely accurate, it may lead the visitor to click on other articles from that author.  Will that secondary information accurately represent Life Church also?

—-

Have anything that you’ve added to your Social Media Policy that’s not addressed here? Share in the comments!

Categories
Graphic Design

Framing a Message Quote in a Picture

Grace-and-FaithI like to take quotes from the weekend’s message and use them on Social Media.  It’s pretty easy to pull these quotes out if you’re listening to what quotes people respond to or tweet themselves.  I have the opportunity to tweet on behalf of Life Church during service, so I’ll use this   Images get much more engagement than a text quote, so I like to find images that reference the content of the quote, or an actual image from that person to use with the quote.

More than just including some text on an image, I like to ‘build’ or ‘integrate’ the text with the image and one of my favorite ways to make that connection is to have the subject overlap the text, so it looks like they’re connected.

Here’s how I built the image on the right in photoshop.

Before you start, pick your quote and your image.  You can change either of these as we go, but it’ll be easier to develop a design if you’re committed to including those concepts.

I started with a picture I had on file of Pastor Ryan and decided I wanted to use the image on instagram. Since instagram only allows for square images, I created a new photoshop file 500px by 500px.

 

Then I made a text box to decide where I was going to position the quote and made “Grace” and “Faith” larger for emphasis.  After the text was in place, to make the outline, I used the rectangle selection tool and made a rectangle around the text:

Screenshot 2015-10-27 15.39.46

 

I filled in the selection on a new layer with a color:

Screenshot 2015-10-27 15.40.44

And added a layer style by double clicking the layer in the layer pane. I added a ‘stroke’ in this case 8px / Position: Outside / Blend Mode: Normal / Opacity 100% and the fill color I used was the same as the font:

Screenshot 2015-10-27 15.41.23

 

Selecting that layer, I took the fill down to 0% – this leaves the stroke, but removes the bright blue filler I had used.

Screenshot 2015-10-27 15.41.33

 

Screenshot 2015-10-27 15.42.08

 

So now the image with the picture layer turned on looks like this:

Screenshot 2015-10-27 15.42.56

 

In order to edit a portion of the ‘stroke’ layer, I had to rasterize the stroke layer so it’s editable:

Screenshot 2015-10-27 17.25.30

Using the lasso selection tool, I selected the area where the quote box was over Pastor Ryan’s arm:

Screenshot 2015-10-27 15.43.35

and delete that portion from the rasterized stroke layer.  It will then look like the text frame is behind his arm:

Screenshot 2015-10-27 15.43.44

 

You can do this with text as well, not just shapes or lines, but you’ll need to rasterize the text (turn the text into a shape) which means you won’t be able edit the text after it’s rasterized.