Category: social media

  • Do Ministry Leaders Need a Social Media Presence?

    Photo by Flickr user hoyasmeg (creative commons)
    Photo by Flickr user hoyasmeg (creative commons)

    Seth Godin answers his own question:

    What is the reason social media is so difficult for most organizations? It’s a process and not an event. Events are easier to manage, pay for and get excited about. Processes build results for the long haul. link

    Why do pastors and other church leaders need a social media presence?

    • The world is full of fakes. Because of the public sin of so many who lead large ministries, there is a general suspicion of all people in church leadership.
    • The people in your congregation want to know if you are a fake. They show up, so on some level they believe in you. They are watching your life to validate what you say.
    • The people in your community already think you are a fake. You need to prove them wrong.

    If you need a biblical justification for investing your time and energy in social media, look no further than the incarnation of Jesus. John 1:14 says, “He came and dwelt among the people.” The way church is run today… pastors do not dwell among the people. They dwell among their flock and their offices. (2-3% of the population of your community is hardly “the people.”) Look at the example of all of the Apostles in the New Testament. They all dwelt among the people. Most of them worked vocationally in the cities they ministered in.

    A public presence, 1 hour per week, preaching in front of an audience, is simply not enough of a presence to know if you are fake or not. The fact is, if that’s all people see of you than they know you must be fake.

  • Life Schmooshing

    life-convergence

    “How do I keep my private life private with social media?”

    When I pull away all the onion layers for people learning about social media, this is their core fear. They wrestle with two primary realities.

    1. Why would anyone care about what I am doing?
    2. How do I control the message?

    I’m not saying that every person who uses social media has something to hide. But I am saying that nearly every adult is increasingly aware that their use of the internet can be a both an asset and a liability– often times at the same time.

    I call it “life schooshing.” When I want to come across as intelligent, I use the phrase “life convergence.”

    Rather than fight it I suggest you learn to embrace and manage it.

    In the past, we could have a public persona and a private persona. And because theose spheres of influence rarely collided it wasn’t a big deal if those lifestyles didn’t line up with one another. A pastor could be a complete Republican hero on Sunday morning, while privately supporting the most liberal Democrats with his money. No one would ever know or ever care to know!

    The internet has changed all of that.

    Now? You’d be an idiot to try to keep all of these spheres apart. Your high school friends on Facebook will call you out. Your family will call you out. Your church will call you out. Your co-workers will call you out. Worse case scenario, your sins will call you out.

    Two realistic choices for dealing with life schmooshing.

    1. Go Amish. Unplug from social media. Don’t have a Google account. Stop using Facebook. Don’t comment on people’s blogs. Pretend Twitter doesn’t exist.
    2. Embrace incarnational living. It’s not a bad thing to have all of your life converge together. Trust me. It’s more blessing than curse. If you truly want to be a person of integrity in all areas of your life… social convergence is a great thing!

    What are some ways social media is helping your spheres converge in healthy ways? What are some fears you have? What about concerns of privacy?

  • Social Media Tip: Be Consistent

    social-media-tip-consistent

    Want to know a secret about social media success?

    If you want to succeed long-term in social media you need to be consistent in how you use social media. For more than 10 years I’ve been active in some form of what we now call “social media.” Chat rooms. Message boards. Listserv. Forums. MySpace. Blogs. Facebook. Twitter. I’ve seen fads come and go. I’ve seen rock stars emerge and fade. I’ve seen high profile people take interest and then lose interest. Social media is a bit of a revolving door. Something gets popular, attracts the masses, people get bored, someone invents something better, the hype begins again.

    But yet there has always been this thread of people that has remained consistent throughout. There’s a lot to learn from these people if you want to be successful.

    Some of us have just chugged away. We’ve never gotten uber popular. We’ll never leverage what we have to make a fool of ourselves like @aplusk did on Twitter. But in the meantime, we’ve utilized these tools to meet people, share ideas, and establish ourselves along the way.

    The best way to succeed is to be consistent like Warren Buffet and not up and down like Donald Trump. Stick with winners. Be consistent. Be disciplined.

    What does consistency look like for social media?

    – Make yourself consistent by using the same handle. (social media name on a web platform)

    – Use the tool the same way, most times. (maintain your blog post consistency, tweet frequency, use Facebook in predictable ways)

    – stick to your genre. (totally OK to expand your horizons. but don’t be so general that no one cares. if you’re a mom blog, don’t post gadget tips for work. if you’re a gadget blogger, no one cares about your kids soccer game.)

    – don’t be a jerk. (unless your online persona is one of jerkiness. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met people in real life and thought… they were so much cooler on their blog.)

  • Win a Google Wave Invite

    Win a Google Wave Invite

    Tonight the Google gods waved their magic wand and granted my wish by inviting me to the first group of beta testers for Google Wave. (See the video above.) Included in my account was the ability to invite a few people.

    I have to be honest, I don’t see what all of the hype is about. Then again, that’s what I said about Twitter 2 years ago! I unwittingly posted a jab at Kristen that I had invites to give away and all of a sudden I was flooded with requests for an invite! Having no ability to chose, this is my attempt to give away some things while celebrating what I’m all about. Did you see people were selling invites on Ebay? Crazy!

    Two Ways To Win an Invite

    Contest 1: (one invite) Simply leave a comment on this post with a valid Google account email in the email field. Say whatever you want in the comment box. From this group of people I’ll pick one random person to get an invite using Random.org.

    Contest 2: (one invite) Write a blog post or Facebook note about what you are doing to change your community for the better. Tell me how you volunteer at a community center, work with a local church, raise money for a good cause, or spend your weekends hand feeding endangered turtles. Then post the link here on my blog. (Either as a trackback or as a comment.) I will read them all and pick my favorite to get the invite. It’s not as democratic as the first contest but this part reflects who I am and what I’m all about.

    Contest Deadline is Thursday, October 1st at 7:00 PM Pacific Time

    Who is eligible? Anyone who enters. Feel free to share this link. One entry per person. I’ll delete multiple entries and remove you from my Christmas list. You realize that this blog logs IP addresses, right?

    OK, 1-2-3 Go!

    Update:

    Contest #1 Congrats to Bet. She was the random comment chosen for contest #1. Bet, I submitted your invite already. It can take a day or so for Google to actually approve you.

    Contest #2 Congrats to Justin. His post is about picking up some random kids traveling through town and offering them a weekends worth of hospitality. Great story!

  • My Social Media Event Toolbox

    social-media-toolbox

    Tonight I am packing for NYWC and I thought it’d be cool to capture a gear list. People see me running around and doing a lot of stuff, here is the equipment that makes it all happen.

    – Panasonic HD video camera (podcast footage)

    – Panasonic hand held camcorder (I take 2 of these, use them for daily recap videos)

    – Flip camera (for quick stuff I take from Big Room to Facebook, love it)

    – iPhone (all around communication device. Digital camera, calendar, Twitter machine, Facebook status updates, Mobile Flickr posts)

    – Nikon D60 (only one is pictured but I take two, plus about five 4 gig SD cards. Light and reliable, these are workhorse cameras for me)

    – Lenses (Standard lens, 300 for close-ups and Big Room stuff, wide angle to capture the bigness of some stuff)

    – Camera bag (You won’t see me without this at NYWC. It carries a lot of gear and lenses)

    – Wireless mics (for big video camera)

    – Mixer (for postgame show)

    – Portable hard drive (Hey, I capture a lot of media!)

    – Macbook Pro (Onsite I use web apps mostly, but I also use CS4, Final Cut, iMovie, iPhoto)

    – iPod headphones (Carry 2 sets, they are cheap so if I lose them its no big deal)

    – Media card reader (Carry 2 of these, you never know when someone will hand you a weird media card)

    – Mac display adapters (Got one of each variety– I’m handy like that for my friends)

    – Power cables galore (Convention handbook says you will always find me near an electrical outlet, it’s true! While I pictured one of everything I actually bring one for my bag and one for my room of almost every cable I use)

    – USB, Firewire, RCA, Minijack cables (I bring about 10 varieties, cheaper to carry them than buy them)

    – Business cards (Shoot video/pictures with someone, hand ’em a card)

    – Batteries (Mostly 9v and AA, this picture reminds me I need to stock up on AA)

    – Extra battery packs (I have a spare battery for everything, except my Macbook which lasts exceptionally long)

    There’s actually a lot not pictured here that I use a lot, as well. But this is the stuff I carry with me almost all the time. In addition to this I have lighting, tripods, more electrical stuff… and three full time volunteers!

    Seem excessive? 4 video cameras, 3 digital cameras, enough microphones to hold a press conference… Spend a couple hours with me and you’ll see that I use it all. I work my gear like my golf bag. I play ’em all.

  • The Internet is Not Flat

    full-20earth2Every time I go to a networking event with social media types I hear the hopeful phrase, “The World is Flat.“ The premise with the world is flat is that in the internet age the start-up entrepreneur has an equal shot at making it against the powerhouse media conglomerates or the big company on top of any given industry. The phrase the world is flat is like fly paper drawing the bugs to the trap. Anyone who wants to get-rich-quick loves that phrase.

    While it is true that start-ups can take on and defeat the big dogs today, (this has always been true) it isn’t because the world is flat.

    Start-ups take out big dogs because of these two factors:

    1. The winner in a space is always smarter. I’ve met up with loads of developers, entrepreneurs, and wide-eyed bloggers hoping to make a million on their idea. I OFTEN am left with the impression that they are investing in a dumb idea or have ruined their ability to take out their competitor because of a horrible business plan or having sold out their long-term hopes for short-term VC dollars. Recently, I’ve met start-up owners who are extraordinarily smart but lack the funding to make their idea happen. And I’ve met start-up owners who are dumb, but have well-funded projects. Bing.com thinks they can beat Google if they outspend them. It’s a stupid strategy and will be a billion dollar failure. Mint.com has a great business model and took out Microsoft Money by making money on the back-end (advertising) and giving the product away for free to customers. (Last week Intuit bought Mint.com. A 28-year old entrepreneur who started the thing in his apartment just sold his baby for $170 million to the company he was about to take out. Delicious irony.)

    2. The winner always contains costs. I am continually shocked when I hear the type of money people invest in developing technology. Half a million on development, 10 million on marketing. Eighty thousand to add this piece. On and on. These ideas are destined for failure before they have a single customer. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Very few companies can invest a million and make a billion. But loads can invest a million and lose it all with only the manager getting fired.

    All of the internet is boiled down to a single formula and yet even the smartest companies manage to screw it up. Every single internet entrepreneur talks about ROI, but only a couple seem to truly be driven by minimizing the I. Each space has a finite amount of return. The false assumption is that everything on the internet can be a gold mine of infinite return– it’s a stupid assumption. Each niche only has a certain amount of customers/revenue. Therefore, the only way to maximize return is to minimize the I. Investing $500,000 in a technology that may return $2,000,000 in revenue over 4 years is almost a 0% return after expenses. At best it’s a 2:1 ratio. (You could do better at the horse track.) But a start-up investing $5,000 in that same $2m space has a ROI ratio potential of 400:1. I’ll take that guy!

    The internet world is not flat. The world is flat for smart people and people who are willing to work for free to make their dreams happen. The world is as dangerous as ever for everyone else.

    The internet world is full of fast talkers. That’s another thing I’ve learned at networking events. The same adage from the high school locker room is true among internet types, “He who talks the biggest game probably scores the least.” As with any new gold rush industry, for every good business person out there there are 10 shysters.

  • Think Social Media is a Fad?

    I snort when I hear that question. Typically, it’s blurted out by old media types who see the boom in social media as a hiccup in their returns. That’s when I just smile and nod… and eat them for breakfast. I’ve heard the same thing from pastors. Well, ministry over the internet isn’t real ministry. While my blog doesn’t take an offering… the post you are reading right now will be read by more people than 99% of sermons in America.

    The way messages (marketing, religion, news) are received is changing. Are you adapting? Or are you investing in something that no one pays attention to?

  • 5 Free Business Tips for Facebook Pages

    facebook-for-business

    How do I use Facebook to enhance my company, church, organization, or club?

    As a person who utilizes Facebook in the repetoir of how I make my living, I get this question a lot. With hundreds of millions of Facebook users out there, and huge growth in the adult demographic, it makes sense for people to shift marketing efforts to Facebook. The trick is doing it without looking like an idiot.

    What do you recommend? Here are my  5 things with Facebook. It’ll be the best marketing you can do in the next 1 hour, trust me. Just like anything else… nail the basics and everything else is just gravy.

    Preamble: You need a page, not a group. If you only have a group right now… go create a page. Facebook is not investing in making the group experience better. All of their efforts for businesses are focused on pages.

    1. Secure your URL. Once your page has 100 fans, you can go to facebook.com/username and secure a unique URL. This will help you on a lot of fronts. First, it’s easy to remember. Tell people, “Like our product? Become a fan on Facebook at Facebook.com/yourcompany.” I’m seeing this everywhere! I was at a golf course a couple weeks back that had a fan page. Hotels have it. Designers have it. Even dive bars have fan pages. Second, this helps your company on the Google front as well. It’ll make it easier for people looking for you and your products to find you… not your competitor. If you are a company that has brands/products it’s a good idea to also add a fan page for your top products.

    2. Add FBML. With the page application FBML, you’ll be able to build a landing page for your fans. Here’s an example of mine from Youth Specialties. Here’s another one from Coke. FBML allows you to design HTML code and drop it into your page as a tab. Then in the page settings you can select which tab is the default landing page. With both the Coke and YS pages you see that it introduces the brand and products pretty strongly, right away. If you aren’t a web guru, I’d still add FBML and have your web designer pimp it out. (Or send me $500 and I’ll do it for you.)

    3. Embed video or audio. Up until recently, Facebook has not allowed applications like FBML to embed stuff. It basically stripped out <embed> and <script> tags in the coding. But if your brand has some great audio/video that you think could help you sell your products, here’s a little hack.

    Bear in mind you need to host these files on your own host, but that’s cheap and easy enough.

    For video, you can embed FLV files using this code: <fb:flv src="Flash_Video_URL" height="###" width="###"/>

    For audio, you can embed MP3 files using this code: <fb:mp3 src="URL HERE" height="###" width="###" artist="artist" title="title" album="picture"/>

    That may not be a beginners option, but if you can pull it off it looks fantastic!

    4. Connect your company website/blog to your Facebook page. If your website was designed in the last 3-4 years it probably has RSS feeds. It’s simple and easy to import an RSS feed from your website onto your page. Here’s the link.

    5. Add your Facebook page Fan Box to your company website or blog. Complete the circle. You are sending your content to Facebook, allow your customers to see your precense on Facebook from your website.

    That’s it. Those are the basics. Nail those 5 things down and you are off to a good start. In fact, I wouldn’t add much else to a Facebook page. Just make sure to update your status from time to time.

  • New blog feature, verbal comments

    You know me. I like to try out new things. One of the new things I’ve been testing out is Google Voice. I’ll talk about it more in another post but let’s just say it’s solving a lot of problems for me.

    One thing I’m testing out is to encourage you to leave verbal comments to the blog. Let’s face it, some things are best said verbally. You can hear intonation, you can hear passion, your voice is fun, and you can sing a comment! Plus, and this is big for a lot of people, you can leave me a comment and make in personal to me and anonymous to everyone else.

    Feel free to test it out! Even if you try it just to try it and not really leave a comment, that’s OK!

    How it works:
    1. Press the “call me” button. Go ahead, do it now, it just shows you the next step.
    2. Enter your name and the phone number you’d like to be called at. Not my number, not a secret password, the number of the phone you’d like to use to leave me a comment. If you chose “keep number private” that means it will still use that phone to connect you to leave a comment, I just won’t be able to see that number.
    3. Click “connect.”
    4. A random phone number will call you, pick up. That’s Google Voice calling. That’s not my Google Voice number, it’s just random.
    5. You will get a special greeting from me, saying hello and telling you what to do. This will not ring my phone, it’s basically a voicemail box.
    6. You leave a comment or message. If it’s a private message or comment between you and me, please let me know.
    7. As soon as you hang up, Google Voice alerts me that I have a new message. Depending on the time of day I may get a text message or an email or the Google chip embedded behind my retina will flash.
    8. I listen to the message, read the message in email, or get a text of the message. Google Voice, using black magic, converts your message into text and gets it to me. I receive it right away though I may not get to it right away.
    9. If its relevant, I post the verbal comment on the blog. Obviously, if its a personal message or something you’d like to keep anonymous, that’s just between me and you.

    Got it? 1-2-3… GO!

  • Is what the new who?

    who-a-what

    The last three or four years has seen a major technological leap that no one can ignore. With the rise of social media (marketing, tools, networking) there are a new set of rules and people who once found it impossible to become known for their competence now have a place to elevate above the people who are known for who they are. All of a sudden Robin Williams has to wonder… “if I’m not on Twitter, do I stop being a celebrity?” The mocking of the nerds on the internet stopped being quite so funny in the last 18 months, didn’t it?

    This isn’t the first time that the who apple cart has been upset by the what. The what’s of the industrial revolution become the who’s to take out when the automobile revolution took over. The who’s of the auto age where taken out by the what’s of the technology boom in the 1970’s. The who’s of the technology boom were taken out by the what’s of the software developers. On and on it goes. The what’s replace the who’s to become the who’s that’s taken out by the next round of what’s. The who’s desperately hold on, invest their billions to say “who matters” and “who’s still have it” while the what’s laugh as the transfer of wealth once again takes over.

    The obvious example of this is Microsoft’s Bing vs. Google. Microsoft is the who of the software boom. For 20+ years no one could touch Bill Gates. But now, next to the innovators at rivals like Apple, Google, Facebook, and even Twitter… Microsoft looks like the Ford, GM, and Chrysler at a congressional hearing. Microsoft is spending billions of dollars on Bing and all it does is remind people how much they love Google. People used to dream of working at Microsoft. Now if an up-and-coming software engineer, UI developer, or otherwise tech talent announces they are going to Microsoft… there is a certain snicker that goes around. “Couldn’t get a job at Facebook, eh?” Why is that? Unless you are turning Microsoft around, you can’t become a who by being a what at Microsoft.

    Being a what gives me hope. Let’s face it, I’m not a who. There aren’t many who’s out there. But I know that if I get really good at being a what, there’s hope. There’s opportunity for what’s. We’re in a transition time that comes around only so often when the apple cart is upset. And if you’re a pretty good what at what is new, you’ll do OK.

    Something even more encouraging. There isn’t just one set of who’s vs. what’s anymore. Right now there are so many who’s that the opportunities are unparalleled. You could become the next who of ____ if you make your what better than their what.

    More encouraging than that? In a transition time between who and what, money isn’t that important. Innovation is now cheaper than ever before. Becoming a what is easier. Becoming a what takes less time. And the amount of time you need to invest to become known as a what gets shorter every day.

    Tired of working for the who? Become a what. Worst case scenario… there’s always good work in convincing a who that they can become a what again.