Tag: andy brazelton

  • Twitter takes off in Youth Ministry

    twitIn the last two weeks Twitter has gotten extremely popular among Youth Ministry people. The two biggest Youth Ministry companies, Youth Specialties and Simply Youth Ministry put their Twitter accounts in this weeks newsletter. (YMX was ahead of them by a couple months on this one!) And it seems like every youth pastor around is jumping on the bandwagon now that Andy (the main dude at Simply) has a battle with Doug Fields to get to 1000 Twitter followers. (Both YS and SYM seem to be using Twitter for viral marketing, bravo!)

    I maintain that Twitter is a fad that will fade as soon as a more interesting platform is created. But for now Youth Ministry is on fire with Twitter.

    What is Twitter all about? (see the video) It answers the question “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. Think of it as “open” instant messaging. I look at it as a back-channel communication for my friends. No fluff, no pontification… just simply “What are you doing?” I’ve found it a cool way to get to know people in a new capacity.

    Here’s what is happening on my Twitter right now.

    You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

  • Simply Youth Ministry is Getting It

    I consider the folks over at Simply to be my friends. I will admit that when I first started to get to know them they were a bit intimidating. But they are great folks that any youth worker should get to know.

    They are a couple of year’s into a competition with Youth Specialties for convention dollars. YS has run the very popular National Youth Workers Convention for years and then Simply partnered with another publisher to create the National Youth Ministry Conference. Let me make a quick observation about Simply’s marketing efforts.

    YS has found an edge (in the Seth Godin kind of way), their conference goes after the arts and goes after social justice and those types of things. From a marketing standpoint that’s their angle and they are doing quite well with it. The Simply/Group folks have found a different edge as they try to catch up to YS. They are going to appeal to their audience with silly stuff and videos like the one below. They must have discovered that this is what their audience likes.

    When it comes to marketing, there are two initial things that have to be done before you can succeed.
    1. Define your audience, including what they like.
    2. Define your competition

    HT to Andy

    This post was edited on 2/27 to clarify what I was saying a little better. It could have been misinterpreted, and for that I’m sorry.