Tag Archives: strategy

Social Media Strategy February

2012 Social Media Strategy: February Review

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Yesterday, we shared with you our review of our blogging goals. If you have not seen what we did, you should view it as our social media goals directly interact with that strategy. Below is a list of ten goals that we hope to achieve this year, divided up within each social networking tool.

There are two things we need to keep in mind with our social media strategy: we have to be consistent and frequent on the platforms we use or not use them at all and we need to differentiate between the different networks. To the first point, I always state that it is better to not have a presence on a social media platform than one that is abandoned. You send a terrible message that you do not care if your last post was two years ago. Secondly, if you do the same thing for Facebook that you do for Twitter or Google+, you are not effectively using your accounts. Make specific purposes for each group.

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Blogging Strategy February

2012 Blogging Strategy: February Review

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From day one, we have had some sort of blogging strategy that directed our energy, gave us measurable goals to achieve, and know where adjustments are needed. With a year long 2011 plan, we reevaluated it every quarter to see if changes needed to be made and an adjusted vision for the site would come about. The goals of the blog in the fourth quarter did resemble a bit of what it started out at the beginning of the year, but we had differences.

Over the course of this year, we hope to follow a model established by Kolby Milton on his site to publicly review every month how the goals are going. Depending on the success and failures of these goals, we may have to make changes at the quarterly intervals and would love your input as we go along in this process.

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social media strategy twitter

Social Media Strategy: Twitter

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This is just a partial post. Find the whole article at Churchm.ag

We continue the conversation of utilizing social media strategically with the network of Twitter. This web app developed from a simple SMS conversational tool to a complex networking tool that has a professional appeal among ministry and tech officials alike. The potential of information and connecting to like-minded individuals is seemingly endless and coupled with a pervasive hashtag integration, you really need to have some kind of presence on this social media.

Twitter is a unique creature within the social media umbrella because it has come across as a great marketing tool. The easy on #FollowFriday of sharing great resources that you endorse as well as searching the latest tweets via search lists make this a wonderful tool for your hobby, business, and ministry. At the same time, the frequency of messages you can send out is extremely high compared to Facebook or Google+. Buffer App conducted a study on the number of tweets that is idea for improving blog traffic. It found that one tweet an hour is the most ideal, whereas Facebook would show that more than one status update a day is too much.

Looking For Real Followers

While it may look impressive that you have 1.7 million followers on Twitter, the reality is that probably only a small portion of them are active followers that truly read your message, a larger portion semi-follow you, and the rest are either bots or simply follow you because you follow them. With this in mind, we are not looking to increase the number of followers we have, but gaining real followers.

Find Friends

With that in mind, one of the best targets of people to have as followers are those that are active users, have similar interests, and they themselves only follow a couple of hundred people. This increases the likelihood that they will not only read your material, but may act upon it. Of course, people with a low number of following and high number of followers are great, but again the number of true people reading their material will probably be much lower. We want to build relationships with people, not become another statistic in a mess of people on someone’s account.

Our Twitter Strategy

Here are some of my Twitter strategy goals I’ve set for seventy8Productions that we have this year.

  • Gain 300 followers a month with a target audience of active users who have similar interests and do not follow too many other people.
  • Sponsor six Tweet chats through various partnering ministries, like YouthMin.org.
  • Market blog articles and other aspects of 78P no more than six times a day and no more than 2 times per article.
  • Keep my Twitter list under 75 people.
  • Make at leats 50% of tweets some sort of free resource or conversation starter.

What does/will your Twitter strategy look like?

social media strategy facebook

Social Media Strategy: Facebook

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This is just a partial post. Find the whole article at Churchm.ag

This week, we are looking at social media strategies to improve our views and interactions with customers. Facebook provides a unique opportunity for businesses that no other social media can offer. You have the possibility to connect with over 800 million Facebook users with location-specific content and creative fan pages. The best way to improve viewership and interactions with your content and have them share it with their friends is to know what the viewers and fans are interacting with. Facebook’s Page Insights can give you the data you need to improve your social media presence.

Go for More Than Just Fans

While the number of fans that like your Facebook page is important, that is just the beginning of measuring how many people are using your Facebook page. With the new Facebook Insight, you can look at how many people are interacting with your page, how many of their friends are seeing your Facebook page, and location-based demographics of all of these people. This is perfect for measuring the potential audience that you can have as well as a huge tool for those that want to advertise to local people. If you are looking to invest a little money on Facebook ads, take a few months to measure and evaluate these numbers and see how the advertisements work out.

Creating Custom Landing Pages

Currently, Facebook is the only one of the top social media networks with the ability to create custom designs and content on their site. This has the power to inspire, invite, and set you apart from the competition also using Facebook. At the same time, use this to promote other websites by bringing in content from your blog and linking to other online social media sites. One example of a company using this very well is Starbucks, who has interact welcome pages, coupons, and videos for all viewers.

Our Facebook Strategy

Here are some of my Facebook strategy goals for seventy8 Productions that we have this year.

  • Reach at least 750 people and have 200 interactions a month.
  • Share every single blog post from our website on the fan page.
  • Ask one question a month. These questions will focus on social media, IT content, specific to the season, and youth ministry.
  • Share at least five photos a month.
  • Post all videos that will be featured on the website solely on Facebook.
  • Create two custom pages to get 10 new fans a month.

How will you strategically use Facebook?

social media strategy introduction

Social Media Strategy: Introduction

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This is just a partial post. Find the whole article at Churchm.ag

People are always asking if they should use social media for their business or organizations and how they can use it as effectively as possible. These are people that may have never used or thought about using social media in this way. The other side of the coin are people who have already tried to use Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ for their business and it was not doing what they wanted. The question is, how can we make social media a successful marketing tool that increases views to blogs and products as well as improves conversations and relationships with you and the customers?

The first thing that I ask is what your social media strategy looks like. 95% of the people do not have one and most do not know how to make it. Their response usually comes back as “do you have a formula?” or “can you make one for me?” The short answer is no, each situation is unique. But we can give you several questions to find the best way to promote your ministry or business.

  1. What is the purpose of your organization, blog, or product?
    Social media is a great tool, but you need to know who you are and what you are going to be putting out there before you press forward with social media. Maybe you are investing too much in social media when you do not even know what the mission of your company is. Defining this is simply a good business practic.
  2. What will be the purpose of using social media?
    You need to know why you are using something, otherwise you will not have direction with your tools. Know what the end goal is of using these resources. If it is simply to market, then define that. But realize that social media has the ability to do more than simply getting out the details of your company. You can create a brand, community, and place to get the opinions and other resources from your viewers.
  3. Who is your audience?
    If you are a local company in a small town, Facebook may be the perfect place for you. If you are a large church in a big city, you may need to make sure you are present in several networks. Defining this allows you to not waste too much time in the wrong places. This may also take some researching on your part. Survey your current customers as well as new ones.
  4. How much resources are you going to put into social networking?
    Will you be paying someone to do this or doing it yourself? How much time to do you want to invest in this a day, wee, or month? Will you be advertising these networks at church, in promotional flyers, on your website? Are you up for putting a little money down to promote your company or product? All of these need to be answered to be efficient.
  5. How will you know that you have succeeded or failed after a time?
    The prep work for our strategy is done, now we need to write down how we can measure this success. Do you want your followers to go somewhere to buy something? Are you intended to have them see your blog? Or maybe you simply want us as followers to see how brilliant you are, great. Come up with at least five goals.
  6. Are those goals, highlighted above, specific and measurable?
    Simply saying that you want to get more viewers is not a good strategy. How many more? Wanting to get retweeted five times a week is okay, but being more specific by stating that you want to be retweeted five times a week to at least 1,000 new people is better.
  7. Are those goals clear and realistic?
    If you are new to social media, do not expect to see your website blow up. At the same time, saying that you want fifty new people to see your website does not define if you want them to see an aspect of the website, your blog, or to interact with your featured products you are selling. Make sure your strategy is clear.

So how will you proceed from here?

Social Media Strategy January

2012 Social Media Strategy

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Yesterday, we shared with you our blogging goals. If you have not seen what we did, you should view it as our social media goals directly interact with that strategy. Below is a list of ten goals that we hope to achieve this year, divided up within each social networking tool.

There are two things we need to keep in mind with our social media strategy: we have to be consistent and frequent on the platforms we use or not use them at all and we need to differentiate between the different networks. To the first point, I always state that it is better to not have a presence on a social media platform than one that is abandoned. You send a terrible message that you do not care if your last post was two years ago. Secondly, if you do the same thing for Facebook that you do for Twitter or Google+, you are not effectively using your accounts. Make specific purposes for each group.

Continue reading →

Blogging Strategy January

2012 Blogging Strategy

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From day one, we have had some sort of blogging strategy that directed our energy, gave us measurable goals to achieve, and know where adjustments are needed. With a year long 2011 plan, we reevaluated it every quarter to see if changes needed to be made and an adjusted vision for the site would come about. The goals of the blog in the fourth quarter did resemble a bit of what it started out at the beginning of the year, but we had differences.

With the new year comes a couple of major shifts in our strategy, some of which we shared already. Below is our detailed list of the blogging strategy for the new year with clear and hopefully attainable goals. Tomorrow, we will share with you our new social media strategy and what we hope to do in the new year.

Over the course of the year, we hope to follow a model established by Kolby Morton on his site to publicly review every month how the goals are going. Depending on the success and failures of these goals, we may have to make changes at the quarterly intervals and would love your input as we go along in this process.

  • Use Category Tagging In The Posts
    We updated our category list last month for a reason. Linking within your website promotes navigation within yourself for users and thus more content for the viewer that they seek as well as more views for your website. If you were dumb like us last year and did not do this, make the change in 2012. Every category that is mentioned in a post will be linked from here on out.
  • Add A Portfolio Piece Once A Week
    One of the most exciting changes for us in 2011 was the addition of the portfolio that offers free downloads for you and automatically posts a blog article when uploaded. The hope is to not only fill out the portfolio with our work, but point you to it from the blog.
  • Two Posts Everyday
    We hope to have two posts everyday. One post based on youth ministry and the other on technology. Anything more will be too much unless it is a simple quote post or submission to the portfolio.
  • Youth Ministry Games
    We shared that we will be doing a project with Youth Ministry Games without giving too many details. Honestly, it is because we have nothing to show you. Simply put, we want to have a youth ministry database that is searchable, browse-able, submittable, and community-based with a possible gaming integration. We will be sharing logo and web designs by February, requesting beta testers by May, and by September display a finished product.
  • Comment On Others
    To expect something from others that you are not willing to do yourself is both arrogant and stupid. We want commenters and so we will be commenting on your site as well.
  • VLogs and Interviews
    We love the video medium. It’s easy to produce and appeals to many people more than just text. We will try to produce at least two vlogs a week, one for our site and another for collaborating websites.

What is your blogging strategy?

Too Much Social Media?

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We did a guest post over at Churchm.ag you should check out. Here is a link to the full post and below is a snippet:

With the release of Google+ Pages for businesses, many people are starting to question if this is a good enough investment to spend the time developing, interacting with viewers, and making a strong enough presence in this new social media opportunity.

In fact, this has sparked a discussion on if there are too many social media options.

With options like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Youtube, and so many others, where do businesses, bloggers, non-profit organizations, and Churches market themselves?

The Factors

There are so many different factors that go into if someone should begin doing social media. Here are three big factors that need to be weighed

Audience
As with any organization that is looking to thrive, let alone profit, you need to know your audience. What is your target consumer? Small town Mennonite Churches with only three people under the age of twenty will see marketing differently than a daily blogger or a youth group. Yet, not only should you know if they would interact with you online, but you need to do a little research on what social networks they actually are on. This research may simple be that for four months you invest equal time in all networks and quit using the ones that are unsuccessful.

Who is your audience and what social media networks do they already use?

Time
Marketing takes so much time to come up with a plan, develop, and interact with customers. At the same time, you cannot just advertise and expect to be successful at it. Effective marketing online takes more time following up with people than the initial tweet or status update.

Do you have that time to invest in any or all social media outlets?

Cost
Many people do not have experience or the know how to invest in all of these different social media outlets. Thus they will look to others to run the social media face of their organization. Even if a youth group has a volunteer run the Facebook page, you will likely meet with them at Starbucks for a cup of coffee once a month or so. Big companies, like Compassion International, have their own marketing division with two or three people solely designated to one or more social media networks.

How much money are you willing to put into it?

How To Utilize The Facebook Timeline Cover

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We did a guest post over at Churchm.ag you should check out. Here is a link to the full post and below is a snippet:

The new Facebook design is here and the profile view has been completely overhauled from the old layout. One of its exciting new features is the cover photo. The cover photo gives you a lovely big space at the top of your page for an image of your choosing while still displaying your profile photo at the bottom left-hand of the cover photo. Facebook allows you to use any image from your photo gallery but you can also upload your own. Simply hover your mouse over the image and in the bottom right-hand corner and select the “Change Cover” drop down box.

You can customize it for an endless number of reasons to fit whatever purpose you want it to do. Before you simply put any photo up on your cover, make sure that you know what is your social media strategy. With this design overhaul, your social media strategy may have to change, but whatever your strategy is, make sure that photo fits. Here are three types of photos to use for your cover photo and how you can best use it for businesses, ministries, and individuals.

Businesses


Businesses see social media as one of several necessary marketing avenues to take advantage of and the changes Facebook has made will only increase corporate use on their network. Cover photos are the perfect way to share new products, reinforce company branding, offer special social media deals, or feature your best product. The possibilities are truly amazing here and social media will become more of a marketing tool than ever before.

Services and products like movies or clothing that has a dedicated visual element, the focus will need to be on the product. For someone like Amazon or Ikea, they may want to focus more on the savings, branding, or special deals. Regardless what happens, companies can use this really well and need to invest some time and money into marketing techniques.

Products And Services FAIL Without Strategy

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Take a note from HP, if you do not have a thorough and efficient strategy, your projects and services will ultimately fail. Seven weeks ago, they announced that they were going to jump into the tablet market, taking on Apple’s iPad and the other five or so knock-offs. They even had an all-star marketing crew with Russell Brand, Miranda Cosgrove, Lea Michele, and Manny Pacquiao. So what happened? Their strategy was weak.

Do Not Just Copy Someone Else
In the business world, if your product is not different enough from other companies, you will not succeed. In their case, Apple has a HUGE reputation and loyal fan base that will not leave. HP could have marketed their tablet to the medical world that cannot use Apple products because they are open source or make them heavy duty to sell to a huge factory market, but they tried to take on a company completely established. Youth workers, bloggers, and any other businesses can try to duplicate someone elses work, but it will fall flat without understanding your audience. HP did not understand their customers and therefore they failed.

You Have To Have The Whole Package
Doing something right does not guarantee success but to have success requires doing things right. It is more than just the hardware for tablets, you have to have the whole package. Apple is so far ahead in available apps that there is something for everyone. All others are simply playing catch up including Android and Microsoft. We can try to blog about whatever comes to us, make up youth ministry events and sermons by the seat but of our pants, but after a couple of months you will crash. Without having all of the A.D.D. fun that Apple’s app store does so well, HP failed.

Do It Better
As previously stated, Apple’s fans are loyal. Doing something right does not guarantee success but to have success requires doing things right. HP made a tablet that costs a little bit less than the iPad, was a little bit faster, and had one or two more pluses (used Flash, snore!). What incentive did customers have? If they already had a tablet that works extremely well, they are not going to shell out another $300 for a little better. For customers that do not have a tablet yet, all they know right now is that Apple has a great product and HP has one that is cheaper and cheaper usually means worse… How do we push our services and projects? Are they just a little better than hanging out? Where is the benefit? HP did not improve a product enough and so they failed.