Thursday Tip

I had a friend ask me today how to share Youtube videos on Facebook and Twitter. Youtube has made sharing its videos very simple.

When you upload a video it gives you the opportunity to share that video on Facebook, Google Reader and Twitter. Once your on the screen to upload your video you should see the links to connect to Facebook, Google reader and Twitter. Simply use the links to sign on to your accounts and your done. Every time you upload a video it will let all of your friends know, so they can watch it.




If you want to share some one else video you can do this by clicking the share link under the video screen. You will find links to several social networking sites. Click on the one you want use. Sign into your account follow the prompts and the video will be uploaded.



To embed a video on your blog, copy and paste the code next the word embed on the right of the video. Then find the HTML section of you blog and paste the code.



Hope this helps

Thusdays Tip- Share Google reader Articles with Facebook friends

I love to read blogs! I read them all of the time and when I find a cool one I share it with my friends on Facebook simply using google reader and Facebook's share tool.

1. Set up a Google reader account and add some feeds to you account

2. Under an article that you like click the share button.

3. On the left hand side of Google reader there is a shared items link click it

4. In the shared item view there is a link to "see your shared items in another window" click it



5. In the new window copy the URL of the new page you created

6. Go to Facebook and sign in. Then go to your profile

7. Under the text box that says "whats on your mind" there is a button that says settings. Click it




8. Then click the option for Blog/RSS



9. Past the link you just copied and click import.

It is that easy! Now you can Share your favorite blogs with your Facebook friends

Social Media and the Church: The importance of Numbers

We have all heard the line "ministerially speaking" when referring to the number of people who attended a service at our church. I means we exaggerate the number to make it sound more impressive. Unfortunately when it comes to social media I need facts or something close to it. We want to know what is working and what is not. So today I am going to list the ways we keep up with my social networking stats and next week I will talk about what we do when things aren't working. 1. The biggest most popular and best way (in my opinion) to track stats is Google Analytics. You can't track everything with G.A but your blogs, your website and any other tool you use where you can control the code of the page. Analytics provides you with a huge range of tools that can not only tell you how many people visited your page but where they visited from, what browser they were using and there mother's maiden name (last one was made up). They have an awesome reporting system as well . I could go on and on about G.A but that is another post.


2. Twitter Analyzer: A twitter tool that will let you know everything you need to know about your account to make sure it is effective.


3. Card Comments: We pass out little connection cards every week and one question it is"where did you hear about us". I keep track of everyone who came from the web.


4. General feedback: I ask people what they think of the social media we use. I ask people what they get the most out of. I ask people how they like to communicate. Because I want to know what tools people are using so I can communicate better.


5. Sign ups online- I judge how well an online camping is communicating to the people within my church by how many of them sign up online rather than sign up physically at the church.


What ways do you you use to see how well your social media is working?

Social Media and Church: What are you trying to do?

The single most important thing to me when deciding how your church should use social media is to ask your self "What am I trying to do?". Are you trying to be cool? Are you trying to change the way people think in your church? Are you trying to communicate better? Are you trying to save money? Are you trying to reach new people? There are so many ways to communicate things to the people of your church. There are paper bulletins, announcement slides, verbal service announcements, blogs, twitter, Facebook, email, YouTube and probably several others that I have forgotten. It has been said many times that for businesses that social networking is a strategy. It takes planning and research to know if you should use social media to communicate. It takes knowing the people who come to your church as well as knowing your community. For that matter it takes knowing who you trying to communicate with. It takes trail and error. The most important thing it takes is knowing what your are trying to accomplish. So what is your stategy? What are you trying to do through social media?

Social Networking and the Church Part 1

For some reason I have been speaking a lot lately about social networking and the church. God has given me some really good ideas about how to use social networking and I have tried some things that just have not panned out. So for the Friday series I thought I would give you guys an idea on the success DP has had with social media and the things that just did not work. Please remember that social media is about interacting and connecting with people not advertising. Social Media and the church should be a long term effort and not a short term fix. I fyou are expecting to out up a facebook group tell your member about it and expect them to run right to and tell all of their friends. It just does not work that way. So understand when I write about these things in social media that we have tried they are a ongoing experiment and my finding may not be the same as your findings.

Facebook Group
When you use social media you must have plan in mind going into it. Youy can't just throw something up there and expect it ot work. The purpose behind the Discover Point Facebook Group is to 1. Give people who are searching a place to connect with us before they come to church 2. Give our regulars a place where we could meet during the week and interact with each other. Please don't misunderstand me I don't want this groupto replace real face to face interaction but as busy as we all are it is nice to have a place you can talk to everyone at once (through the wall post or message board). We also use it as one of many mediums to send inforamtion to people of Discover Point (Through the group email). The most important reason it exsist though is so people have a place to meet us before they come to church. Millions of people are on Facebook. We all have 100's freinds on Facebook. Some of them are searching. If they are already comfortable using the facebook medium then it is a perfect place for our regulars to invite their freinds to come and meet us. They can look at video and pictures and get comfortable with us before they visit us. Now you nmight ask isn't that what a website is for? Sure but like I said they are already on Facebook . Why should we not give people as many outlets as we can to get to know us better. Those are my thoughts What are yours?

Marketing on Social Media

I love social media. I am a Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Blogger addict. I love to talk to friends, meet new people and share my thoughts with complete strangers. I spend hours trying to figure out how we can market Discover Point through social media. What I found is that you can't truly market a product effectively on social media sites. You can however market ideas, personalities and brands. Social media is a huge tool for the church that few have yet to tap into. Heck I spend hours ever week trying to figure out how to use social media more effectively for kingdom building. I know a lot of churches that have the misconception that is not the place for the church. It's too "of the world" "Facebook is the devil" and that could not be any further from the truth. With Facebook twitter and even this blog I try to connect with people where they are and this day and age a lot of them are right in front of their computers. I use the church Facebook group to not only connect people within the church but to show people outside our church, searching for something, the personalities of people in our church. We are a friendly fun, loving, down to earth crowd. We love technology, creativity and innovation. Using Facebook and this blog and twitter I try to share our "brand" our personalities with people so people will feel more comfortable being at church. I want to shake the awful preconceptions people have about church. I guess what I am saying is use social media for all it is worth. Its the best free marketing your ever going to get.