Social media can provide four main benefits to ministry: communication, collaboration, community, and collective intelligence opportunities. It allows ministries to engage with members, students, and the community, share information and photos, fundraise, connect alumni, and build their brand. While social media should not replace other marketing, used strategically it can help spread a ministry's message and connect people in a way that is not possible without online engagement.

1. How can Social Media be
beneficial to ministry?
Practical applications
By John Roland, MDiv
Fundraising Executive
Twitter: @jaroland74 or Email: jaroland74@yahoo.com
John Roland, @jaroland74

2. Social Media Defined
• Social Media, defined: Activities that involve
socializing and networking online through
words, pictures and video
• Invented:for fun & to meet people (Facebook)
• Uses: relationship building, interaction and
community, networking
• Conversations: Listen, Learn & Share
John Roland, @jaroland74

3. Social Media Benefits . . .
• Social Media Provides four main
benefits:
• communication
• collaboration
• community
• collective intelligence opportunities
John Roland, @jaroland74

4. John Roland, @jaroland74

5. • Social Media (SM) and the Donut Factor---We can define social
media in terms of donuts, but think of SM more like an appetizer
or dessert in your marketing mix. It’s certainly NOT the main
entrée and won’t fill you up … yet.
John Roland, @jaroland74

6. “We don’t need social media.”
• You may be ignoring social media, but it’s not ignoring you.
• Ignore Social Media at Your Own Risk.
• Members, students, and the entire community are active in
social media.
• They engage in peer discussion.
• If you don’t engage with them, the conversation continues.
• But, it goes on without you.
John Roland, @jaroland74

7. Is Social Media just a fad??
• While U.S. unemployment hovers around 8%, job postings
requiring social media skills rose 87% from 2011 to 2012,
topping 13,000 in one month alone earlier this year.
• Among Fortune 500 companies, 73% now have company
Twitter accounts and 66% have Facebook Pages (FB).
• Corporate America is racing to apply social tools to
everything from building customer relationships to
connecting teams of employees around the world.
• Analysts estimate that $1.3 trillion in value stands to be
unlocked by new social technologies.
•
Fortune magazine
John Roland, @jaroland74

8. Who are your followers??
• To truly take advantage of the benefits, we need to
know who is in our network or “tribe.”
• Seth Godin defines a tribe as “a group of people
connected to one another, connected to a leader,
and connected to an idea. For millions of years,
human beings have been part of one tribe or another.
A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared
interest and a way to communicate.”
John Roland, @jaroland74

9. Tribes—we need you to lead us
John Roland, @jaroland74

10. Who are your followers??
• NASCAR driver tweeted a picture of a crash at
the Dayton 500 race while inside his car and
added 100,000 new followers in under 2 hours.
John Roland, @jaroland74

11. Who are your followers??
• Understanding who your followers are is at the heart of
developing a great social media strategy and campaigns.
• Create a number of personas that fit your target audience.
• Personas will help us identify the different needs of key
market segments and the places where they are online,
helping us understand their goals, wants, needs and
frustrations.
• We can start by sending out a questionnaire using survey
monkey to survey current followers of your Social Media
Channels
John Roland, @jaroland74

12. Social Vs. Sociality
John Roland, @jaroland74

13. Social vs. Sociality
• What people are looking for is not participating in a
democracy where they are asked to vote once in a
while, but be part of an environment where they
can have an active role as leaders or as followers,
dynamically sharing goals and emotions with others.
• As an alternative to an overly rationalized society,
people are tempted to choose the empathic
atmosphere of tribes.
•
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/2/Social_Networking_France
John Roland, @jaroland74

14. What do you want to POST?
•P: People (Who do you want to reach?)
•O: Objective (What do you want them to
do?)
•S: Strategy (How to do it?)
•T: Technology (Implementing
Technology)
John Roland, @jaroland74

15. What do you want to post?
• Upcoming class information, interesting articles, photos
and videos of the activities of your ministry.
• Don’t post just to post. In other words, have something to
say or don’t say anything.
• Post on your top channels at least once a day.
• If you’re stumped, think about what you would talk about
with a friend.
• Don’t constantly “Sell” your program; it turns people off.
John Roland, @jaroland74

16. Pick 5 Social Media channels and stick
with them
John Roland, @jaroland74

17. • Quick way to connect in 140 characters, receive feedback, market
church or university, etc.
• Twitter, with its brevity and informality, makes it possible for the Pastor
or CEO or VPs to engage with hundreds of employees, interns, and
students, in a way that would be inconceivable on email or in person.
• Some of the most powerful advocates any organization has are its very
own employees.
• It empowers internal employees to become external and become brand
ambassadors and brand evangelists as they are doing ministry.
• Better teamwork and access to a steady flow of company news are
essential ingredients for cooking up an educated and passionate
workforce.
John Roland, @jaroland74

18. • Allows members and volunteers to tell
the minister or university’s story,
through their own pictures.
• As the saying goes, “a picture is worth a
1000 words.”
John Roland, @jaroland74

19. • Announce upcoming events
• Link to your church or pastor’s blog
• Post photos
• Create a Facebook List centered on a relevant topic that
includes key value-adding people and Pages.
• Use the networks of the people and pages included to fuel
initial growth of the list.
• Get your students to “like” your page by offering incentives
• Connect small groups
John Roland, @jaroland74

20. John Roland, @jaroland74

21. • People watch video, and if we are not using this medium to
share at least part of our message, we are not effectively
reaching most prospects, current students or alums.
• By using video it allows every organization to share their
unique message; tell their story; and paint the picture of
their mission through video for their consumers in a way
that can connect with them at a more personal and
interactive level.
• Videos can be made FREE from one’s iPhone.
John Roland, @jaroland74

22. • Create a living resume with active recommendations,
connections, and links.
• Allows one to jump in on the discussions and share best
practices from your ministry.
• By providing the Linkedin profile URL for each employee, it
is a subtle way of sharing (i.e. bragging) about their
background, education, recommendations, and credibility.
John Roland, @jaroland74

23. Listen to the voices . . .
• What is being said about your organization in Social Media?
• Set up Google Alerts that notifies you when someone
mentions your ministry on the internet.
• Set up a listening station. Great example on how to do it:
www.zephyrmarketing.net
• Respond to (don’t delete) any negative comments.
• Social Mention* searches across multiple channels for
mentions of our college in real time
John Roland, @jaroland74

24. Brand yourself & your ministry
• What do you want to be known for as a person & as a ministry? Provide
relevant content, articles, opinions, and information in that direction.
• Thanks to social media, recruiting is no longer a top-down, closed-door
process. The employer-candidate relationship is becoming highly
transparent and conversational.
• By having a well-defined online presence—whether it’s through a
ministry blog or Twitter profile—employers can shout out to the world
exactly what kind of people they’re looking for. This can dramatically
cut costs and time involved in the recruitment process.
• Candidates can now go online and scour a potential employer’s Facebook
page or website, even read through the Twitter profiles, blog posts or
comments of current and ex-employees, then decide whether to still
pursue the job.
John Roland, @jaroland74

25. SM used to connect
Alums with Seminary
• Helping Alumni Find Jobs
• Collaboration and Connecting with Students, new alums &
old alums to assist with transitions
• Fundraising: From E-mails to Tweets
• Providing Tools To Spread Information about seminary
• Engaging alumni by allowing them to produce their own
content for seminary publications
• Use Google Maps for alums to post their current location &
career
• Create alum referral program for prospective students
John Roland, @jaroland74

26. SM used to connect
Alums with Seminary
• Gathering and Sharing Information about seminary
• Showcasing Student and Faculty Work & expertise
• A place for the university community to engage and
participate in the event as it’s happening
• Easier & quicker to spread news during an emergency
• Providing a place for the seminary community to
organically connect and gather
• Way to promote university without having to use
major media
John Roland, @jaroland74

27. It is all about REACHING
people.
John Roland, @jaroland74

28. John Roland, @jaroland74