Orange Preconference ’14: “Developing a Weekly Social Media Plan for Parents & Volunteers” Notes

Matt McKee and Gina McClain “Developing a Weekly Social media Plan for Parents and Volunteers”.

They are passionate about social media not because it is about technology but because it is about people.

Did you know that the number of Twitter users would rank as the 10th biggest country?

Grandparents are the fastest growing demographic on Twitter.

35 million selfies will be uploaded today.

Everything you tweet, Facebook or Instagram is being documented and stored…somewhere. It also has power.

LifeChurch.tv uses technology all over to communicate Christ to the world. They think technology first.

Know your audience. You have to understand your community. You have to first ask the question, who are you communicating to?

You are communicating to parents and volunteers. Those are 2 different messages. For parents, you recap what their child experienced on Sunday. You need to feed them information about what they learned. That helps them keep the conversation going to the home.

We can’t let the conversation end on Sunday. We need to be communicating during the week with parents.

For volunteers, we are saying, “lets prepare for the conversations”. This helps them make the most out of their time.

A big challenge churches have is communicating how they are communicate. – Matt McKee.

You have to know where your audience is. This is not marketing. They are talking in different social media platforms. Conversations are happening there, we should join the conversation so that you can have influence in that conversation.

How do we come up with fresh content to make our presentation better:

1. Ask your community directly. Get around people. Your community is your best source of intelligence. Valuing their opinions will hep you better connect with them and bring you closer to what they are thinking. Ask them.
2. Ask your fellow staff. The staff spends time talking to the community as well and they re building relationships. This can easily translate into content.
3. Ask your volunteers. Volunteers know where the weak points are in your church and ministry. They get asked questions that don’t come up to you. Find out what those are and make a blog post about it with top tips. Shoot videos with volunteers answering actual questions.
4. Follow your community on Social Networks. While asking your community direct question is 1 way to get information from them, following them on social media platforms is a way to find out what’s on their mind. Don’t just follow those who go to your church.
5. Join Ministry Groups. Ministry Groups can be a great source of content ideas. Join groups in your targeted area to see what the conversation is about. What kinds of blog posts are shared? What gets the most discussion? These can guide your own content creation.
6. Follow Ministry Blogs. There are great blogs out there. Use these ideas as jumping off points for your own content.
7. Discover Key Words in Analytics. Search still drives traffic to websites, an your church is not likely the exception. Get access to your web analytics and see what search terms are bringing visitors to your site. Create content based on that.
8. Listen to your community. What kinds of questions are people asking online in your community? Are they looking for recommendations? Can you create content that responds to their needs?
9. Monitor Community Conversations. Whether you use a paid social media monitor solution or free tools, you should follow key terms.
10. Connect with other local Churches. We learn a lot by connecting. This doesn’t mean you copy everything. It shows the community that churches can come together so communities can come together.

Orange has a new plan to help. It’s “Parent Cue Weekly” and “Lead Small Weekly”.

• One geared towards parents. Another is geared towards volunteer leaders.
• As a ministry leader it gives you a checklist to use weekly to engage your community and access to resources.
• The social media plan for parents is still available for free.

Social media needs to be more than content. It needs to be more about interaction than content. Content is good and needed.

Some Tools to Manage your Social Media:

1. Hootsuite
2. Social Oomph (similar to Hootsuite)
3. Tweepi
4. Spredfast (measures)
5. Buffer (one of the most popular)
6. Sprout Social
7. Everypost
8. Bitly