An online home for your Christian ministry can help you reach out to people that you may not have ordinarily met, facilitate deeper conversations, build community, and increase the level of engagement and involvement among the people already involved with your ministry. But with so many options out there on the world wide web, knowing where to start can be a little daunting. It can also be overwhelming thinking that you need to a create community on every social media platform that exists (like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, or a blog), especially when it seems like there’s a new social media darling cropping up every six months.
This screencast will give you a framework to help you think through where you should start, in terms of social media and the online world, and how you should prioritize your time so that your online presence can be as focused as possible.
In most cases, a custom blog or website will make the most sense for an online home base because of the level of consistency, customization, and control it offers you. But in other cases, an online home base on an established social network like Facebook might make more sense because of Facebook’s ease of use, and because of the huge numbers of people already on it. To find the online home base that makes the most sense for your ministry, you’ll want to think through these questions:
- What are the goals of your online presence?
- Where do the people you want to connect with spend their online time?
For example, if you are in college ministry in the US, it might make sense to use a Facebook page as your home base since the students you’d be ministering to spend most of their time on Facebook already. It can also be very challenging to get people to leave their Facebook ecosystems to go to your website. So rather than creating an online island and hoping people show up, it may make sense for your ministry to live where your audience lives. Sure, you lose some control with Facebook, but the potential of connecting with a much larger group of people in the ecosystem where they’re spending the most time could be well worth it.
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So, what do you recommend I do if I’m starting a local campus ministry for the very first time? Should I use a facebook fan page or a website or blog? If you do recommend a blog, what is the best free blog service I should use? I’m a real novice here.
Thanks for some great tools to help me think through!
I think it depends on how much of a novice you are, and who you’re trying to minister to. If you know your way around wordpress, or you’re willing to learn, I’d go with a self hosted wordpress blog running the Thesis theme as your home base because of the high level of customization, control, and seo optimization it offers you. And I would use this blog in conjunction with a Facebook page.
On the other hand, if getting a self hosted wordpress site up and running is totally over your head, and you know the students you minister to are on Facebook (which they more than likely are), then start with Facebook as your home base, and work your way up to a self hosted blog. Facebook’s not perfect. But like i said before, it’s a great place to start.
The really important thing you should think through though is where your audience spends its online time, and what can you do to go to them rather than making them come to you.
Good word Sam. Thanks.
Do you have a good example of a simple wordpress blog that runs the “Thesis” theme and “seo” (?) optimization that works in conjunction with a facebook page.
The only two i can think of off the top of my head are asucru.org
and chicocru.com
Chicocru.com is running Standard Theme right now, but the concept is the same.
Good stuff. Also depends on how many volunteers/churches you want to interact with.
Check out http://pdxcru.com