RE-Think Social Media and Raising Support

Thanks for this blog. I have struggled with what to do. My supporters are very much older than even your “older set”. But I do know that some are on FB but most don’t live there.

I know I should do something.

Question and I know people have this problem in business. Do I have a different place in Facebook for a ministry page, possibly use the fan page? Do I form a group? Or do I use a special name and just have my supporters as friends with this new name?

Really helpful to hear from Steve. Liked his thoughts about taking time to find your voice, the value of being able to communicate/engage in real time, and the importance of engagement. “Facebook is such an extension of yourself. That’s what people [supporters/etc.] want to hear.” It does seem like social media, when used wisely, can be one of the most powerful tools we have for ministry partner development. I bet younger staff have a lot to offer us on this front; new staff coming on the last year or so didn’t even experience college without facebook, right? I wonder: could/should social media practices make it in to our formal training in some form or another?

Hey Brian! I think you’ve indirectly influenced me in using social media to develop/maintain support via Dan Birch. It has been exciting & the most interaction with supporters & potential supporters since joining staff 9 yrs ago.

MailChimp, a free service, has been a great advantage. I use it to direct others to our personal website (http://www.scottandjessi.com) to view any updates/giving/etc. It tracks how many people open & subscribe to getting your updates through email vs. paper mail.

Creating & MAINTAINING, the key ingredient, a ministry website has been a huge success with MPD. For me, I’ve noticed that 3/4′s of my traffic have got to our website from facebook. Twitter is still lagging with the older & some younger generation, but will pick up as more & more people get smartphones, using the Internet on their mobile device as normal daily living.

I’ve created a Facebook Fanpage & then invited my supporters & others. I’m not sure how to fully utilize the fanpage, but the purpose it serves right now (thus my high facebook traffic) is to send an “update” message to all my members on my Fanpage.

This will be the way of communication NOW, but not doubt in the near future! Utilizing social media to gain maintain & develop ministry partners will be necessary for every generation on staff.

Any more suggestions would be welcome!! I often visit crublogging.com or mediaforministry.org

thanks Brian for ALL you are doing.

FYI: trying to retweet & it says, “URL points to the wrong story.”

Great video and very helpful (though a little too late for me personally). Another benefit of MPD via social media is that for the first time in 20 years, I am getting information about the lives of my ministry partners. Like Steve said, my information via prayer letters was always late in arriving, but it is very rare that a ministry partner shares what is going on in their lives with us via letters or them initiating phone calls.

I discovered that ministry partners who where dealing with infertility were able to get pregnant via a FB announcement. Consequently, I was able to call with and congratulate them within hours of their announcement. This indeed builds the basis for deeper levels of partnership in ministry by interpersonal connection.

Thanks Brian for helping us re-think connecting in more meaningful ways with our partners.

This is a very healthy discussion. My wife and I met yesterday to map out long-term strategy in MPD and focus for this summer as we concentrate on it for about 8 weeks.

We want to experiment more with digital tools for this important aspect of our ministry – some ideas so far
- consider getting an iPad to make presentations with partners
- create a website to serve our personal brand and act as a home base – we would then have various outposts like Chris Brogan describes
- increase use of our twitter feed
- consider creating a FB fan page (just thought of that this morning… not sold on it though)
- do more personal touches and thank-yous through social media
- explore use of social CRM for communication with donors while continue using TntMPD for mechanics of analyzing/tracking the financials

Something we’ve found really effective is short, crisp changed-life stories that are almost in real-time. We’ve found sending these out gets more engagement and connects with donors better than relying on a laggy newsletter. (Keith is really good at this through his email list.) We’ll continue to experiment with the best mediums of sharing these stories
ex. I talked with someone on campus today and the conversation went like this…. can you believe we get to be a part of this person’s journey?! Here’s a photo.

We still think a consistent newsletter can serve a good purpose, but want to move towards much more real-time communication.

My hesitation on this is that MPD could easily become overwhelming with so many tools and outposts to manage. We need to communicate and engage but also do what our supporters are empowering us to do (share the gospel). I think it’s unrealistic to think that I can keep in touch well with 800 people in my database. Can I monitor a feed of all their joint social activity for 10 minutes a day – yes, but otherwise I need to guard my time. As someone who also supports people, I don’t expect them to be my friend, facebook me everytime I have a birthday or a new haircut, I just want some sort of consistent update on the cool things God is doing in them and through their ministry.

Doug –

Great questions. I hope to help in answering them.

At this point, Fan Pages are much more vibrant that group pages. Group pages work in a closed environment, meaning that you can share all the great info with people in the group, but members of the group have to go into the group page to learn about it.

Fan Pages are easy to set up, have analytics built in and when you post something on it, it shows up on their news feeds immediately. They aren’t as tied into the system.

I tell people don’t create a organization as a personal profile. It is truly limiting. Individual profiles have a cap of 5,000 friends, while fan pages can group to the millions if need be.

Also, you can’t send all fans messages at one time through a personal account, however, it can be via a fan page.

I hope that helps!

Ah, keep in mind that the premise of Facebook was to share the things you care about with the people you care about. Initially, your first group of friends where truly friends, but now, it has extended to co-workers and aquaintances and random friends. However, the charge is still the same – to share what you want.

Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. If you need to, set up a specific friend list on facebook for “ministry” and then when you want to see what is going on with that group, you can select it.

Nice, I actually just created a “supporter” list right before I checked this blog! It’s already helped & I’ve commented on many people’s status. Oh, it feels good to be connected to ministry partners. It’s how they stay with us in the long run. Being in touch = having continual support….okay, that’s usually!

I echo using the videos at http://www.mediaforministry.org.

I like the idea of creating a fan page or group & the idea of making a list of supporters in order to connect with them….though I’m still wary about all my supporters being facebook friends.

Great comments everyone! Thanks for the input about setting up those friend lists…that will really help me tame the gorilla of so many friends.
And thanks Steve for your thoughts and taking the time to do the video chat! We’ve come a long way since Comm Center 1991!

And…why didn’t anyone comment, “I can’t believe that Fuhs guy is 40! he doesn’t look a day over 30!” C’mon people!!

I was just messing around one day and decided to create a facebook fan page for our partners. One of the main reasons was to try to connect some of the people we minister to outside the US with our partners. I would love any feedback as well as if it helps anyone here is the URL: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/The-Streets-Ministry/405869150577?ref=sgm

Another partial link The fan page is called “The Street’s Ministry”

Hey Brian,

This is great stuff to think & chew on. Yeah, I’m a blogging novice but I’m starting to see the potential & the direction our communic’s are going. Just wondering: Will these blogs & replies still be up after the blog-ference? Hoping so but just wanna make sure.

Also for Bob- I felt old myself until I heard you say you’re 40…you still got a few years on me, so I’m still just a young’n here. Thanks for that brotha, I feel better!

(And for the record- you don’t look a day over 30, man)

Rich -

Great fan page. I think you are doing a great job with it! You should learn or find someone who knows a little HTML and you can create some great stuff on this page including:

* a welcome tab that all to-become fans can get a snapshot of your ministry.

* a donation button that allows people to give directly to the ministry without going on the page.

* video page (you can technically add it without much work) to showcase any videos, etc.

However, you seem to have good engagement and responses from your fan base, which is great!

Good luck!

Good word!!! Thanks!!!

Any chance you can “show” me an example of a fan page that has the welcome and donation feature? I can figure out how to do it if I “see” what you are talking about.

Working on the video now!!!

That’s what I’m talking about!

Russ I hear you. I mention below how you can create a news feed just for your ministry partners on FB and when you want to find out more, you just click it.

There are also other ways to streamline communication like linking your FB Fan page to your twitter feed or your twitter feed to your FB fan page and your personal page.

However, the best streamlining is to determine where you want people to go (i.e. you home website) and have your other communication channels point them back to you.

Also, Twitter has an “engagement” opportunity that you can use as well to follow people and talk to them and help them. It may not always be a listening device for people to just follow you.

I hope that helps!

sorry for the delay. I’m not getting my follow up emails from these….

Uh, I have proof….and posted it. LOL!

The beauty of having a FB page is that your supporters can be your fans without having to be your friends. I know that sounds kind of callous, but I work with professional athletes who have the same issue.

It takes the guilt off of them as well. If you create the page, then when you post something on that wall, you post as the fan page, not as your personal profile.

I hope that helps!

I personally think it should. If the red cross can raise more than $25 million using twitter and texting for Haiti, what do you think crusade staff could do with new technology.

I sometimes feel that staff has yet embraced using email as a communication medium and the current set of communicating with their support team is via printed newsletters.

Staff should embrace new technology because while scary to use, this is the same technology that we should know to share the gospel message. Know it, use it, leverage it.

If not, I think we are missing a great opportunity that others will leverage soon.

Love mailchimp. I use it myself, so way togo! Check out my comments under Rich Street’s entry below on some other ways to leverage your FB. Install the FBML application and you can create some great tabs to help your fb page grow!

Thanks Brian, all great stuff. Much appreciated, mate.