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Take the Communications Strategy Survey!

Paul Steinbrueck — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:40:23 +0000

“Most people don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan.”

That’s what I wrote in yesterday’s post, What Is a Communications Strategy? because the sad truth is most organizations don’t have a communications strategy.

We want to better understand how well all types of organizations – businesses, nonprofits, schools and churches – do at developing a strategy for their communications and where they need the most help. So, we created the Communications Strategy Survey.

Your Survey, Your Results

I will first share the results of the survey in the breakout session I’m leading June 5 at the Biola Digital Conference.

The following week, we’ll publish more extensive analysis in a blog post here. Our hope is the insights gained will serve as a springboard to discuss how, together, we can improve our own strategic thinking and create resources to help organizations develop better communications strategies.

We want this to be a collaborative effort. So, if you want to slice and dice the raw data yourself, we’ll even make that available (excluding the email addresses of participants, of course).

Go!

Please take 2 minutes to complete Communications Strategy Survey.

Then please share this post on Facebook, Twitter, G+, email, smoke signals, maybe a tattoo.

Hey, why wait for the survey results to start the discussion. Post a comment…

How do you feel about your organization’s communications strategy?
What is the biggest barrier to an effective communications strategy?
What strategic communications resources would be most helpful to you?

Video Blog Series: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About SEO

Paul Steinbrueck — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:01:08 +0000

This month we’re posting an SEO FAQs blog series (that’s Search Engine Optimization Frequently Asked Questions) to share with you everything you ever wanted to know about SEO!

The series is designed for the leaders and communications directors of Christian churches, schools ministries and business who know having good search rankings is important but are not SEO experts. The series is designed to help you understand what SEO is, why its important, what questions to ask an SEO company and how to evaluate SEO companies and services so that you can select the option will best help you achieve your mission online.

As we publish new videos & blog posts to this series, we’ll add to the list of links below.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About SEO

What questions do you have about SEO?

Web Hosting FAQs – Video Blog Series

Paul Steinbrueck — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:36:02 +0000

We at OurChurch.Com have been providing web hosting services since 1997. We’ve answered thousands of questions about web hosting over the years, in this video blog series, I’ll be answering some of the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) about web hosting.

Web Hosting FAQs

What questions do you have about web hosting? Ask them in a comment and I’ll either answer in a reply or maybe even feature your question in a new video blog post.

7 Communications Resolutions for 2013

Paul Steinbrueck — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:32:33 +0000

Hi and a belated Happy New Year to you all! I thought I’d kick off a new year of blogging by sharing with you my 7 Communications Resolutions of 2013. These are the areas where I am going to focus on improving in the new year. One of my resolutions is to make better use of video, so that’s why I’m introducing this series with a video. Take a look…

I’m doing a brief video blog on each of the 7 Resolutions and will include a link to each here after its published:

What are your communications, marketing, blogging and social media goals/resolutions for 2013? Post a comment and discuss.

And let me know what you think of the video format. Thanks!

Series: 7 Practical Steps to Getting Started in Social Media

Paul Steinbrueck — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:34:08 +0000

Periodically, I get messages from people that sound something like this…

“Paul, I know social media is big. Our business/non-profit/church needs to start using it, but we’re not sure how. Can you point me towards some resources and give me some practical steps to getting started?”

It’s a great question. A lot of the blog posts, webinars, and training sessions talk about the benefits of social media but lack practical steps. Many others are written assuming the reader is already using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc and are over the head of the person just getting started.

So, today we’re going to kick off an 7 part series called Practical Steps to Getting Started in Social Media.

Before we jump into the practical steps, though, there are 3 important prefaces I want to touch on first.

1) Learn how to learn.

No two organizations are exactly the same, therefore no two organizations should have the same approach to social media. There are a million social networks out there and a million different ways to use each one. If you are looking for step-by-step instructions so you can function like a social media robot, I think that’s the wrong approach.

A better approach is for us discuss a general philosophy of how to learn about and engage in social media in a way that’s applicable to all social networks. This will empower you develop your own unique voice, figure out how to use social media in your own unique way, and prepare you for future social networks which are bound to come along.

2) Understand that social media is a conversation.

If you are just getting started in social media, all of your marketing up to this point has been broadcasting in one direction – from you to your customers/supporters/members. If you view social media as another medium to “get your message out” you will fail. Not only will you not produce results, but you will actually damage your organization’s reputation.

Imagine yourself at a party. If all you do is stand in one place and talk about yourself to anyone who comes within shouting distance, you will look like a self-centered fool, and everyone will ignore you. It does not matter how great your product, organization or cause is.

You absolutely must understand that social media is a conversation. Yes, there is a time when you get to talk, but listening, responding, and asking questions are even more important.

3) Be a person first.

The best business owners are the ones that understand their customers. The same is true in social media. The businesses, non-profits, and churches who are using social media best today are the ones who are led by people who know what it’s like to be on the other side. They engage with other people, businesses, non-profits, and churches themselves, they know how they want to be treated, and they know what they want from the organizations they engage with. They bring that experience to their organizations and engage with people the way they want to be engaged with. So, if you want your organization to use social media well, the place for you to start is to engage in social media yourself as an individual.

I’ll close this post with a preview of the 7 practical steps to getting started in social media:

Tune in tomorrow for Step 1: Learn

Until then, let’s talk about the 3 prefaces above. Which jumps out at you and why?

20 Ways to Share Your Faith Online

Paul Steinbrueck — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:27:56 +0000

The explosion in popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have led to tons of new, creative ways for Christians to build relationships and share their faith with people online.

Each of the next 20 weekdays, some fantastic guest bloggers and I are going to share and discuss one creative Internet evangelism idea each day. That’s 20 ideas from 12 bloggers in 20 days.

All of this leads up Internet Evangelism Day, April 25, 2010

The purpose of this group blogging project as well as Internet Evangelism Day is to raise awareness about the opportunities each of us has to use some facet of the Internet to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others.

If that gets you excited, here are 5 ways you can get involved.

But before I got to those 5 things. I want to give a big shout out (and some link love) to the following bloggers who will be contributing ideas.

20 Ways…

Edit 4/5: I’m going to continue to update this post with links to each of the 20 ways to share your faith online.

Plus the wrap-up post: 20 Ways to Share Your Faith Online – Thanks, Feedback, and the Tipping Point

Five Ways You Can Participate

Follow @OurChurchDotCom on Twitter and retweet the link for each idea.
Share some (or all) of the ideas with your Facebook friends.
Discuss the ideas in the comments. Share any related ideas.
If you’re a pastor, communications director, evangelism coordinator, or small group leader, engage your congregation in a discussion about these ideas.
Don’t just talk about these ideas. Do them! Post comments telling us about what happened, the people you connected with, and what you learned from the experience.

So, what do you say? Are you in? How do you plan to participate?