Church Online, Marketing, Ministry 2.0, Social Media, Web Design
June 19th, 2010 by Matt Haff
Catalyst
Many of you have probably heard of Catalyst but have you ever attended? I know it’s not about web or social media, or online video, or anything that I normally discuss on here… It’s about leadership, moving the church forward, igniting a revolution, building great leaders. I believe it is important that we instill leadership values into ourselves and our team. It also helps to have a vision as a whole of where the church is going. This is why at 12Stone® Church we get tickets for our entire staff, and I do think that it has an effect on how we work together.
An Event Apart
I haven’t been able to attend one yet but I’m hoping to sign on for the one in San Diego this year. Every year since they started I’ve wanted to go but haven’t had the money. It is one of the most expensive events for web developers, designers, etc. This is one of the more advanced conferences so if you’re just starting off this probably isn’t the one for you. But if you’ve been in the game for a few years and want to push yourself…this is where you want to be. Become a fan of them on Facebook and get an additional $100 off with discount code: AEAFBAEA
An Event Apart is an intensely educational two-day learning session for passionate practitioners of standards-based web design. If you care about code as well as content, usability as well as design, An Event Apart is the conference you’ve been waiting for. Your conference pass includes admission to all fourteen sessions at the two-day conference; breakfast, hot lunch, and snacks on both days; access to the opening night party; and a bag of swag.
M2Live
I had the opportunity to attend M2Live last year and it was a very affordable conference with great speakers such as John Saddington, Tony Steward, Jason Reynolds and more! The event is based around web, communications, social media, etc.
If you are a church leader or volunteer interested in learning how to develop an effective social media strategy, create a more appealing and usable church website, or would like to grow your ministry using web technology, M2LIVE Orlando is the event for you!
Marketing
April 13th, 2010 by Matt Haff
Who should read it? Anyone that wants to build their brand and fully understand what your brand is and is not.
A few things I picked up from this book…
A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company. It’s not what you say it is. It’s what THEY say it is.
The foundation of brand is trust. Customers trust your brand when their experiences consistently meet or beat their expectations.
Modern society is information-rich and time-poor. The value of your brand grows in direct proportion to how quickly and easily customers can say yes to your offering.
There are five disciplines of branding that must be mastered.
1. Differentiate
- Our brains filter out irrelevant information, letting in only what’s different and useful.
- Differentiation has evolved from a focus on “what it is,” to “what it does,” to “how you’ll feel,” to “who you are.” While features, benefits, and price are still important to people, experiences and personal identity are even more important.
2. Collaborate
- By asking left-brainers and right-brainers to work as a team, you bridge the gab between logic and magic. With collaboration, one plus one equals eleven.
- Over time, specialists beat generalists. The winner is the brand that best fits a given space. The law of the jungle? Survival of the FITTINGEST.
3. Innovate
- It’s design, not strategy, that ignites passion in people. And the magic behind better design and better business is innovation.
- How do you know when an idea is innovative? When it scares the crap out of you.
- Expect innovation from people outside the company, or from people inside the company who THINK outside.
- Avoid the three most common barriers to web innovation: technophobia, turfismo, and featuritis.**
4. Validate
- The standard communication model is an antique. Transform your brand communication from a monologue to a dialogue by getting feedback.
- Measure your company’s brand expressions for distinctiveness, relevance, memorability, extendibility, and depth.
5. Cultivate
- A living brand is a never-ending play, and every person in the company is an actor. People see the play whenever they experience the brand, and they tell others.
- No decision should be made without asking, “Will it help or hurt the brand”
- The growing importance of the brand has a flip side: its growing vulnerability. A failed launch, a drop in quality, or a whiff of scandal can damage credibility.
** I will be doing another post highlighting this point.
Blogging, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization
January 8th, 2010 by matt
These are just some quick and dirty notes taken at WordcampATL during “SEO & WordPress”
Presented by: Topher Kohan, SEO Coordinator at CNN
SEO Basics
- title tag
- headline
- first 250 words
- url slug
- alt attributes
- when it comes to content make sure you have enough in your body to support the head and the tail.
Template Optimization
- breadcrumbs
- clean code
- css, js, ajax
- external files
- keep the inline minimal
- reduce whitespace (yoast.com/speed-up-wordpress/)
- in 2010 the speed that your website loads will effect your search engine ranking
- plugins
- all in one seo pack
- works well
- could screw up the world
- can’t be used on wordpress.com
- page rank sculpting
- use of nofollow on links
- nofollow reciprocity PLUGIN
- nofollow External Links PLUGIN
- don’t follow links freely. you start off with 100 points and every external link you use decreases your points
- everytime you link to them, you’re “voting” for them
- noindex, follow archive pages…… point everything to single post page, block the archives, search, etc.
- google follows all the links
- pages not in the index
- robots meta plug-in
- noscript tag
- put plain text description of content that shows up in search engine-unfriendly format on the page
- could be considers spammy by the search engines.
DONT USE FOR KEYWORDS, ONLY TYPE WHAT THE SCRIPT PULLS.
- textbox in flash search engines can see
- image size
- bigger better (search engines like it) or video
- higher res better (search engines like it)
- image search
- alt attributes
- file name
- canonical tag – NEW works for Google works on same domain and cross domain
- reduces duplicate content
- yoast plugin
- points all duplicate pages to the original place
- Recommend that you take the time to read the official Google Blog post on it before you do it http://kl.am/canonical
Resources
- WordPress SEO
- General SEO
- Twitter!!!
- RAVEN SEO TOOLS
- social media tracking
- post directly to wordpress
- keyword research
- serp tracking
Marketing
July 6th, 2009 by matt
I had originally posted this on another blog late last year and I wanted to share it with everybody with a few changes.
Please Don’t Mark Me As Spam
- Spam Assasin Criteria, try and stay below “3? on your spam rating.
- Don’t use ALL CAPS
- Don’t use exclamation points excessively, one gets the point across just fine
- Use more than just images in your e-mail
Ways to keep users from hitting the “spam” button
- Keep your Subject relative to the church and what the email is about
- Send your emails to lists no older than 6 months
- Include a permission reminder at the header of your emails
E-Mail Campaign Services
Design Tips
- No wider than 600px
- Top left corner is the first thing that is seen in most e-mail clients and it is 250×250px
Anti-Virus Software messes up a lot of designs and strips out much of the code that we use when designing a newsletter.
- No JavaScript
- No Flash
- No Dynamic HTML
- No <head>
- No <body>
- No CSS Positioning
Images are the next thing that can vary on different clients. Here are some tips about what to expect when sending out e-mail newsletters with images.
- Assume that the pictures are not displayed by default and the user will have to click a link or button to show the pictures.
- Assume that the users will not bother to turn on the images
- Use ALT text format: “graphic: alt text” so that when the picture doesn’t show they won’t read the ALT text like it’s part of the content.
- When your customers sign up for your email newsletter instruct your customers how to add your e-mail address to their contacts
- Attach a vcard, not a must but it couldn’t hurt.
Suggested Websites
Marketing, Social Media
June 8th, 2009 by matt
Monday, July 13th (at Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, AL). This is a first of its kind event for you to get hands-on training for how to use social media and social networking in your ministry setting.
Speaking at BUG are Greg Atkinson, Maurilio Amorim, Shaun King, Jeff Murphy, Lynse Leanne Stevens, Michael Trent and Guy Walker.
BUG is put on by ARC (Association of Related Churches).
BUG is a day you can learn about church marketing. BUG is focused on identifying, exploring and developing current trends in marketing. Come learn how ARC pastors are reaching more people than ever before through LOW COST , high impact VIRAL MARKETING.
Their goal is to educate, enhance, and enable pastors to reach their local community through social media.
I hope you’ll come join me at this new conference. You can register HERE.
