Articles

We are now in the third era of communications that some call the social media era. This new era is by and large unrestricted communication and can open previously closed doors to the unreached. As media purveyors, we need to be cognizant of the new foundations and practices this opportunity avails us.

Paul had a clear mandate from Jesus that was validated by a vision and a miracle: to bring the gospel to the Gentiles (as recorded in Acts 9). OK, a few kings and sons of Israel were in the mix, but Paul writes in Galatians that he was the apostle to the Gentiles. He was passionately convinced that his mission was primarily to the Gentiles. So, if his ministry was to the Gentiles, then logically Paul would focus his efforts to get “the biggest bang for his buck” and communicate to as many Gentiles as possible.

When people talk to me about their media strategy, I often think about the “Three Little Ws” and then ask them questions related to the concepts embedded in the Ws.

Ready for a dirty little media secret? Media content does not really matter. OK—it matters some. But what really matters is having a follow-up strategy in place before undertaking a media strategy.

“You don’t tell people what to think, but what to think about.” Content is important, but only to the degree that you get people to engage in post-media conversations.

I want to follow up on the second Little W: “What do you want them to do?” I have heard some people answer this question with: “Duh, become a Christian.” Actually, we need to do more than “get them saved”— as important as that is. This article will tackle the context of “what you want them to do” as it relates to “high-level decision-making.”

During graduate school, my research mentors hated Martin Fishbein because they could not supplant his research with voodoo statistics and esoteric articles that challenged his propositions. Fishbein masterfully combined communications theory with sociology to make a simple, eloquent and yet powerful communications model. Fishbein (and his co-researcher Icek Ajzen) developed the Theory of Planned Behavior, which stated that if people hold beliefs that a certain behavior would lead to a desired outcome, then they would act on those beliefs through intentional behavior. To make this easy, if someone believes they will make a pile of money on the stock market, then we can predict they will make an investment.

Now that we have the Three W’s down: "who is your audience, what do you want them to do, and where is your audience when they consume the media," I’d like to shift to the “third wave of communication” as a focus of this article. This third wave is what is best termed "New Media."

Recently I was sitting in a room in with a group of South East Asians who are putting together a bang up media strategy. I am really proud of these guys. This strategy is well thought out from the time a person connects with the one of the four media organizations until the field worker picks them up to start a Discover Bible Study (DBS). This small group is highly focused, and the data shows that of those who are vetted for field follow-up, 30% end up starting a DBS. Keep in mind that these are Muslims who are starting these DBS groups.

Quintan Wiktorowicz was researching radical recruitment when he observed that Jihadi recruits followed a pattern of conversion that he called “the funnel.” His research has been one of the most useful models for me in understanding high-identity conversion.

Viggo Sogaard shared with me that one of his favorite “media” verses was Hebrews 1:1-2 where he states that in the past God used various media to communicate, but now He speaks in “Son” language. Viggo observes that the technology that was involved in communication was consistent with the era (oral communication, later written, etc.), but the message was always presented in a manner that was normal for the culture. Interesting observation.

For the next couple of articles I want to dive into a media strategy that is being done in Southeast Asia. The team has several partners on both the media side and the field side, but the glue that holds it together is a common vision of seeing church planting movements birthed. Interestingly, one member of the team is a statistician. Since New Media is data driven, the team felt a need for someone to guide them in making sense of the data. Let me give you an example.

In his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey noted that one key habit for being effective (people or organizations) was to “begin with the end in mind.” This translates into thinking through what your ministry’s calling will accomplish. As simple as this principle is, it is rarely followed.

Over the last week I have been in meetings with team members who are involved in a media strategy in Southeast Asia. One of the meetings was with a media partner who are seeking to develop their persona grid that would help them in strategic planning. They started with four descriptors of persona: spiritual, relationships, finance, and lifestyle. Next they identified two categories of these descriptors: unfriendly and interested. This gave them a Persona grid of eight possibilities. Then they brainstormed on key words that related to the descriptors and categories.

Recently, a media ministry leader was telling me about a project that his group did where they used a persona that was related to dreams and visions. I was familiar with the project since I conducted the training with the team on how to use persona and key words in a strategy. Essentially he felt this persona approach did not yield a measurable increase in respondents to their media initiative. I would agree with him that that the “dreams” persona may have not been as a fruitful approach as it could have been, but my understanding of the team’s goal was to start somewhere and then learn from the outcome.

Since media is often consumed in a group setting (the third Little W – context), over the next couple of articles I would like to discuss groups more in-depth. People watch YouTube in groups, listen to the radio in groups, and they discuss with others information they have heard or read about.

Earlier we discussed that true conversion involves identity change. When people just “add Jesus” to their current belief system, then it is questionable as to whether conversion really occurred.

We discussed the last article about information processing and conversion pathways of seekers. Over the next couple of articles we will build toward an understanding of lead scoring, and I felt it would be good to summarize the conversation that I had with the North Africa team.

This article I want to pick up from our discussion about people who are in the conversion process who are gradually shifting from passive to active seekers.

Recently I was meeting with a troubleshooter for one of the top financial institutions in the world. I’ll call him Bill. Bill’s job is to go into departments that were in “in trouble” and to help them sort out the issues that led to their demise. In the course of the conversation, Bill revealed an insight that I think is useful for us.

In the article on measuring intention, I introduced the idea of Stages, Steps and Processes in a media strategy. This is not unique to me; communications experts like Engel (Engel scale), Soggard, and others have developed models that highlight stages of conversion.

Recently I was reading an article in a journal about terrorism that referenced research that reported that one in three ISIS and Al Qaeda members is a technologist. While I was in conversations with researchers with Homeland Security, they observed that Al Qaeda is best understood as a media driven ideological movement.

In the persona article I mentioned shamed based media strategy. Recently I was in a couple of meetings where people asked me to unpack this a bit more.

Recently I had dinner with the author of book Hooked. The premise of Hooked is people can be addicted to media and thus can become a source of riches for new dotcom entrepreneurs who have some cool idea.

The development of Internet touches all aspects of our lives. Can you imagine a world without it?! Some say we are entering ‘web 4.0′, on our way to the next era. With the majority of the world accessing the Internet, a force that changed the landscape throughout cultures enters our world. In this first blog I want to set the framework for a series of blogs I will write about Social Media.

‘‘We are on Instagram too..." I feel like I am supposed to respond in a cheerful way (…I guess…) when somebody tells me this, like they are telling me that their organization is ready for the future! But… reality has kicked in and most of the times it makes me suspicious. When someone is telling me that they too are on a social media platform, most of the times they don’t have a clue what they are doing. I don’t want to sound too harsh, but it happened more than once that I found out that the social media is not really social at all. So what is the essence of social media?

During a conference someone shared the example of ‘Hilton Suggests’ (HS), the Twitter customer care of the hotel chain we probably all know. This example ignited in me the rethinking of ‘follow up’ from a customer care perspective. How to do follow up to a social media generation? When you are used to write (long) emails as follow up, using direct messaging is very different and require a different kind of savviness. A like or a comment can be a starting point of follow up 2.0.

‘If you don’t know where you’re going and don’t know whom you want to reach, you’re going nowhere and will be reaching no one.’ This was one of the takeaways we received from the keynote speaker an international social media summit I attended. Building a strategy is the key to reach your target group (see a helpful strategic planning method here). Although it is important not to push your message while you engage with them, it is smart to be strategic about WHOM you want to reach and HOW you are planning to do that. Mission In social media it is important to know very clearly what your organization’s core identity is. What is your mission? If this is not clear you can’t build any solid strategy, online or offline. The mission represents the personality of your organization. In the middle of all the noise on social media it is important to stand out. The better you know your mission, the better you are able to create content that will help you to stand out in the midst of this noise. A clear mission is like a personality and is unique for every organization (otherwise you should merge)! Persona If you know clearly what the core identity of your organization is than it is important to think about whom you want to reach. Who is your persona? ‘Persona’ is the word that is used on social media to define the exact audience you are targeting. In this article you can also find persona’s that are developed based on biblical references. But I want to challenge you to think through some of these questions before you take a look at them (the more detailed you are in thinking this through, the more accurate your strategy will be in the end). It is useless to invest time and resources on a social media platform if your ‘persona’ is not there. Whom do you want to reach? Think of: Age, gender, religion, animistic beliefs, geography, language, education, economic situation, needs, worldview, culture, social status and situation, how they like to spend their free time, what is on their mind, how they feel, etc. As many details as you can think of. I know different organizations that actually gave their persona a name, connected a picture to this profile and shared this with people they work with in order to help them reach their target audience. Choose platforms If you have a clear idea on what your mission is and whom you want to reach it is important to find out what platforms your target group is using. It is useless to invest time and resources on a social media platform if your persona is not there right?! For instance, if you want to reach teens they may not be on Instagram (anymore) but if you build a presence on TikTok or (Twitch if they’re gamers) you might be more successful. Sometimes it can be wise to use different platforms if your target audience is using one platform to read articles and the other to get inspiration through pictures and quotes. Tweeked approach Of course there is a lot more to say about strategy. But the last thing I want to highlight in this article has to do with ‘content’ and ‘tone of voice’. Every platform demands its own way of presenting your content. When you only have 140 characters to share your message (like Twitter) , you have to capture things in a square picture (like Instagram) or you have to find your way into the rules and regulations of organizations in the ‘thumbs up’ network (like Facebook) all these require a slightly tweeked approach and different tone of voice. Let’s bring all of these strategy elements together with an example. One team’s mission is to advance the great commission. Their persona focuses on Muslims disillusioned with Islam. To see if they’re succeeding in the mission, they regularly evaluate how their Facebook platform is contributing towards making disciples who make disciples.

‘Let me tell you a story…’. The moment the keynote speaker is phrasing this, the people in the room change the way they sit—and more importantly—the way they listen. You can see this happen! Stories are the oldest form of communication and oldest known mechanism of learning. No wonder the digital version of storytelling is finding its way on social media!

Probably you all know those funnel models for social media. When you ‘reach’ an ‘X’ number of people, at the end you will have a ‘Y’ number of people that are really and deeply ‘engaged’. In marketing reasoning those are the people that ‘buy’ the most products or are most likely to ‘convert’ as a response to the message of your organization. This word ‘engaged’ used to be linked to my pre-marital status, but now I can be engaged with everyone who follows, likes, comments of shares my posts! But what is real engagement?

The last article from my hand was all about the magic word engagement. I concluded to say that engagement is about what people think, how they feel and act. It is relational! In this article I want to get a step deeper on this topic and explore how it is possible to come from ‘like’ to ‘love’, into deeper engagement. Why is this important? Well… people that LOVE you will stick around; people that LIKE you might find their love somewhere else.

I was speed dating with other organizations during a conference on social media. One of first questions I asked my opponent was of course: how are you doing online? We had some nice conversations. Especially one organization was bragging aloud on their online presence. What I didn’t tell this guy I dated that morning; I checked his organizations afterwards to see how credible his story was. I was looking for social proof.

One of the biggest neglected fields in social media is the world of games. Just a few numbers to give an impression; more than 2.5 billion people play online games. According to latest research they expect a market growth of 9%, which means that the money that is involved in the gaming industry will reach $196 billion by 2022.

Social media ROI is what you get back from all the time, effort, and resources you commit to social media for making disciples of Jesus Christ. Second thing that is good to mention before we try to find an answer to this ROI-question; a lot of people reading this article are part of a ministry and not into business. That means that the return you are looking for is most of the times not money, but disciples making disciples (Matthew 28). Still it is good to think about this question because it can help to understand if it was worth the money and effort you have invested so far!

I love to read while I am traveling. Waiting for a plane is just so much better with good stuff to read. This time I manage to get a hardcopy of a book called Brand Love. It is written by one of the people that influenced my thinking on social media and branding the most I guess: Graham D Brown (Like the D!). This book describes in a very engaging way how to build a brand worth talking about!

In early scholarship on radicalization, sociologists and psychologists considered environmental issues such as poverty or oppression as motivating factors. This research posits an alternative view. Though background factors, such as economics, religiosity, and religious training, as well as issues that are of an emotional nature, were important, none showed significant influence in radicalization. But when the populations were evaluated on Webster & Kruglanski’s (1994) “need for closure” metrics, the two populations showed distinct differences. In other words, psychology and personality interacted with endogenous factors to motivate or “pull” someone to seek information to resolve cognitive consternation and are thus radicalized.

Media Strategy to Reach the Muslims of Ultrautara area of North Pulau, Southeast Asia. (Master Thesis By Frank Preston, Columbia International University 2004 )

Example of persona strategy for a Christian mission agency.

The 2010 PI International survey demonstrated one key finding: individuals and teams who had a written ministry plan and acted upon those plans, demonstrated positive results toward church planting (44% of our population of church planters fit into this category). Individuals and teams who did not have a plan, or had a plan but did not act upon it, were negatively correlated to activities that lead to a church plant (56% of our population fit into this category). The simple act of planning made the difference.

When Paul came to faith, God gave him a clear mission statement: (Paul) “is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel” (Acts 9:15). When Paul defended himself to King Agrippa in Acts 26, he reiterated this purpose statement. In his defense to brethren in Jerusalem Paul again made clear his ministry was to the Gentiles (Acts 15). In Galatians, Paul distinguished himself as the apostle to the uncircumcised. Paul was clear in his purpose and he measured his steps to insure that he did not get off track. In Galatians, when others else were being swayed by hypocrisy, Paul did not waver “for even an hour.” (Galatians 2:5). Paul knew his mission and his calling. It embodied him.

The purpose of this article is to discuss how using media can identify pockets of people who are truly interested in the gospel. By identifying people who are open to spiritual change, these media principles can cultivate the emergence of disciple making movements.‍

This article will discuss church planting movements, the role of early adopters within a small group, as well as media’s role identifying and mobilizing small groups towards a movement.