Articles

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

‘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!

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.

The article highlights the importance of having a clear social media strategy by first defining your organization's mission and understanding your target audience, or “persona,” in detail. Choosing the right platforms based on where your audience is active is crucial for using time and resources effectively. Each platform requires tailored content and tone to engage users successfully. For example, a team focused on reaching disillusioned Muslims uses Facebook and regularly evaluates how well it supports their mission of making disciples.

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.

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."

‘‘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?

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.