The Marketing Edge

Most ministries and non-profit organizations are familiar with social media, and many have made forays into the communications platform.  Recent research indicates that an understanding of "we should do this" exists, but understanding appropriate social media goals and how to achieve those goals still eludes most NPO's today.

One of the most difficult tasks is to step outside of the actual day to day tasks of ministry and into the shoes of those that they communicate with.  Additionally, the people that ministries serve are not always the same group of people that ministries communicate with to raise the funds that facilitate ministry.  In short, communications have to be crafted towards the target audience by understanding who they are and what is important to them.  This is where social media is most important because it is a dialogue communications platform, not a broadcast channel.  Interaction and listening should occur regularly in this communications channel to understand priorities, needs, and concerns.

The next important fact to consider is the impact that social media can have from a viral perspective.  Consider the following statistics:

• Online social network users were three times more likely to trust peers’ opinions over advertising when making purchase decisions (Jupiter Research).
• According to a global Nielsen survey of 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising among 78% of the study’s respondents.
• Consumers trust friends above experts when it comes to product recommendations (65% trust friends, 27% trust experts, 8% trust celebrities) (Yankelovich).

Interaction on social media platforms creates a relationship, and the viral power of that relationship is tremendous.  Strategy, content, interaction, and viral outreach should all be pillars of social media for non-profit organizations.

As we interact with our Christian ministry and non-profit clients, we find that many do not have the time or staff to manage this type of outreach.  ChurchLink Communications, our Christian advertising agency, can step in and create the publishing platforms for our clients and then train them in how to efficiently manage these platforms, or we can manage them for our clients. 

Our next blog will discuss ways to get started in social media, or if already involved, how to correct potential errors that may have been made to date, and then to launch with realistic goals and effective strategies.

About ChurchLink Communications: The mission of ChurchLink is to empower Christian organizations to utilize every technological tool to proclaim the message of the Gospel.  As a leading Christian interactive agency, we are confident that we can put all of the pieces together to deliver exceptional results for our clients, including broadcast television and radio, search engine optimization, social media, internet marketing, and more.  We truly are unaware of any other Christian marketing company providing all of these resources in one place with the level of expertise we bring to the table.  Our Christian agency has over sixty years of combined experience in broadcast, internet, and mobile marketing.