Igniting Participation:!Developing Communities of Engagement
!Carolyn Mae Kim, Ph.D., APR!
@CarolynMaeKim
The Social Principle
“The fluid nature of social media is designed for and sustained in
relationship through two-way communication around topics of mutual interest that is user generated,
created and driven.”
Identifying Tribes
• Natural groupings regarding interests.
• People who are together due to some event or activity.
• Consider segmentation based on demographics, membership, region, or influence.
Questions to ConsiderWhat are the common values, opinions, beliefs or
behaviors that link the people in this audience?
What information or content would be most meaningful to the people in this audience?
What does your ministry hope that this audience will do as a result of interaction with your organization?
Does social media have the potential and capacity to reach the needs of and objective for this audience?
Check-List - New MembersCommon values, opinions, beliefs or behaviors:
New & less information than others in the community.
What information is most meaningful:
How to connect, ways to plug in, and introduction into the community.
What is your long-term goal:
Developing longer, deeper relationships.
Does social media fit this need:
The nature of online communities facilitates these goals and needs.
Building Conversations
• Customized and popular hashtags
• Utilize across platforms
• Weave into live events
• Integrate onto physical media
The Power of Images
• Social content with images experience much higher engagement.
• Images allow for diffusion of large amounts of content, use of humor, and recaps from events.
The Eye of A Camera: Video
• Best utilized in social spaces in small amounts. Consider 6 second (vine) to 2 minutes for Youtube.
• Behind the Scene, Day in the Life, Q/A Answers, etc.
• Consider elements such as audio and lighting.
Other Social Strategies
• Live Digital Engagement (Twitter chats)
• Content Curating
• Exclusive Information
• Resource Delivery (white papers, study guides, etc.)
• Community Highlighting
Facebook or LinkedIn Groups
• Connection for small groups, ministry teams, short-term missions, donors or volunteers.
• Provide direct emails but also group interaction and engagement.
• Utilizes video, graphics and text on a personalized platform.
Build Conversations
• Put pre-made tweet(s) in the bulletin for the week.
• Place the image for the week in the announcement slides (or use a vine) that can be re-shared in Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.
• Encourage the community to interact—reject the pull to use social media as a publicity platform.
Engaged Videos
• Mid-week reflection on the sermon from the pastor.
• Ministry update from the field (or event) by participants.
• The story of those in the community (donors, small group leaders, choir members, etc.).
• Be sure to keep it short!
Tips to Engage & Monitor• Hootsuite (free and paid)
• Individual Platforms (set alerts and push notifications appropriately) (free)
• UberVu (Paid)
• Topsy (free and paid)
• Tagboard (paid)
• Keyhole.Co (paid)
• Social Mention (free)
Audience✓ Who are your specific
publics you hope to reach?!
✓ Are those publics active on the general platforms you are currently using? !
✓ What are the values/needs/beliefs/behaviors of the audience in mind?!
✓ What do you hope this audience will do as a result of your social media?
Source✓ Who is the source of your
organization?!
✓ Do you have a leader (pastor, CEO, director, etc.) who will also be a public face?!
✓ Does your organization have sub-sources (courses, products, chapters, etc.) that are providing information on social media.!
✓ How do all these sources interact with your specific audiences?
Channel✓ Not all platforms are equal.
There is no reason for you to be on every platform.!
✓ Which platform is the correct channel for you to deliver the information to your audience?!
✓ Are there any platforms you are using that you should close down (or others that you should add?!
✓ Carefully evaluate the analytics of your platforms to determine the most effective strategies.
Your Social Media Plan1. Spell-out your goal: The overall reason your ministry wants to use
social media and how that relates to the overall purpose of your ministry.
2. Identify your audiences: Be specific and understand their needs/desires.
3. Create a SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) objective(s) for your audiences.
4. Develop strategies and tactics to support each objective. This is where you marry the creative capabilities of a platform to the unique values of your ministry.
5. Evaluate your social media efforts and adjust accordingly.