Marketing and Management Thoughts » sharing

Pope gets his YouTube Channel

Paul Prins — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:06:40 +0000

The Vatican has received much praise from the international media (BBC, Inquirer of the Philippines, LA Times, Time Magazine, CNN Int. to list a few) with the launch of their You Tube channel this last week (on the 23rd).

Currently it only holds just over a dozen videos (mostly address by Pope Benedict XV). This is a great way for them to reach and interact with an audience that has been, in my opinion, widely ignored by the Church as a whole (Protestant and Catholic).

Make sure to swing on over to their page and give it a once over, maybe watch a video or two. I must also comment that they are doing this page in four languages (Italian, English, Spanish, and Dutch).

Building Community: Video Sharing Sites

Paul Prins — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:12:32 +0000

In terms of building community this is probably the least effective method of those listed in the original post for the series. I make this statement because the main purpose of these sites is entertainment. For this purpose I’m going to break this down into three sections; Promotional Videos, Follow-up Videos, and Documentaries.

I would first post all of these video on your churches website for your members before heading over to a site like You Tube. If you’re interested in posting to multiple video sharing sites at once check out our post on tube mogul.

Promotional Videos

Click here to view the embedded video.

These could be general promotional videos for your church (like a commercial) or for a sermon series. The purpose for posting these videos online would be with a hope of attracting people to your church website, and your church itself (so make sure your church domain name is in the video and description!!!). I wouldn’t go out of my way to create videos to post online to sites like You Tube but to re-purpose content you’ve already made to show on a Sunday morning.

The main idea is to give the world a glimpse of the community happening inside (and outside) of the walls of our church. If you’re videos get some traction online it will hopefully help to lower peoples hesitation to the Church and to Christ whom we represent.

Follow-up Videos

After your church holds great events (including mission trips) post a follow-up video online. These videos could be a compilation from a conference your youth attended, a video made from the Christmas Eve candle light service, or a summer church picnic in the park. These are great because they show your community in action. For those in your church it is always fun to me reminded of times you had (and to see yourself in a video).

For people outside of your church these videos can provide an intimate and personal insight to what is going on inside your church. Of anything I believe this could have a tremendous effect at breaking down false expectations/views of what it means to be a part of the body of Christ. These videos can also be referenced by your members in emails to friends that could hopefully lead to inviting them in the future.

Documentary Videos

Click here to view the embedded video.

While not really fitting under the idea of community building as the previous two this is an area that the Christian faith is lacking in greatly. Google Video is one of the sites that allows longer videos to be posted. A quick search for videos about faith reveals many promoting Islam and other faiths, along with videos pulling down Christianity (one not so flattering video is to the right, but there are some positive ones). What a need for high quality christian documentaries!! You could go about building community through the group of people that come together to produce these documentaries for the web to combat lies that are being spread and to give hope.

If you know of anyone in your church who has a gifting and passion for film & documentary please empower them to make these films! Films that show the active work of the faith in today’s world.

Building Community: Photo Sharing Sites

Paul Prins — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:24:13 +0000

Photo Sharing sites abound on the Internet. The majority of them interweave a combination of user uploaded photos with a community aspect (mainly through groups and comments on photos). These sites allow you to create an account, most for free, and then allocate all of your shared photographs into one location.

There is little people love more than photos (and photos of themselves). These sites allow for great access of your members to full galleries. After retreats, mission trips, confirmation services, and any other event you can think of. With so many people loving photography this provides a way for them to serve as a ‘Church Photographer’ and you create a valuable new role in your church.

Within your churches account you can upload all your photos and place them into sets/groups for specific events. This allows way more pictures to be posted and archived than makes sense to do on your churches public website.

Below is a list of sites you can use to host these photos most for free I believe. We personally recommend Flickr and they are probably the most popular among those listed below. It is very easy to use, they have a free option (and a pro account for $25/yr allows 2 gigs of uploads/mo, and shows all your photos all the time, instead of only the 200 most recent with the free account). Sort your images into set, and then group the sets into collections for quick access. These photos can also be downloaded at full resolution if someone wanted to print a copy for themselves (this is an option for each account/image).

Facebook also has a photo feature but I wouldn’t encourage using it for this purpose. These galleries are not accessible publicly (for most people over 30 who don’t have accounts), there is no access to the full resolution image, and by uploading images to facebook they become the property of facebook (see their terms of service).

Building Community

Most of these sites allow you to create some sort of photo sharing group. By doing this you can encourage members of your church to post and share their photos in the group. This allows everyone one simple place to go and view photos from events and trips your church goes on.

Imagine having a group of students on a mission trip after hurricane Katrina doing cleanup and posting photos mid-trip online for everyone back home. All they would need is an hour in a wi-fi hot-spot (like many coffee shops or hotels) and they can upload photos.