John Cade

I had an interesting conversation today about the online strategy for the student ministry at LifeWay. Though it was merely the first of many conversations to come about developing this strategy, we established something extremely important: We have to be more social.

It doesn’t seem groundbreaking to say this in 2008, but as with any company the size of LifeWay (2000+ employees), things don’t/can’t move as fast as they do in smaller firms. Not to mention, my position has been vacant for quite some time now, so the content of the site has been managed by a few different people over the last several months. They have done an excellent job, but this situation likely caused a disconnect between LifeWay and the end user. Which brings up yet another point that we discussed: We have to build relationships.

Being social and building relationships are not the same thing; one is a result of the other. Anyone can attend a gathering, talk to people, get a few business cards and go home. It’s what they do with the information they have received after the gathering that matters. By creating an online presence that allows people to be on the same level as us, we are being social. It’s the follow-up interaction that builds relationships.

LifeWay is the largest producer of Christian media in the world. Using social media outlets and producing new media will garner a lot of attention from our audience (many areas of LifeWay are already doing this). I hope for the student ministry specifically that it will be a leap forward in creating a more comfortable arena for our potential customers to start a conversation with us - to ask questions, and say “Hey, John - We don’t feel like you are accomplishing X - can you take care of this?”. This brings up one of the most important challenges regarding our position in the marketplace that we discussed today: People think of the corporation, not the people inside of the corporation.

How does a company our size make the potential customer feel like they are face-to-face with us? How do we overcome any preconceived notions they have about dealing with a company that is so big? How do we convey that we are a ministry-based-business, not just another company trying to make a buck off of them?

These questions can only be answered through a process of trial and error - at least in relationship to our online presence. There is no right answer to overcoming relational obstacles like this. However, with intelligent risk taking and the use of new media, we can attempt to break any barriers that currently exist.

And that, my friends, is the essence of what I have walked in to as one of the newest employees of LifeWay. I will attempt to transform the online presence of the student ministry into something that lets our customers know this:

We want to know you; We want you to know us.

Where do we start?

I’m John. If you’re on the StudentZIP mailing list, you’ll be receiving newsletters from me weekly. I’ll be responsible for providing student leaders with the tools and information they need through our student site on LifeWay.com. If there’s anything I can do for you, or if you have suggestions about what online resources would benefit you the most, please let me know. You can reach me my emailing john.cade@lifeway.com. I promise, I will respond to every email I receive as fast as I can. Don’t hesitate, please. I’d love to hear from you.

Disclaimer:  I’m definitely not the first person to post about this topic.  However, many of the posts you will find are aimed at web and marketing professionals.  My goal is to inform the general population about a few basic, useful things Twitter can accomplish.

I thought the social networking revolution hit an all-time low when I heard about Twitter. I don’t care what your dog ate for breakfast. So why would I bother following you and your too frequent and unimportant life updates on Twitter? What a terrible idea. However, I became increasingly intrigued after seeing people use it effectively as an outlet for self-promotion and marketing. Thus, I joined the fray and created my own Twitter profile. And the updates began.

From my limited experiences, I compiled a list of things Twitter can accomplish for anyone.

1. Keep you informed - Believe it or not, I find myself looking to Twitter for breaking news. After all, you can follow the major news networks, who automatically post to Twitter when they update their headlines.
2. Make you and your content known - I can’t tell you how many people I have discovered on Twitter that actually have something interesting or important to say. People that I would have never been interested in otherwise. They are effectively gaining an audience through the use of simple, one-line updates.  Twitter helps bloggers and site owners drive traffic to their sites, which is great for increased paged views and therefore higher advertising income.
3. Act as a lightweight RSS reader - Many of the feeds I am pulling into my desktop RSS reader actively ‘tweet’ when the site it originates from has updated content. With the integration of Twitterrific and Growl on my Mac, I can get updates without opening my reader and losing real estate on my screen (although it would be even more beneficial if Growl displayed clickable links).
4. Provide a forum for feedback - This point is two fold. By using the @username syntax, twitter users can reply to what others have said. When you’re following major corporations, this is a great way to give them feedback or let them know of any problems or concerns you may have. Believe it or not, it can quickly grab their attention; especially if your tweet puts them at risk of being exposed in some way. Secondly, it gives others an easy, quick way of responding to you and providing you with feedback on any new content you have informed them about.
5. Help you find answers - Got a question?  About anything?  There’s a good chance you’ll get a pretty hasty response from your followers.