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Interview with Mars Hill Director of Communications on Developing a Web Strategy

March 2, 2012 in General, Leadership, Marketing, Technology with 2 Comments

I interviewed Mike Anderson of Mars Hill. Mike is the Director of Communications Mars Hill & The Resurgence. Last week I posted The Top 3 Websites in America. Mars Hill easily made the list. I wanted to dig deeper and understand why and how Mike and his team developed an effective web presence on behalf of Mars Hill. Connect further with Mike via his blog and Twitter.

What is your role at Mars Hill?
I direct the communications team. The team has broad oversight of all communication aspects of Mars Hill Church, The Resurgence, PastorMark.tv, and now the Acts 29 network.

What are your primary responsibilities?

I lead a team of very strong managers who each are much stronger than I am in their specialty. My responsibilities are to make sure that we have the right people in the right positions, to translate the vision of our leadership into strategy, and create a culture of execution in which we do great work that is true to our focus of “it’s all about Jesus”.

What process did your team follow in developing Mars Hill web experience?

We have a general philosophy of project management that we try to follow that you can read about here: http://mikeyanderson.com/simple-project-management. Redeveloping the Mars Hill site was on a very agressive timeline, our Web Development manager really stepped up to the plate to own the process.

What elements are needed to produce a strong Internet presence?

There are a ton of ways to get a lot of people to a website. But a successful Internet presence is based off of the mission and vision of the organization you’re building for. In our case we are all about making disciples and planting churches. We have a general goal of planting 100 Mars Hill Churches and 1,000 Acts 29 churches – additionally our goal is to baptize around 10% of each of our church congregations each year. This means that we’re telling people about Jesus, empowering our people to be missional, and people are getting saved. To create a strong Internet presence for that mission has a few big characteristics:

Define your audience
In our case this means that we have 4 large websites that each hit a different group of people that are essential to the mission and vision of our movement. MarsHill.com and it’s social network presence revolves around the idea of “making disciples”. This site is aimed at telling people about Jesus, providing Jesus-focused sermons, and connecting them into meaningful community at Mars Hill. For the Resurgence we’re aimed at current and future leaders—mainly focusing on theological, pastoral, and practical topics that leaders of any level face. Acts 29, which we’re currently in the process of building a new site and content strategy is focused on higher level leaders who are planting or may have church planting in their future.

Make a flywheel
In his book “Good to Great” Jim Collins talks about the fly wheel principle. This means that just as a flywheel is a large heavy disk that as it spins it gains more and more momentum and is very difficult to stop – the fly wheel of a web presence is the idea that the right strategy can grow in momentum and be a driving force in the success of your mission. With Resurgence this is very simple – we publish two articles a day that are short, punchy, and helpful. On most days we have around 20,000 people a day coming to read those articles. These are all people that we are praying will grow in their love and knowledge of God, and that will contribute to our mission of Making Disciples and Planting Churches where ever they are.

Simplify
If you can’t do it well, it’s often not worth doing. If I was responsible for the website of a church that was small and didn’t have the resources to create a well thought out web strategy, I would create a simple one page website. It would say the name of the church, the mission we’re on, the times we meet, and how to connect.

How does Mars Hill use the Internet to engage people with the Gospel?
We have two primary ways that we engage – the first is that we push out what we believe to be the best teaching we can though each of our sites. We don’t hide Jesus. On the new MarsHill.com we decided to put Jesus in the upper left corner to be clear what we’re about. The second way that we engage people is that we try to connect people online to real like Gospel-centered communities so that they can get discipled well.

What systems does your team follow on a daily basis to maintain your Internet presence?
We have a few staff members devoted to the content on these 4 sites, but we have literally hundreds of writers from around the world that are contributing in some way. We have a set of themes for each of the site that we’re trying to communicate. For Mars Hill this is almost always related to what is being preached from the pulpit on Sunday, for the Resurgence this is often related to a quarterly theme that we choose to have about 50% of our posts address.

We have a ton of different rhythms that help us to organize the massive amount of content that we publish.

What advice would you give a church leader when attempting to develop a Internet presence?
I believe that the internet is important, but not ultimate. It is a tool in your tool belt to accomplish your mission. For a church that has a very large and expanding vision I would recommend bringing in a specialist or a consultant to create a roadmap. For a church that is focused on multiplying small churches or growing linearly I would recommend that you try to apply these communication solutions (http://mikeyanderson.com/destroy-these-communication-problems) to your organization.

Why do you believe the church must use the Internet to engage people with the Gospel?
I believe that some churches must use the Internet to engage people, and even those churches should automatically go hog-wild with online. They should use the Internet only as much as it helps the mission.

We did an audit of our communications at Mars Hill and found out that we were communicating with our people through 57 different channels. The result of our good intentions to engage people were ever they were is that we created a passive audience that waited for information to come to them instead of seeking it out. To address this problem we actually diverted some of the effort that we were putting into the web and investing in doing a great job with our weekly handout. Simplifying and communicating to our people through fewer means has initially seemed to drive engagement with those channels.

Additional Thoughts:

I (Tim Peters) enjoyed the intentionality of advance the mission of Mars Hill via the Internet. Brilliant. By streamlining messages, site architecture and rich content the mission of Mars Hill is reaching thousands and thousands of people.

What do you think?

Should Senior Church Leaders Use Social Media?

March 1, 2012 in Communications, General, Leadership, Marketing, Technology with 8 Comments

Fifty-nine percent of execs believe businesses that do not routinely leverage social media will not survive, according to a Forrester Research survey. And 71 percent said companies taking social media seriously gain a competitive business advantage, the survey found.

Cambridge, MA-based Forrester’s consulting division conducted online surveys with 101 VP- and C-level marketing professionals and interviewed 12 CEOs, CMOs, and VPs. The 29-year-old research firm was commissioned by Facebook to orchestrate the report. ClickZ News received a sneak peek to the results, which will manifest in a 15-page report to be released on Wednesday.

Three other interesting data findings:

41 percent of the execs’ firms have begun using social media to market products, manage staff, and optimize operations.
40 percent plan to start employing social media as a marketing and operations tool.
76 percent said social media is a brand builder.

Source: ClickZ

Immediately my thoughts race to Senior Pastors and other Senior Leaders of churches and how they embrace social media.

Are senior church leaders fully embracing social media?
Are senior church leaders leveraging social media to extend pastoral conversations with people beyond Sunday?
Are senior church leaders viewing social media as a tool to live out the Great Commission?

I believe in cases, a group of senior church leaders use social media to connect with church members. However, I believe the majority of senior church leaders do not embrace and leverage the power of the Internet. I believe they should.

Why? Because the stats of Internet consumption are alarming and represent much more than statistical data. The numbers represent PEOPLE. SOULS. ETERNITY.

I highly recommend every senior church leader calendar specific time each week to intentional connect with people via social media.

Resources

How to Be A Social Media Leader

7 Practical Ways Pastors Can Use Social Media

3 Problems Churches Have Engaging People in Social Media (and How to Solve Them)

4 Ways to Become the Leader People Want to Follow

February 24, 2012 in Communications, Culture, General, Leadership, Marketing, Social, Strategy, Technology with 8 Comments

We’ve all had bosses we are proud to follow. People we’d do anything for. Even run through brick walls. On the other hand, most of us have also had bosses we follow only because, well, they’re the boss. So what separates the leaders we “want to” follow from the leaders we “have to” follow? The answer lies in the 4 Cs of Effective Leadership.

I have the great privilege of Guest Blogging on Michael Hyatt’s blog, today. Read this complete article on Michael Hyatt blog.

Texas Ministry Conference Notes

February 18, 2012 in Communications, Culture, General, Leadership, Marketing, Social, Strategy, Technology with 0 Comments

I had a fantastic time presenting to organizational leaders at Texas Ministry Conference. The experience was very satisfying in knowing we helped Texas Ministry Conference reach an all time attendance record through Internet Marketing Campaigns. Additionally, the conference was very enjoyable knowing many people were impacted by receiving relevant content on ministry best practices.

Below you will find my handouts, notes and presentation decks for all three sessions -

Create a Web Experience, Not a Website – Maximizing Your Digital Front Door

After word-of-mouth, your website is your most powerful marketing tool. In 2011, your “new front door” starts with Google and ends with a click of the mouse. Are you capitalizing on the opportunities technology provides? Do you tell an online story or simply provide a PDF brochure online? Do you present people with an experience or an “every day” website? Learn compelling statistics and practical ways and tips to create a memorable website.

Handout

Notes

Presentation

Vision in Action – Vision Beyond the Whiteboard

Does your organization have a vision statement? How about a mission statement? You probably do. If you do not have these two vital statements, or if you have them but are not using them to guide your organization’s work, you are missing out on the most effective ways to create movement in your church. This movement requires action driven by vision and mission. Without an action, the vision and mission will never leave the whiteboard. Learn practical ways to identify and integrate vision and mission within your church and ministry.

Handout

Notes

Presentation

Healthy Leaders Lead Healthy Organizations – 10 Keys to Being a Healthy Leader

Being a pastor is a demanding and at times, a chaotic role. It is difficult to find restoration. Restoration is a key ingredient to being healthy. The mind, body, and soul need restoration…daily restoration. In this workshop, you will learn 10 principles that will change the way you do ministry. These principles penetrate every area of life, from spiritual to growth to marriage to physical exercise. Concluding the presentation, each attendee will be equipped to take the next steps to full health.

Handout

Notes

Presentation

I am available to speak and train your organization and leadership on these topics and more. Connect with me to start a conversation.

How Is Your Church Responding?

February 17, 2012 in Communications, Culture, General, Leadership, Marketing, Social, Strategy, Technology with 0 Comments

We (Resolute Creative) developed an informational video. The video addresses the overwhelming opportunity to spread the Gospel via the Internet. We know Internet stats. We know the power of the Internet. We know the Internet is not a fade. We know that Internet stats represent people.

The Great Commission does not exclude the Internet, it includes it. How is your church responding?

Internet: A Mission Field from Jacob Abshire on Vimeo.

How To Create A Positive Web Experience In 30 Seconds

February 15, 2012 in Communications, General, Marketing, Technology with 3 Comments

Thirty seconds is a short span, and yet so much can be communicated in that time. This past Super Bowl opened my eyes to the power of communicating a message in 30 seconds. Although I was not overly impressed with this year’s commercials, I did take away some key lessons that translate to the Web. Today, I’m going to briefly answer how you can:

Draw people into your website in less than a minute
Quickly and effectively convey a memorable message
Create a positive web experience for visitors

The Power Of Rapid Cognition

In his book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell covers the topic of “rapid cognition” which he defines as, “the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience.” He explains how too much information can cloud an individual’s ability to accurately analyze a situation and how “in good decision making, frugality matters.” Although you never get a second chance to make a first impression, you do get many chances to make the next impression.

Now, let’s look at three ways you can create a positive website experience in 30 seconds or less -

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I have the great privilege of Guest Blogging on Michael Hyatt’s blog, today. Read this complete article on Michael Hyatt blog.

Review resources for stock designs, fonts, colors and web examples -

Here are four ways you can work to become a social media leader:

The Power Of Rapid Cognition