So you’ve ventured into social media to promote your ministry and reach out to the hurting. This vast “sea of humanity” seems almost too big to target effectively with your message. However, if you are to be fishers of men, you must know your audience! How do you pinpoint exactly who’s engaging with your community and what they care about? What is the end game? What do you want them to do once they’re engaged with your group?
First lets start with ideas for engagement. If you say you care, then do something that shows it. Be real conversational and aim for the heart. In my former days as a TV reporter, I learned to ask questions I already knew the answer to when interviewing subjects, in order to get the best story on the newscast. In other words, if you know your audience, you can create, videos, stills and graphics that ask the questions they want answered.
“My husbands cheating, what do I do?”
“My teen’s on drugs, who do I turn to?”
Today’s technology offers you a variety of social media platforms that allow you to track, not just the volume of people, but actually learn about who they are, where they live, their education background and above all how jazzed up they are about what you have to say. Platforms such as Peek Analytics and others are a great investments, but can be pricey.
Here are few things to think about.
1 – Identify the emotion in your message & know your target.
2 – Use video and real people to tell stories & introduce your community.
3 – Offer something of value to your audience. i.e. send them to a live person to pray for them or an online small group, a book or a video link. Something personal from the heart.
4 – Know in advance what you want them to do & where you want them to go. Send them to an online private contact to get help.
5 – Engage, and know their pain and feel their pain and then do something for them.
Whatever you do; try & create direct personal interaction from the heart. Be succinct. Capture and keep your audiences attention quickly. Most people will give you about three seconds to decide if they want to continue to the end of your message.
At the end of the day, a social media universe is only as valuable as the people you reach, and actually have a connection to. So, reach from the heart and see what happens.
Lisa Moscarelli is a 25-year veteran in marketing and advertising strategy and creative content and is a Telly Award winning writer and producer and a DRTV specialists. She co-founded the 5th largest advertising agency in Houston (Cohn-Moscarelli). She is a media consultant and CEO of a full service marketing firm Moscarelli Media.