I recently went to 3-day conference that was designed to help businesses and marketers to be profitable through Social Media. I went with help and support of my friends at cvoutreach.com (THANKS GUYS!!!), and I realized that this conference charges about $1,500 for All-Access pass! This makes it the most expensive conference I've been to, and I will be sharing a series of them in couple blog posts.

"Social Media Marketing World" is dedicated to help businesses to grow their bottom line. What can churches learn from a conference dedicated to maximize dollars? Well, we can do all that we can do to grow our bottom line—to lead as many souls to saving faith. So, here's couple things I learned that I believe will help church online.

1. Start Using Live-Streams

The days of "Broadcasting at" is over. With Social Media rising to its prominence, it's not difficult to spot live-streams in our daily feeds. We call this the era of "Broadcasting with". It's the idea of interacting with live audience and letting live interactions guide the course of your contents. This sounds scary, but this is where Social Media is trending. Facebook, which accounts for half of all internet users in the world, recently announced that "Live videos" get 6X more views than "Recorded videos". Six Times! This is just views, but if you account for interactions through comments and share, this number should easily double. What does this mean? You can have strong online presence just with your phone. A quick and easy step is Facebook Live. It's available for all of us. So consider going live this week.

2. Automate, automate, automate

There's something Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, have in common with you. You both have 168 hours a week. I know that this is not a shocking revelation, but this tells us that time is our most valuable asset. When I first stepped into online ministry, I wasn't quick to involve automation. I wanted to provide personal and intimate responses to all who approach me, and automation didn’t feel personal. But there are couple quotes that helped me to view automation in a different light. Greg Hickman, Marketing Funnel Strategist, said "Automation is reducing few human touches, so that few human touches you have are more impactful." Also, Andy Stanley, the founding pastor of Northpoint Community Church said, "Do for one what you wish you can do for everyone." This speaks to the fact that we cannot give everyone the same personal and intimate touch all the time. And this is where automation is helpful. I recently found myself answering the same questions when recruiting for volunteers, so I decided to create an animated video to address this question. Now, whenever I jump on a call with a potential volunteer, I send this clip beforehand to answer those questions. This has saved both my time and energy and made the interaction much more impactful. You can watch this clip here.

3. Keep Exploring

Social Media Marketing World really confirmed the conviction that I have been having about church online. We must continue to explore and innovate in order to stay relevant to our members. More and more of our lives are becoming digital (shopping, entertainment, etc.) It's not a secret that we are spending a lot of time looking at the screen. When everything we do are directly or indirectly through the internet, the church must do make its presence known in its members’ lives. So I want to leave you with the thought of keep exploring. Keep innovating. Download that latest Social Media app. Sign up for a 30 day free-trial of digital resources so that when your member needs you on their phone, you are already there.

Question: Is your church/ministry on Social Media? Do you have a ministry strategy for Social Media?