Fork In The Road Music » Communication

Follow Friday – People I’ve Never Met

Russell Martin — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:54:43 +0000

Last week I started a post that expanded on the very popular follow friday idea. Basically I am sharing not only the twitter names of those I follow, but a few reasons why you should follow them too.

This week I want to introduce you to people I have never met. These are some people I follow on twitter, whom I have come to know over the years through their blog posts, twitter updates and facebook conversations. I admire them, who they are and what they are doing. I just haven’t actually seen them in person… but I’d like to.

@mandythompson – Mandy is a songwriter, worship leader and takes some of the best photos posted on instagram that I have ever seen. She took part in the album in a day project where she wrote, recorded and produced 5 songs in a 24 hour period. She shares her thoughts, and songs over on her blog mandythompson.com.

@kemmeyer – Kem is the Communications Director at Granger Community Church. Her book Less Clutter Less Noise is a must read for anyone involved any way in communication. Read her thoughts at her blog Kemmyer.com

@mattlipan – Matt is a pastor, blogger, fellow United Methodist and dad who, as he says is, trying to live at the intersection of culture, theology, people, social media, music, and life in the Midwest. Read his thoughts and posts on his blog mattlipan.blogspot.com

So those are my #followfriday folks for the day. What are yours? Who do you follow that I should follow?

Oh and if you want to follow me you can on twitter.com/rgmmusic or Facebook.com/russellmartinmusic or the new google plus

Featured photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/freefoto/

What I Read This Summer..

Russell Martin — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 05:38:32 +0000

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/daviderickson/

I subscribe to a bunch of blogs and take time a few times a day to read through what others are writing on the topics of communication, worship, church and life in general. I generally pull them up on flipboard or google reader, skim through the headlines and star those posts that I find interesting. Here are a few I thought I would share with you.

1. 5 Reasons Why You Need to Get Better at Saying “No” by Michael Hyatt -

#5. “Every time I say “no” to something that is not important, I am saying “yes” to something that is.”

If you haven’t read anything my Michael Hyatt now is the time. Every post is great but this one stood out to me because it’s something I struggle with. Understand these 5 reasons and it will help you to re balance your life.

2. Publishing is Not Enough: Become a Blog Post Curator! from TentBlogger by John Saddington

“Your blog is a dynamic and living representation of you, your goals, your mission, your ideas, and more. You would never call yourself or your life “static,” right? As such you should treat your blog with a little bit more care and become more than just a publisher of content – become a curator of your content!”

Are you a publisher or a curator. This post reminded me to continually craft, edit, and revise my blog instead of hitting publish on a post then forgetting about it. Here we get 10 tips on how to keep your blog fresh, creative and alive.

3. Church Websites 101: Call to Action from Church Marketing Sucks by Kevin D. Hendricks

“So you think your church needs a website. Or a new site. Or a better site. Rock on. Welcome to Church Websites 101, a quick and dirty series about how to start or restart your church’s website.”

Church Marketing Sucks (or Church Marketing Stinks, if you prefer) is a great resource for information, ideas and trends for church communication. Here is just one post in a series on how to create a better website for your church called Church Websites 101.

So what are some of your favorite posts you have read recently? Share them in the comments below.

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/daviderickson/

One Reason to Post Your Photos on Your Website, Not Facebook

Russell Martin — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 04:21:28 +0000

When I attended the UMR Communicator’s Conference Patrick Steil from Church Buzz presented on 10 Commandments Church Website Optimization. During the course of his talk he mentioned that though putting your photos on Facebook albums is ok, you should make sure and post photos on your website.

I think I understand why…

Here is a view of our church web traffic over the past month. I put up photos of our “Shake it Up Cafe” VBS starting on 7-25. Then I posted a link to our church Facebook page. Thursday alone there were 180 views of the VBS photo page.

The great thing about it is that those views also trickled down to other pages, like our “Visiting Williams” page, “News and Events” page and “Children’s Ministries.”

While I probably could have gotten a lot of views to our church Facebook page by posting the photos there, I would not have gotten the additional hits and visits of our other pages.

What about you? How do you post photos of your events? Do you use albums outside of your website, and link to them? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Ask, Don’t Tell

Russell Martin — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 17:12:42 +0000

I recently joined a group blogging project at ourchurch.com. Different bloggers were asked to take a separate chapter of Kem Meyer’s book “Less Clutter, Less Noise”, and then write our thoughts on that chapter, with somediscussion questions.

My assignment was Chapter 12, “Ask, Don’t Tell” where Kem starts out by saying effective communication means listening to others.

“Knowing how to carry on a dialogue is more important than forcefully proclaiming what you know… The most effective team-builders make time to hear from others about their unique audience needs, department hurdles, system problems and team pain points.”

I encourage you to read the post and leave your comments. Also check out the 11 other posts that have gone up previously.

3 Steps to Manage Blog Reading

Russell Martin — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 06:12:01 +0000

I read a good number of blogs on a daily basis. They range from tech blogs to worship blogs, from communication blogs to friends blogs. For a long time I have used Google Reader to organize these blogs. Here’s how…
1. In the morning I read through the blog headlines and see which ones sound interesting. Sometimes I’ll read the whole post, sometimes just a little bit. If I like it, or would like to read it later I put a star by it
2. In the evening I read through the starred blogs more closely, and determine whether I will keep it, delete it or share it.
3. If I keep it it stays starred. If I delete it I remove the star. If I want to share it I click the share button.

Those shared items are then put onto their own page that you can access. Just go to http://www.google.com/reader/shared/rgmmusic to see my most recent shared items. If you don’t have time to go there now, here are a few of my most recent favorites. If you like, you can also subscribe directly to my shared items on google reader.

When It Comes to Media, It’s Time To Get Real

Freebie Friday 199: Free motion PowerPoint backgrounds

Best Practices of Combining Typefaces

Movieclips.com Raises $3 Million to Help Bring Movie Clips to the Masses

I’m working on creating a twitter list of all those individuals whos blogs I have shared over the past year. See the initial list at @rgmmusic/shared

Splitting My Blog In Two- Simple Church Communication

Russell Martin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:34:17 +0000

You write about what you know. When I started Forkintheroadmusic I was basically just leading worship both in churches and out at camps, and retreats. Since that time I have become increasingly interested in how we as a church communicate. Because of that interest I have taken on some communication responsibilities in our church, and for our district. I have also been asked to lead a few workshops dealing with communication in the church.

For a while I tried to combine both of these topics into this blog. As I have continued to write though I have thought about the fact that even though I have interest in both of these areas, my readers probably do not. Readers of the Fork In The Road blog, which talks about worship leading, youth worship teams and my personal music ministry, do not necessarily want to learn about how to create a website, or the differences between a facebook page, or facebook group.

That is the reason I have started simplechurchcommunication.com. The purpose of the site is to provide a place to ask questions, give answers, and share resources about communication.

Before You Create Your Webpage

Russell Martin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:24:05 +0000

“Do you want people to spend time visiting your church website or visiting your church?” This is the question a wise person asked me when I was talking about upgrading our church website. The question caused me to rethink some of the things I was planning for our site. I am not arguing against having a quality website, however I think there are some questions to be asked, and things to seriously be considered when you are starting a website for your church or non profit organization. Here is a list of questions I came up with:

1. What is your goal? You need to decide what your website will provide. Maybe it will have basic information like dates, times and forms. What ever your reason make sure that you are using the appropriate tool, or site, for the job.

2. How much are you going to spend- You can easily spend $2500 or more to have a beautiful website designed for your group or church. You need to ask yourself whether that money should be spent on your web presence or if it could be put to use in your organization in a better way.

3. What do you need to get your message across? Wait.. first figure out what your message is. Then what do you need to get that message out. Will flash slideshow with pictures be the best format? Would video updates be effective? Do you need to be able to create podcasts?

4. Who is your audience and how do they like to be reached? Don’t just think about who you are communicating with but also consider what ways they communicate. I recently had a member of our church tell me she does not go to our website. When I asked why, she said that she gets our email updates and facebook messages and they all came to her phone. She has no idea what the website looks like, how many hours I spent choosing the right photo or how much money we spent designing it. She gets the information she wants in the best format for her. That’s what’s important.

5. Consider other forms of communication- In this artcile by Fred Zimny he proposes that with services like facebook and twitter, that websites are becoming less important and are being forced to change:

“Over the next few years, we’re going to see official institutional websites become less important. They will cease functioning as the only point of web interaction between businesses and customers and will become merely the official storefront. The main “conversion goal” of these retooled portal sites will be to drive interactions onto the third-party social networking sites.”

It used to be that your goal was to get people to come to your website for interaction with your company. It seems more and more that websites are directing their visitors to their presence on social networking sites like facebook and twitter. Consider the thought that a website cannot be the only online presence your organization has.

6. Will your web presence be mobile?- Look at the number of iphones, blackberry’s, droids and other smartphones that are out there. More and more we access the web on the go. Are you considering how your site will be accessed by these devices?

What questions do you think should be considered before starting a website for your organization?

Do We Have Customers?

Russell Martin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:12:09 +0000

I have worked in churches for over 15 years now and I will have to say it is definitely a unique “business” to be in. In fact, I just described the problem. Is the church a business? We have bills to pay, employees to provide for, buildings to maintain. There is a budget, income and expenses.

If the church is a business then do we have customers? If so who are they? Are our customers those who are already in the pews and on the roster? The ones who are faithful in attendance and give to support our ministries. Are our “customers” those who are in our community un-connected to any church, or not even knowing who Jesus is?

Furthermore, should we gear our resources, worship services, communications, programs etc to those who are already here, or to those who are unreached? On one hand if you do not take care of those who are already in the church, supporting the church, then they may not stay and support. However are we really fulfilling our mission to make disciples if we do not expect, plan for, and actively pursue those who are un-churched, non-believers?

Or is even the right question to ask?

I’d love your thoughts…

The Blogs I’m Reading- Part 3

Russell Martin — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:14:43 +0000

Over the past few weeks I have been sharing the blogs that I read on a regular basis. Here is the final installment. Read the first and second parts of this series. Also leave a comment and let me know what you are reading.

Techno Pastor

Tommy Bowman’s Worship Dependency

Twitip

United Methodist Reporter

U Preacher

Worship Guitar Guy

Worship is What?

Worship Together Blog

How Does Your Church Communicate?

Russell Martin — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 05:31:04 +0000

Since the beginning of the year our church has moved to doing a monthly full color newsletter instead of the weekly black and white one we used to use. This has proved to be effective however we still have many members who would like to receive something in the mail weekly.

Last year we began sending out E-news, a weekly email with church information. In august we moved it from an email list to a blog and now members can subscribe via email or by rss feed.

All this to say we are still searching for the best way to communicate with our members. Part of our congregation is very much a paper generation wanting newsletters, and bullitens, part of them are a computer generation with websites and emails and a growing part are a cell phone/Pda generation using things like text messages and twitter.

To find out we did a small survey to try to see what people used the most so far. We sent this out by email so the results so far only reflect the answers of those who use the computer and receive email or visit the website. The question was “How would you like the church to communicate with you?” They could check as many as applied to them.

84% – Email
49%- Monthly Newsletter
29%- Website
28%- Mailed Weekly News
21%- Facebook Group
18%- Church Bulliten
13%- Text Message
12%- RSS Feed
7%- Twitter

My question is how does your church communicate? What means do you use to get information to your members? What do you use to get information to your visitors?