In the almost three years I have been working on the social media team at T.D. Jakes Ministries I have seen the impact of social media on not only the people, but the ministry as well. I have seen people lives transformed by how they were touched by the ministry’s social media presence as well as how the ministry added social media to it’s main channels to conduct ministry. Which is why I was quite excited when the facebook page for T.D. Jakes Ministries surpassed one million people. It was a great day for the ministry and a significant milestone for the social media team and the hard work that has been put into building up the presence of the ministry on facebook as well as other social media networks. Contrary to popular belief, we didn’t get to a million fans without much effort, planning, technical expertise and strategic insight. We knew that if we set goals, worked our plans and continued to learn and adapt to the changing technologies, we would achieve great things. We have always tried to stay ahead of the technology curve and make sure that wherever people are at, whatever social network they are on and whatever technological device they use, the ministry is there.
T.D. Jakes ministries really started to embrace social media in January 2010, at that time we took a look at our current social media pages and realized that even though we were on Facebook and Twitter, we weren’t really there. Therefore, we started out with a strategy of inspiration, information and communication. We wanted to inspire people daily with some word of encouragement from Bishop Jakes. Next, we wanted to provide information about the ministry and how people could continue to stay updated on what was going on within the ministry and the numerous ministries, events, shows and products that we have. Finally, we wanted to give people a way to communicate with the ministry that was quick and responsive.
Integrating Social Media into our overall marketing and ministry approach has literally transformed the ministry. Letting people know that we have a Facebook page (as well as other social media pages) via our marketing channels such as television, flyers, conferences and numerous other events, gave us a significant boost in followers. People were happy to see that the social network that they were on, so was the ministry. We always try to reach as many people as possible with our social media strategies but that’s not the only key to what we consider successful. In order to consider our social media impact successful we want to reach as many people as possible but also we want to inspire, inform and transform our social media fans with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
More on our exact social media strategy tomorrow....stay tuned [Part 2]