Over the last month I have been updating some of the social media pages for the ministries I work with. The main updates I have been making are to facebook timeline, setting up instagram accounts and Pinterest accounts. These three networks have a common theme going on that I have noticed over the last year, they are becoming much more visual. The Visual Social Network era is here.
Facebook Timeline is a great example of a visual representation of our facebook experience. Prior to the launch of timeline, the facebook profile page was considered the most under utilized part of the social network. Profile pages and Fan pages were simply plain representations of the user but not very interactive or visual. Now Facebook didn’t want to go to the extreme of letting the entire page become customizable and load slow like myspace, but they knew they had to turn the profile page into more of a visual representation of the person and a destination that people will spend time at, mainly for advertising purposes. And as we can all see, Facebook timeline has taken social media by storm.
But let’s not overlook the other two great visual social media platforms, Facebook bought Instagram for 1 Billion dollars for one reason, it’s a mobile visual social network. 30 million users are on instagram and as of the announcement of their purchase by Facebook, they had added 10 million downloads of the mobile app on iOS and Android devices. Instagram is based on photo and video editing filters that people can add to their photos/videos they take with their mobile devices and post to their instagram account. Instagram accounts can be followed and commented on within the mobile social network as well as posted on other networks such as facebook and twitter. But the main draw of Instagram is that it is fully mobile, there is no desktop version of the platform, it operates fully within the mobile space and is just pictures and videos.
Next up is Pinterest, pinterest has rapidly risen to become the 3rd largest social network in the world. Having a large user base with women, Pinterest is a visual social network that has a mobile and desktop presence. It’s based on pictures and videos and allows you to comment, pin, create boards and repin photos and videos. This visual multimedia social network shows the evolution of the visual aspects of social networking and the focus they have.
The benefit to ministries is that these visual social networks give ministries the ability to tell their story using great multimedia. Using amazing photos and videos, ministries can visually capture moments of their ministry and share them with the world. Many ministries are able to tell their stories in print but how many can visually explain to the world how amazing their ministry is and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ!
As I continue to read about the enhancements that Google is rolling out I find that I continue to see two things from Google. One, they are creating an amazing ecosystem that we all are being sucked into by the freemiums such as Gmail, Google Docs/Drive, Youtube, Google+ and Android. And two, they are keeping other companies competitive and innovative, which is exactly what we need Google to do. This article 
March 31st was an important day for facebook fan page owners, the pending timeline features were rolled out to all facebook fan pages. Facebook has been notifying admins for the last 3 - 4 months that this pending change was coming so there was quite a bit of time to prepare. As I started researching how to best utilize these new changes and increase visibility on facebook for churches, I came across come great articles that pointed out the best ways to make this happen. Here is a great article to use as a reference from social media today. 
I have been asked numerous times if "Email marketing is dead" and the answer is "absolutely not". The best approach to email marketing now is to evolve it. Take that e-blast and make it work on more levels now. Integrate new media into the e-blast to make it more effective. Repurpose that e-blast so that in addition to sending out a blast to people's email addresses, you also use that same content and send it out via social networks and other marketing methods to reach people that may not utilize their email. Also, you want to make sure that your e-blasts incorporate text, images, video and links to make them much more engaging and interactive. Of course, keep in mind, e-blasts can not actually have video that plays in "all" email clients, but if you have a screen shot of the video inside the e-blast, then when people click the video screen shot, they will be taken to a landing page that should look identical to the e-blast, and they can play the video from there.
As I was reading Social Media Today’s article on 
I just read an article on Google+ over at Church Juice ( http://churchjuice.com/blog/google/ ) and it was very similar to my initial thoughts on Google+ and how it could benefit churches and ministries. I have been using Google+ since it came on the scene and I wanted to really get an idea of how it worked. Here is one of the best things I have noticed about Google+, the potential integration with other apps and services that Google offers, and Google+ was thinking mobile on day one. This long term vision will help Google+ last far into the future. Churches already have had to develop strategies to embrace twitter, Facebook, linkedin, youtube, vimeo and a variety of other social media websites. Google+ is yet another social media tool that churches will need to embrace. The question is, what are the benefits of Google+ and how can it be integrated into the church's social media strategy without adding to much work.
First and foremost, I have come across some great "How to get started with Google+" guides and tutorials. Here are a few:
I was reading a great article on Facebook shopping/commerce at socialmediatoday.com. The article (