1. Communications 101 Tammy Shackelford Director of Shared Ministry
6/24/2017
Communications 101
Tammy Shackelford
Director of Shared Ministry
All Saints Church, Richmond, VA
Quick introductions – Who you are/ what’s your role

2. Goals of communications
6/24/2017
Goals of communications
Remember your audience
Photos, photos, photos
Cross pollinate on your own platforms
Be brief and get noticed
Before we begin – The goals of communications are important to remember no matter what the platform.
Audience is key to all forms of communication. What age/ demographic are you trying to reach? If your audience are Baby Boomers they’ll generally love long, dense paragraphs. If you’re reaching GenX’ers – you’ll want to use bullet points and include plenty of white space.
Is it print or digital? How will they read they material? All of these are factors for developing your content.
Photos and images are always engaging and help to break up content.
Cross pollinating across your platforms not only helps you fill content needs but also helps you reach more people. Not everyone is going to see and retain everything they see the first time you put it out. In fact, we know it usually takes 7 times for our messages to get across.
Each social media platform has a ‘sweet spot’ for length and type of post that they prefer. Since this changes very regularly it’s often helpful if you’re just getting started to be brief so you can grab them fast and get noticed.

3. Include a Call to Action 60/40 content ratio Use an Editorial Calendar
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Include a Call to Action
60/40 content ratio
Use an Editorial Calendar
Feed your followers spiritually
A Call to Action is a specific request to have the reader do something – “Share this post”, “help us gather school supplies”, “sign up for our mission trip”, etc.
It’s important to remember that no one wants to read about what you are doing every time you show up in their feed, because then it’s all ME ME ME ME ME. And that’s both boring and unflattering. It’s generally thought that you should post 2/3rds of the time about your own content and about 1/3rd of the time about others – this can include general information, news, fun stories, other churches, etc. - just not you and your church.
Creating a schedule will help you immensely especially if you’re lucky enough to have multiple people helping with communications. It’s also useful if you are working through seasonal posts – think liturgical seasons and stewardship – but also it’ll help you manage the 60/40 ratio.
Don’t forget to add spiritual content to your communications platforms. In the past we’ve heard of churches that mailed their shut-ins the weekly bulletin. There are many ways – both print and digital – that you can keep folks involved. Do your clergy blog? If so, have them post their sermons and share them on Facebook both on their personal pages and on the church page. This is an incredible outreach and evangelism tool.

4. Agenda Church website E-newsletter Social media Communications 101
6/24/2017
Agenda
Church website
E-newsletter
Social media
Ask for a show of hands to see what folks are interested in each session. If there is little interest in a subject area, ask them if they mind contacting Nancy directly for information.

5. Church Website Two audiences – two goals
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Church Website
Two audiences – two goals
Website through the Diocese [$10/month]
Home page photos
Use words with your pictures
Balance cleanliness with ease of use
Include both practical and spiritual information
Websites are an important way for your church to communicate to both an internal audience – the folks in your pews – and an external audience. It’s important to view your website and the content from both perspectives since both have very different needs.
External audiences need to know where to find you, when events are, and answers to other ‘seeker-type’ questions.
Internal audiences need to know about potluck on Wednesday at Karen’s house for the youth group and how to turn in their pledge card.
At the first workshop there was a question about whether to include e-giving options on your church website. I [stephanie] chipped in to explain that it’s very dependent on a church’s culture and context as to whether they feel comfortable with this. That said – if they decide to include it – it should be at the top and hopefully it will populate onto subsequent pages.
WebSolutions – cost is $10/month. Training and hosting is through WebSolutions. There are minimal options for templates and colors but many of our churches choose this as an option, especially when they are starting out.

6. Communications 101
6/24/2017
This is lovely but too spare – it doesn’t tell most people where to go next for information. Also – while the picture is beautiful – it doesn’t tell us anything about the people, about what it will feel like when we get there.

7. Communications 101
6/24/2017
Let’s talk about what we see here:
people/ as humans we engage with people. Make sure you have ‘faces’ on your homepage
Map of where to find them – if you have difficulty populating a map make sure your address and phone number are posted. Directions are key if you are difficult to find.
Different content areas/ music, mission & outreach, etc.
Social media info right at the top
“Join us”
More…

8. Communications 101
6/24/2017
This is a church using the diocesan website template through WebSolutions. There aren’t a lot of options available in the template but it does allow you to customize some.
What Emmanuel, Alexandria has done is to really incorporate a great deal of information into this template.
Newcomer message
Church calendar
About us
Worship information
Why I am Episcopalian
Why I choose Emmanuel
Parish Activities
Gifts and Pledges
Parishioner Info
Preschool
Contact us
Info is for both internal and external audiences
Some of it refreshes on homepage and some lives further down

9. Newsletters Determine your audience and frequency
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Newsletters
Determine your audience and frequency
Subject lines impact your open rates
Platforms: Constant Contact & Mail Chimp
Optimize for mobile
You likely may be skipping this content area ~~
1. When building your content always start with New up front. It’s what keeps people reading.
2. Interesting subject lines will get people to open your . The first gift someone gives you is their attention.
3. Include more than a laundry list of items – feed people spiritually. Include sermons, prayers, memes, etc.
4. Stock photos are a useful way to include interesting images especially if you don’t have photo permission or work with folks with whom you don’t want to share their photo
5. More is read on mobile devices than ever before [up to 60%] so make it easy – short headlines, easy to click links, etc.

10. 6/24/2017
Communications 101

11. Mainstream Social Media Channels
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Mainstream Social Media Channels
Facebook Page is the new yellow pages. Simple to update and largest user base.
Your audience wants to talk to a real person. Twitter is great for this. Also good for reaching influencer audiences: media, journalists, policy makers, etc.
Before we begin talking about the how’s and why’s of social media here’s a brief sketch of the main platforms in use today.

12. Mainstream Social Media Channels
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Mainstream Social Media Channels
People are consuming video content more and more. Easily repurpose video for other platforms, although native video on Facebook performs better. Great platform to connect with audience that appreciate visual content. Leverage hashtags, geotagging and influencers on Instagram in your topic areas. Instagram has a large Gen Z and Gen Y user base, personal and foundation brands.

13. Social Media – The Why and The How
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Social Media – The Why and The How
Audiences vary: age demographics & internal/ external across platforms
Build community outside of the building
Follow others – post often
Ask questions
Share your joy
The most important thing to remember is to be authentic to your culture and context.
People respond to less formal language and real life. On the diocesan Facebook page we notice that the engagement goes through the roof when we post pictures of staff enjoying time together – porch party, when one of the staff babies comes to visit, our annual trip to see the Squirrels baseball game.
This is an opportunity to build fellowship outside the building.
On Facebook – folks mostly find you in their feed – this is a passive form of communication so you’ll need to do some work. “Follow” people so they will find you and so the Facebook algorithm will “like” your material more. Posting more often will also help boost you higher in people’s feeds.
In order to increase engagement with people you need to devote some time beyond just posting material. You’ll need to create conversations and this is why the Call to Action in your post is so important – it kicks off the conversation. If you ask a question, people will respond. That said, if people respond to you – you need to be there. If you’re not on the platform often go ahead and set up the notification to give you an alert.
It’s a reality that most people do not feel respect institutions the way they used to and we ‘socialize’ our information from peers instead. Yelp for restaurants. Angie’s List for home improvement. In order to better distribute your content, especially on social media, reach out to a few folks who already engage with you and establish them as ‘ambassadors’ for your communications who can speak to their peers for you – this works across all demographics

14. Social Media – The What Links, photos, and video
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Social Media – The What
Links, photos, and video
‘What happened’ and ‘what’s coming up’
Create your own graphics – canva.com
Schedule content
Facebook
Hootsuite: twitter
Links, photos and video always increase your reach in the facebook algorithm and on Twitter you are more likely to get someone to stop and engage with your post if there is a photo and between 1-4 hashtags. On Facebook, the current algorithm preference is for text, a link, and a picture – preferably one that popped up from the link – and the removal of the html link code. However, this is always changing!
Because the algorithm likes these items it boosts your content and it’ll be seen by more people. Don’t forget to get a photo release for all children. If you can’t get one or don’t want to put pictures of children on public areas of the internet you can always take pictures from their back or use stock photos.
Sources for content - Promote upcoming events and update folks on events that just occurred. Link to sermons. Pictures from special events – baptisms, confirmations, church picnics, etc.
“It’s okay to post the same thing more than once – really? Yes, people need to hear things more than once and they’re not online 24/7. This is why NPR and other radio news programs play the same content several times throughout the morning – they know you might’ve missed part of the piece about Uber while you were in the shower but you’ll catch the end of it while you’re driving to work.
Canva.com is a free site [with an option for a paid membership] that is a graphic design studio for non –graphic designers. We’ll show you some more about it on the next slide.
And the best way to stay sane – really – is to use an editorial calendar and schedule your content. It can be as easy as pencil and paper or as complicate as the diocesan version we share by spreadsheet. Once you have everything on the calendar then you’ll want to schedule it on the platform – and we’ll talk about the specifics in minute.

15. Canva Communications 101 6/24/2017
This page shows a few of the images the diocesan office has created recently using Canva – clearly it’s summer camp season! What the staff can tell you is that none of them are graphic designers and Canva provides templates as well as freedom to create.
Pros: because the pixel size for social media pictures are always changing it’s hard for us ‘non-professionals’ to always remember how to make them. Canva takes the guesswork out and does the sizing for you. Also, if I make an image sized for twitter and then want to get it ready for Facebook it’s as easy as the push of a button! There are free images and templates on canva and some cost money – a whole dollar each! You have to work hard to spend money on the site. Here’s something to know – if you buy a font, template, or picture it is yours to use as much as you want for 24hrs. So, work it hard!
Cons: there are limitations and sometimes you need a real graphic designer but Canva will really limit the time and expense that you might need. That said, for the first time last year the diocesan pledge card was made on Canva instead of given to the graphic designer. #veryproud

16. Communications 101
6/24/2017
Social media is the core of communications for most organizations – after their website. We’re going to devote most of our time to Facebook since the demographic of most churches lends itself to Facebook.

17. Communications 101
6/24/2017
It’s super easy to post and schedule directly in Facebook. Here’s how you start:
Go to your church page and click on Publishing Tools

18. Communications 101
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Click on “Create” to begin - you can do this from any of the pages where you see the ‘create’ button

19. Click here to add a photo or image
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Type your message here
Type your message, paste in the link [once it populates carefully erase the html code], insert photo, etc.
Lower right hand of the box drop down box “schedule” the time from your calendar
Click here to add a photo or image

20. Communications 101
6/24/2017
This is an expanded view of what you’ll see when you click on ‘schedule’
TA DA! It’s done.

21. Resources Stock photography Pixabay https://pixabay.com/
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Resources
Stock photography
Pixabay
Unsplash
Splitshire
Epicantus
Picjumbo
We posted a longer list of 24 sites for free stock photography on the diocesan Facebook page on April 21. Let us know if you’d like a copy.

22. Resources Canva Flyers Social media images Blog headers
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Resources
Canva
Flyers
Social media images
Blog headers

23. Canva Gallery Communications 101 6/24/2017
Gallery of some items made on Canva
1.Instagram posts
2.Sunday collects for Diocesan Facebook page
3.Facebook/ social media post for 2015 Bishop’s Appeal for Mission and Outreach
4. Start the Story ‘commercial break’ slides for 2017 Annual Convention
5. Info for camper parents
6. Social media ‘Thank you’

24. Communications 101
6/24/2017
Gallery of some items made on Canva
Having fun – one of the commercials that ran during Annual Convention this year.

25. Communications 101
6/24/2017
Gallery of some items made on Canva
The rotator image for DOV website for this series of workshops was created on canva!

26. Communications 101
6/24/2017
Resources
Hootsuite
Set up ‘streams’ to follow all your social media platforms all in one place
Very useful especially if you are on Twitter
Create segmented lists to send targeted messages
Hootsuite is free for one user account up to 5 streams. If you want to access your analytics you’ll need the paid account – which can be done month to month ($19/month)

27. Communications 101
6/24/2017
Questions?

28. Connect with Us! @TheDioceseVA @TheDioceseVA TheDiocese
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Connect with Us!
@TheDioceseVA
@TheDioceseVA
Facebook.com/EpiscopalDioceseofVirginia
Please connect with the Diocese on social media. There’s lots of great info to share and we love to follow you back to learn what you’re doing, too!
TheDiocese
#DioVA
#DioceseofVirginia
#AllHeartsOpen

29. Thank You! For additional questions, please contact :
Communications 101
6/24/2017
Thank You!
For additional questions, please contact :
Nancy Chafin Erin Monaghan
Director of Communications Communications Associate
Thank you for being here with us today!!
Be sure to reach out to Nancy or Erin in the communications office if you have any questions.