Search Results

Blog

Be Nice to Your Introverts

People are wired differently. Sometimes those wires are different enough that we have a hard time understanding each other. I’m an introvert. Don’t confuse being an introvert with being shy. I’m not shy. In fact, most people who know me think I’m an extrovert. Though I’m enthusiastic when I give lectures or speak to groups, at the end of the day I pretty much just want to retreat to my house or hotel room and be by myself. The extrovert personality is a switch I have to turn on. And it’s exhausting.

Over the years I’ve found that it’s a trait I share with a lot of people in the communication profession.

But there are some who simply don't understand my type. Introverts need a lot of alone time and very often quiet time.

Once upon a time, at an old job, my office was right across the hall from the print room. The print room had a couple of copy machines and a folding machine that made this “whack! whack! whack!” sound. And, for whatever reason, right outside my door was where people would gather for office chats. Or they'd just come on in my office, plop down in a chair and start talking to me. This was something my introverted, needs-a-lot-of-quiet brain couldn’t take. Have you ever tried to read a book and you realize you’ve read the same paragraph five times and you still don’t know what it says? This is what happens to me in a world of constant noise and distraction. So I did the only thing that I can do in those moments. I shut my office door.

Even though there was a big window where people could still see me typing away on my computer, the fact that my door was shut used to drive my boss crazy. He felt like I was being rude and shutting people out. And try as I did to explain the actual reason, I was continually told to keep my door open.

Insert unhappy and less productive employee here.

Introverts spend a lot of time in their own heads. Whether reflecting, creating or mentally debating, the wheels are almost always turning.

If you know introverts, you need to let them have this space. Let them be alone with their thoughts. Chances are, they’ll be more creative and more productive and that’s good for everyone.

Intuitive Design

A little over a decade ago, I was managing the state website for a denomination. It was a big site with well over a hundred pages in multiple navigation layers, representing dozens of organizations, camps, committees, hierarchy and hundreds of hyperlinks to hundreds of churches and e-mail addresses.

For one guy, it was a bit of an undertaking.

And for all those hundreds of links and pages church people did, as church people do…

They complained about it.

The complaint that I remember most often was, “Why isn’t my link on the home page?” Everybody wanted their link on the homepage.

Never mind the hundreds of other links. This one church that’s doing that one thing “obviously” should be highlighted front and center. It happened often enough that I realized a couple of things about web navigation:

1. People don’t want to look for stuff.

2. The perfect website has one button and it’s whatever you want it to be at the moment.

The fussiness of church folk seems to be inherent in our DNA, but in attempts to improve the situation and reduce the number of complaints, I ran across a term that made sense immediately.

It was called “Intuitive Design.” Basically, don’t make people think about where to go and what to do. It should be obvious. But planning for the obvious isn’t always obvious. It takes a lot of thought about why people are coming to your site and what they’re doing in the short term.

The best websites are sparse and visually appealing, especially on the home page. The deeper one digs, the denser the information becomes, but on the front page, they’re just looking for trailhead markers like: Give, Pray, Serve, Connect. Every link beyond that takes the visitor down one of those paths. It’s logical, it’s concise and it makes sense.

Take a look at your site. Better yet, ask some people who don’t know anything about your church to take a look at your site. Give them some tasks like e-mailing the pastor or researching what outreach ministries are available. Watch them navigate it and see what steps they take and see where they get hung up. Then make adjustments as necessary.

Your community will thank you.

10 Steps to Dealing with Negative Responses (on Social Media)

You have to know your audience. We're using Google Alerts, we monitor social media sites, and we use third-party alerts (HyperAlerts and Sprout Social) to try to see the good and bad posts.

Determine if it's worth it - One person told @thriveam to "eat sh#t". We have no connection to this person and they were probably upset because our ad showed up in their feed. We blocked him. The reality is that there are some people on the web just looking to start an argument. Don't fall for it.

Act quickly - One person commented in Facebook that a post was worded terribly and that they wouldn't visit the blog because of it. We posted that we were sorry the wording wasn't working for him; he visited the blog and complimented us. We responded within an hour to both of his posts. Even if we can't answer the rant directly, we can let them know we hear them and we'll get back with them

Commenter - Terrible wording. Makes me not want to visit your blog.

Axletree - Sorry the wording isn't working for you. Hope you'll overlook it and check out the blog. There's some good stuff in there. : )

Commenter - Sorry. Just the way this ad was worded it made it seem to the reader as if they didn't know what they were doing. "Help of those better than you." But that's just my opinion. Nice blog btw.

Axletree - No worries - can see how it could come across that way. Appreciate the feedback! Have a great weekend.

Be real/human - By using more natural language in the post (down to including our name), we've now turned it from a comment towards an anonymous company to a person-to-person conversation. It also lets them know they're dealing with a real person, not a canned response.

Apologize authentically or don't apologize at all - Back to post above. We don't have to apologize for something we haven't done, but it helps to let them know we're empathetic. We said, "Sorry the wording isn't working for you."

Offer to make it right - Most people start a rant because they feel they've been wronged or can right a wrong. Apologizing let's them know we're empathetic to the poster, but solving the problem is what will win them over. The solution we present is what they'll talk about - so make it good.

Never fight about it - If we're defensive, less people will speak up and more people will walk away quietly.

Decide where to have the conversation - Online or offline. In almost all cases, it's best to keep it online so that thousands more can see how we relate and treat our customers - plus see the solution. In certain cases - where private information has to be exchanged or continued inappropriate behavior is involved - take it offline. Outside of embarrassing the poster, let observers know why you're taking it offline.

Example - Sorry you're having trouble with this. We really need to get your account number to help get this resolved. Can you call us or message us your contact info?"

Use fans and customers to help fill the void - Ask fans and customers to share their experiences with a certain service or feature that someone posted negatively about. Others will either come to our defense or let us know there's really a problem.

Involve the poster in the fix - How many times have you had a problem with a service and you walked away, even after a solution, thinking, "I'll never use that service again!” Asking the poster to suggest solutions will give them ownership and resolve the problem in a way they're happy with. If we can't offer the solution they ask for, we have a better understanding of the issue and the user’s perspective.

Easy Ways to Make Your Website Content Touch-Friendly

It’s no secret or surprise that the number of mobile devices used for web browsing is nearly doubling every year. With such tremendous growth rates, it seems that now is the time to make touch-friendliness a priority on your site. Though there’s not a direct conversion for inches to pixels and vice versa, studies show that the average index finger is 45-57 pixels wide. By ensuring that there is enough space for a user to tap their finger on an interactive item in your page, you’ve moved past a major hurdle in providing a good user experience. It’s really quite easy to do, and since Thrive does a lot of the heavy lifting with its fully responsive themes, there are only a few things you have to do to make a big difference:

(Some of these changes require working with CSS or HTML. If you’re unsure of what to do, ask us!)

1. Simplify your page content by reducing the amount of text on the page and incorporating more images, as well as using headings to break up sections of page content.

2. Make form fields larger in size and add extra spacing around them.

3. Use larger font sizes; currently 16px is considered readable. It is best to simply increase the default font sizes in your theme’s CSS so that the change is applied to the entire site at once.

4. Add extra margin to buttons and calls-to-action and make them larger.

5. Make sure links look clickable before any hover style is applied since mobile devices don’t support hover states on links. Use more than just color for this since some devices only display black and white or shades of gray and visually-impaired users may have difficulty with it also.

6. Make sure the whole link area is clickable. This is especially important for navigation menu items as well as any text elements styled to look like buttons.

7. Add extra padding or margins around your navigation menu items as well as content blocks and the page itself.

And, by making these changes, the desktop user’s experience will be made better as well, double bonus!

Evaluating and Simplifying Your Site's Content

We live in a face-paced society, no doubt. It seems like everyone is constantly on the run. As a result, we need information that’s fast and simple. There are lots of relatively easy ways to provide the “fast” part. It’s the simple part that’s a little (okay, a lot) harder. It’s a hard but rewarding task. And, while simplicity is not always the answer to better usability, it’s a good start. There are basically four ways to simplify your site’s content:

Remove anything that’s not needed – could be “fluff” words, lengthy explanations or instructions
Group things together in a meaningful way
Hide certain things – but not so deep they cannot be found easily
Move things around – align content in a grid-like format and emphasize or enlarge significant items

In considering how you will simplify, one key thing to realize is that you must trust your users in what they “feel” is actually “simple”. Get them involved by asking them to participate in the simplification process.

Here are some tactics to consider in the simplification process:

Seek out the reason your site visitors are visiting your site and give them what they want
Limit options or choices to few enough that it’s not overwhelming
Use normal conversational words (and always provide explanations for acronyms)
Test your ideas before implementing them
Consider cultural contexts
Evaluate the who and why of everything (why do we do this, who wants this, etc.)

When working with a content management system, especially a publishing platform such as Thrive, it is often well worth taking the time to reconsider how you publish certain types of content in order to achieve even better simplification without as much effort. For instance, in Thrive, any series of posts which are dated in any way (Daily Advent/Lenten activities, etc) would work very well as a calendar or blog page -- depending on whether or not you want site visitors to be able to subscribe to future posts -- whereas pages containing several pictures make great photo albums. Every theme includes specialized layouts for each page type which make your content look great no matter where or how it is viewed.

How Far Can You Reach?

The World Wide Web is big and it is growing every day. We have never had a time in ministry where this many people have had this level of access to the gospel. This is an extraordinarily valuable asset considering the last thing Jesus told His followers was to go and tell the world about Him. But where do you start?

Start with your community

Take the time to reach out through community resource pages and websites by sharing what is happening in your ministry. Figure out where people in your community congregate online because it’s much easier to go where they already are than it is to pull them to you.

Look within your demographic

The Web is a big place and you need a place to start so look at your ministry’s target demographic. If they are young families then you want to frequent places online that also connect with that demographic. If it is college students, then theme your online outreach towards them. The main goal is to reach strategically and not stretch yourself too thin.

Minister to your existing community

As the ministry begins to get traction online, don’t overlook your existing congregation. This seems like a no-brainer, however this gets missed far too often. In a growing ministry, it’s to easy to become more focused on building a larger following than ministering to the following. This is the same problem that exists in online campaigns that are too focused on expanding “likes” and not focused enough on building engagement. Take the time to connect with the people who need to be reached and in turn don't overreach beyond your ministry’s capacity.

Consider the impact of other plans

Once these steps are firmly established, consider the future of the online ministry. Is it more beneficial to expand your ministry to your existing community, or is it better to increase the numbers? If the following does increase, will this impact the ministry potential? Considering these things will help put into perspective how well the ministry is reaching people and determine if it is exceeding its limits.

We always want to know if you have any great ideas and if you’re doing something that’s really connecting with your community. Feel free to comment or drop us a line!

Parking Lots and Proclamations

The impression people have of your church starts in the parking lot.

I live in the Bible Belt. More specifically I live in a rather conservative and rural section of the Bible Belt. For our purposes here today, it means I pass close to a dozen churches on my way to and from work each day -- most of which, I have never stepped a foot inside their door.

But here’s the funny thing.

I have an opinion about almost every one of them.

Weird, huh?

I mean really. I feel like I know them. There’s the really REALLY patriotic church that puts up what seems like a million flags on any national holiday. There’s the church up on the hill that seems quiet and content, but just built a big playground out front. There’s the church that we just refer to as the crazy church because of the stuff they put on their sign. There’s the big fairly new church that always seems to have a full parking lot, but never mows their yard. There’s the small old church that some days I think is abandoned until I look up and see a few cars on a Sunday morning.

You get the idea. And I’m not alone.

Here’s something to get your head around. People you’ve never met, and who have never stepped foot in your door, most likely already have a preconceived notion about your ministry.

People notice things. They make judgments. Subconsciously they’re checking out what kind and how many vehicles are in the parking lot. They know if your paint is peeling. They’re making assumptions about your ministry and theology simply from your sign and how the people standing outside your doors are dressed. They’re counting kids, hair color, skin color, pickup trucks and BMWs.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Whether you realize it or not, your church is communicating volumes about itself. But, the chances are, unless you’re an outsider, you have no idea what people are associating with your ministry.

This isn’t a good or a bad thing. It’s just a thing. But, it’s a thing you need to own. If you don’t like what people are associating, then you have to get proactive and take the steps necessary to communicate something different.

Stability Guided by Faith

I was talking to a pastor friend who told me during prayer requests this week, someone asked for prayers for Boston so that justice could be swift for those responsible. He had to respond that there is more than justice that we need to be in prayer for. It’s easy to get emotional when we think about the bombing in Boston or the school massacre in Newtown. Watching news broadcasts, commentators, and social media feeds, emotion is everywhere. Hurt and anger, questions and confusion… they’re all on display.

It’s easy to get sucked down that path. But the question remains. What should be the response of a communication ministry? Specifically, a communication ministry that lives in a social media world crowded with opinions, speculation and raw emotion? Because these are the very moments that people are examining (and doubting) faith and goodness in the world, we should choose our words carefully.

We’re emotional creatures. Arguably, we make far more decisions based on emotion rather than logic. (Insert Captain Kurt vs. Spock example here) So it seems that in these moments our job as church communicators is to be a force of stability guided by faith more than anything else.

The best example of this I’ve personally witnessed goes back to September 11, 2001. It seems, by providence, the United Methodist Church was slated to begin its nation-wide Igniting Ministry media campaign almost to the same day, which included major outdoor media buys in New York City. Immediately after, they scrambled to create television and outdoor messaging to confront what the nation was feeling at that moment. Their messages can be summed up with a giant banner they hung at ground zero that said, “Fear is not the only force at work in the world today.”

Simple, poignant and full of stability and faith.

As the details of this horrific event unfold, pay attention to the emotional fallout. It’s important to be a force of stability in a world where hearts are fragile. The thing to remember is that a lot of people are hurting and we are the messengers of the Great Physician and as the UMC reminded me of over a decade ago…

…Fear is not the only force at work in the world today.

Work Ethic

I’ll go ahead and let you know in advance that this post is a bit of a rant. Consider yourself warned.

I’ve worked with a lot of churches over the years. As a consultant, as a member, as a friend, in those years I’ve probably had some degree of involvement with a few hundred churches and a few thousand people. I’ve seen ministries that are vibrant and exciting and I’ve been in churches that couldn’t see past themselves to recognize legitimate ministry when it was in their midst.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve just about seen and heard it all. Which gives me some pretty good insight on what works and what doesn’t. But, the thing that comes up to the top of the list time and time again is work ethic. I’ll be the first to tell you that both my wife and I came from families who worked hard and long hours each day over the course of a lifetime to create the life they wanted. If one job didn’t pay enough, they picked up a second or sometimes a third. If there is one thing we’ve learned from our families, it’s that if you don’t seem to have all you need, then you do what it takes to get it. You don’t sit around and complain about your situation.

It’s the willingness to work harder and longer for something that is characteristic of every successful ministry (and person) I’ve ever encountered. And almost without fail, it is this same work ethic that’s missing in the unsuccessful ones.

“I already have too much to do…”
“I don’t know how…”
“Nobody wants to help…”
“People won’t like it…”
“It’s not my job…”
“I don’t have enough time…”

The list goes on and on and here is the only truthful thing I can say in these situations.

Stop giving me excuses for why you can’t do something. It really comes down to a simple question. Do you believe in your ministry enough to do what it takes to make it successful? If you do, then you’ll do what it takes. If you don’t, well, you have bigger problems to contend with in your life.

Let’s be clear about something. Ministry is hard work. Communication ministry is hard work. But we do it because we believe in it and this should become a defining factor in our work. We do it because lives are changed for good when we do our jobs well. This applies to the leadership on down. You can't expect the people who work for you to put in extra time effort if you're not willing to do the same.

I have learned that God cares little for 40-hour workweeks, clocks, calendars and whether or not you get enough time to watch your favorite TV show or play a round of golf. It seems, in fact, that inconvenience is something that God takes a great deal of delight in. The only entitlement we’re offered is grace. Hard work and dedication is still firmly on our shoulders. God seems to be ok with trusting that we can handle the late night phone call or the unexpected deadline. It’s from that that I suppose we can find solace. It was given to us because it needed to be done and paid or not, we’re all servants and joy can be found in the knowledge that the Master has trusted us with this task.

9 records found.