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It’s a big enough problem that online moderators really need to have an organized approach to dealing with negativity on your site. Here are a few ideas that might help you along that path.

The long standing golden rule of communication professionals has been, “Know Thy Audience.”  And if you pay attention to the targeting ad strategies of the marketing world, you’ll see that rule doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.  Whether we’re talking about household products or politicians, each one seems to have a specific message targeted at specific groups of people.

 

This doesn’t happen by accident.  Marketing firms are constantly researching populations and refining campaign strategies to more effectively reach target demographics.  Companies such as Acxiom do nothing but sift through data to divide the U.S. population into demographic segments that they sell as lists to marketing firms.  And truth be told, marketers do a very good job at what they do.  There is a reason you see the ads you do.  The ads that show up on your computer screen are most likely there because there is something you wrote online, subscribed to, or purchased that caused you to be put into a database that said there is a high probability that you are interested in product X.  Though there is more money spent on the front end for this kind of research, ultimately it’s far more cost effective than shotgun advertising.  Narrowcasting means you pay only to reach the people that have a greater probability of being interested in your product or cause.

 

Churches could learn a lot from this approach.  Though many are taking advantage of these resources, many others are still holding to the shotgun approach stating that they “want to reach everyone.”  I have bad news for you.  It’s not going to happen.  Every company and organization in the world wants to reach everybody, and many of them reach a lot, but nobody gets everybody.  Even Jesus targeted His approach.

 

Incidentally, it’s not as difficult as you might think.  Different ministries tend to attract people that have some similarity with each other. Typically there is a reason certain people are attracted to your ministry and a reason why other people are not.  You can start by simply looking at the people that are already in your ministry and look for those similarities.  Sometimes it is ministry specific reasons in terms of theology or programming, sometimes socio-economical.  But whatever those qualities are, see if you can pick them out.  Or sometimes you want to attract a certain group that you’re not getting.  Find out what causes them to go elsewhere and then commit to making the changes necessary for that group to view you as an option.

 

Once you figure out who you’re trying to reach, use the tools available to find out how to get in touch with them.  Dig through the analytics of your website and Facebook accounts to see what else these groups are interested in.  Scan through profiles of friends who fit your niche and see what else you have in common.  Use database services like Facebook or Acxiom to run ads targeted at your refined audience.  Run multiple ads with varying language to see which ads have the most impact and response.

 

Over time you’ll begin to understand your audience better and you’ll be able to refine everything from a Facebook status to a sermon to land your message exactly where you wanted it to go.

 

Now go be awesome.

1. Content
   Good podcasts are often thematic. They follow a common interest thread that attracts and holds audiences. Spend a lot of time thinking about this before jumping in. If you’re going to stick with it for the long haul, make sure it’s something you are truly interested in; otherwise you’ll burn out quick. Be very wary of just posting the weekly sermon online, and if you’re just going to sit around and talk to some other people about church stuff, make sure you’re entertaining and informing more people than the folks around the microphone.
2. Time
   Realize that it’s probably going to eat up some serious time during the week. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.
3. Resources
   Make sure you have the right equipment and the help you need. Spend a little time looking up good microphones and recording devices. Also, get some other people to help you. This doesn’t have to be a solo project.
4. Patience
   I’m going to go ahead a say this. Your first few episodes are probably going to stink. There’s a good chance you don’t know what you’re doing, and you’re going to have to give yourself the time to figure it out. You’re going to get irritated at yourself. Just keep working to improve and occasionally watch this video if you need a little encouragement.
5. Listen
   One of the first things I have my students do is spend time in various places around the community just listening. A truck-stop diner sounds a lot different than a coffee house. Pay attention to the background noise and use it to your advantage to create soundscapes to bring your stories to life whether by video or audio.

In the past year, my parents, who are both bordering 70, have become wired. Back in the spring, they started texting. During the summer, they both swapped to iPhones, and a little while later, they upgraded their Internet service to be able to use Skype. Then a couple of weeks ago, my mom asked me to help her set up a Facebook account because she was "tired of not knowing what was going on with people." Dad, being a rather private soul, is still on the antagonist side of social media. However, just yesterday, I received a couple of separate e-mails from him containing nothing but photos that he had taken with his iPhone while on a road trip.

 

Very Facebooky, Dad... very Facebooky.

 

I'm confident that by Easter, they'll both be drinking Redbull and checking their Klout scores daily.

 

All of this is to say, while the mass of online users are under 50, the older crowd is coming on board in ever-increasing numbers. Ministry communication and media managers need to keep this in mind and throw out the stereotype that the only way to reach the older church crowd is through printed material. To be sure, there still are plenty of folks who prefer something on paper, but the thing to keep in mind is to keep your communication layered for those who prefer something a little more digital.

 

Who knows? That ever aging women's circle may be planning their next outing on Facebook, using bump technology to sync their calendars and keeping up with each other on Twitter with the #GrandmasRock hash tag.

 

Today, connect intentionally.

One of the obstacles of working in the creative world of technology is that there are a lot of folks out there who don’t necessarily understand what we do.  For those who work in social media, hours upon hours can be spent reviewing pages, fan profiles, trending topics, analytics, in-bound marketing strategies and so on and so forth.  But to the casual observer walking by our desk, they often have one thought, “Sigh… he’s just playing on Facebook.”

And sometimes that thought is followed by, “He’s not working.” or “He needs more to do.”

 

Let’s all agree that, as the recipients of said comments, they can get annoying.  The simple fact is that a lot of folks around us don’t necessarily understand what we do, and we don’t always do a good job of helping them understand.  Glaring at them and crunching your can of Mt. Dew may have a dramatic effect, but it’s really not helping them understand what you’re really doing.

 

So how do we more effectively communicate what we’re doing?

 

I’ll be honest and say it’s easy to get snarky when it comes to this.  As a personal confession, one time after a not-so-polite comment was made outside my door, I printed every single creative piece I had designed for a campaign and taped them to the walls of my office like they were wallpaper.  It was an effective means to let people know what I’d been doing, but not necessarily the most professional.

 

Here are a few options that are a little less passive-aggressive to help bring folks around to your side.

 

Solicit ideas during the creative process:  I know this can be hard, because non-creative types aren’t always helpful in the creative process.  But from time to time, ask them what they think about something or pose a question that you’re facing to get their feedback.  You don’t need to constantly go to them, but occasionally it helps to let their brains tinker with some of the challenges you face from day to day.  I remember the first time I sat down with a client to talk about the organizational flow of their website; I was met with a deer-in-the-headlights look.  Little details such as deciding where to put a certain link to a page can be a mind-boggling experience for some.  Working through processes is an often overlooked detail of many of our jobs and letting people experience some of those intricacies is a good start for helping them to understand your world.

 

Be open about your job:  Creative folks tend to need big blocks of time to work out designs, solve problems and come up with ideas.  Being over-scheduled and constantly interrupted are quick ways to kill the creative spark.  Some folks need noise, some need quiet, almost everyone needs time.  It’s a good idea to sit down with your boss occasionally to talk about the things you’re doing and what it takes to get them done.

 

Produce excellent work:  The main thing you need to remember is that if you want people to respect what you do, then you need to produce work that is first-rate.  If you’re awesome and they know your end product is awesome and constantly meets or beats the deadline, you’ll be surprised how much flexibility you can get.

 

Now go be awesome. 

I’m going to tell you something that contradicts almost every social media advice blog out there.

 

Stop believing that the sum of your social media worth is based on the number of likes, followers, pins and circles you have. 

 

Stop it right now.  It’s all a lie.  It’s a dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking lie.

 

I spend a lot of time trolling around the web reading blogs, more blogs and more blogs. I like to keep up with technology news, and I can’t even begin to count how many people I follow from the various networks that I’m plugged into. Every time I turn around, another company is following my Twitter feed, advertising how they know exactly how to get me more likes, followers, increase my engagement or just sell me something.

 

And recently I’ve realized something. They’re all saying the same thing, and they’re all screaming it at each other. As a result, there’s a prevailing thought that if you don’t have thousands of followers and people constantly reaching out to you, then you’re doing something wrong.

 

You’re an outcast.

 

I realized that this is MySpace all over again, except now companies are the ones competing for the popularity contests. As a result, the competition is getting fierce and crowded, causing companies to change tactics to align themselves with this new web world. Google’s new revamped privacy policy is everything they stood against five years ago, but they realized if they didn’t do something, companies like Facebook were going to take over their market share.

 

None of this comes as a surprise. Packing as much junk into a medium to try to leverage as much financial gain as possible has been the M.O. of the advertising world since the beginning of the advertising world. But, ultimately, this does what advertising always does. It creates so much clutter trying to break through the rest of the clutter that it eventually renders itself useless. 

 

There’s a problem here. This obsession for social media followers is completely counterintuitive to effective communication, and it goes completely against the way we form relationships. We’re more effective in smaller, closer-knit communities. I regularly hear individuals weeding out their Facebook accounts getting rid of old profiles that either annoy them or with whom they’ve lost interest. People want to connect to people and organizations that they have an authentic connection to.  They don’t want to connect to people who constantly send them app requests or continually fill up their news feed with pictures of kittens with funny captions.

 

But not once have I heard a social media consulting firm encourage their clients to delete all of the profiles and followers that aren’t bringing them business or don’t have legitimate connections.

 

Not once.

 

Secondly, I’ve recently heard something coming from people that I haven’t heard since 2004-2005. I’ve heard complaints of account fatigue. More and more people are getting tired of maintaining multiple social media accounts, and, in many cases, they’re just pushing all the feeds into a single location anyway.

 

All of this works against a very simple premise: using social media to connect to your audience authentically and make connections that benefit both you and your followers.

 

I’ve watched companies give away iPads and hire companies to get them likes and followers, and they did just what they hoped they’d do. They brought them thousands of new fans and followers. The problem was that they brought them a bunch of people who really weren’t that interested in the company and weren’t going to bring them any business. One particular company went through their list of several thousand followers and was shocked to find that only around a hundred of them were actually potential customers. They actually created their own clutter.

 

Here’s the shocking reality. A solid fan page with a few hundred dedicated followers will help you more than a page with thousands of followers who really don’t care much about what you’re doing.

 

So this is my challenge. If you’re obsessed with the number of followers you have, ask yourself why.  It would be easy to scoff at this post and dismiss it. But seriously ask yourself if you really need a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Google + account and a Pinterest account. Maybe one of those hits your audience more effectively than the others. If it does, focus your attention there. What you really need to be focused on is an effective communication strategy, not numbers.  Don’t create clutter for yourself. Create authentic community. Mimic the world as it is and the way natural relationships form. Connect in methodical, but organic ways. It’s great to be an extrovert when it comes to your social media presence, but focus on the connections that matter. 

Recently at a conference, I asked a room full of business owners (primarily in their 40s and 50s) how many of them still used postal mail as their primary means of communication to employees and customers. Of the 50 or so people in the room, only five hands came up. Most, as you might expect, used e-mail.

 

In a class I teach consisting of seventy 18-20 year olds, when I asked how many of them still rely on e-mail to connect with friends. Five hands came up. The students primarily rely on text messaging and social media. Not a big surprise. As someone who deals with this generation regularly, I often have to send a student a text message to let them know that I sent them an e-mail to ensure that they actually check their inbox.

 

I recently heard an older gentleman in my church make the statement that "All we need to do is print a better bulletin." I also recently heard a pastor say, "We need to abandon bulletins and just post everything on the website and Facebook."

 

Both are wrong. But both are also right.

 

Houston we have a problem. We have to stay connected with everybody.

 

Here's my advice. Publish what's going on in your church in every possible place you can. Get the word out on your ministry's website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc., to reach the 20-something, skinny-jean-wearing, iPad-toting, Twitter-fiend hipster in your midst. But also create well designed printed flyers and bulletins to reach the 70-something, coat-and-tie-wearing, still-subscribes-to-newspapers grandfather of said hipster. It's more work, but by doing so, you're meeting people where they are and that's a very Biblical thing to do.

Recently I was digging through a box of my old DVDs, and I stumbled across the old B-Rate classic, Army of Darkness starring Bruce Campbell as Ash. Between the hordes of skeleton armies and Ash's Boom Stick, I remembered why I think Bruce Campbell is a genius.

 

In a world where people are constantly trying to be the next A-List celebrity like Brad Pit or Angelina Jolie, Bruce Campbell embraced the idea of making a career out of goofball B-Rate flicks. In turn, Bruce's fans have embraced him as a cult hero.

 

The church world could learn a lot from Bruce. While many ministry leaders are hoping to be the next Rick Warren, Rob Bell, Tony Evans or name your own megachurch super-preacher with congregations numbering in the thousands, and unlimited media budgets, chances are they're not.

 

That's OK. Repeat after me. That's OK

 

Because what most do have is access to an inexpensive video camera, some sort of editing software and a vision. If this is the world you live in, then take a lesson from Ash. Don't take yourself too seriously. Pull out your proverbial boom stick and work with what you have around you. Let's all agree it's probably not going to be a slick as a Nooma video. The trick is to know what your purpose is, embrace where you are and work from there. You will be surprised at how effective you can be fending off the forces of evil.

 

Because when you have it... People know.

Last fall I bought a new pickup truck.  I had driven my old one for over a decade and it had well over 200 thousand miles on the odometer.  But after one major repair followed another, it became apparent that it was time for the new purchase.  I own a farm and so that throws me into the category of people who actually need a reliable, full-sized truck with a V-8 engine. 

 

When it comes to vehicles, I live by the principle that the best kind of car is one that’s paid for.  So I’m not the guy who is going to trade in every couple of year for the newest model.  And when you spend a decade behind the wheel of a vehicle you pretty much know it inside and out.  You know how it handles and runs in all weather conditions and you can find any button or knob in total darkness.  In terms of operation, the driver’s interaction with the vehicle is basically effortless.  You don’t have to think about it.  You just do it.

 

Fast-forward to the new truck.

 

I discovered almost immediately that a lot has changed in vehicles in the past ten years.  For starters, the new truck has at least twice as many buttons and gadgets.  The radio is a touch screen with countless layers and buttons navigating the regular old radio, the satellite radio, the GPS navigation, and on and on it goes.  There are buttons on my steering wheel that navigate another screen that tells me everything from my average fuel mileage to the temperature of my transmission. Incidentally, this isn’t a top-of-the-line truck.  It’s somewhere in the middle.

 

Admittedly, on more than one occasion I’ve had to pull over to the side of the road just to figure out how to change something on the dashboard.  In terms of driver’s interface, it’s far from effortless.

 

However…

 

When it comes to the driver experience now we’re into a whole new ball game.  The new truck’s dashboard maybe overwhelming, but it has more power, better handling, better fuel mileage and is otherwise awesome to its core being.  I no longer worry if parts are going to start falling off once I get up to 70 on the interstate.  I also discovered that it’s actually possible to accelerate up a steep hill… with a loaded trailer.  I like the look of the truck, I like the way it feels when I take a corner and the way the big Hemi engine kicks in when I need to accelerate.

 

As web developers and content producers we need to realize the differences between user interface verses user experience.  Facebook has notoriously had a clunky user interface that is constantly getting tweaked.  Once users think they have it figured out, it changes and hordes of people start their snarky protests.  However, the user experience is generally amazing when we can connect with people, share things we like, video chat when we want and otherwise have a fantastic user experience. 

 

When you’re working on your web project, are you separating user experience from the user interface?  If there’s one thing that Facebook has figured out, is that people will forgive an interface that isn’t perfect if the experience is terrific.

 

Go be amazing