Christian Social Networks - The rise in popularity

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Why is it that the church still isnt grasping the power of web 2.0 and social networking.

I recently went through a webinar with one of the most successful social marketers out there, Mr jack Humphrey. Jack has dominated social marketing for years and is one for the guys to really be a continued success out there and he is one of my go to guys if I need advise.

Jack was talking about myspace, youtube, facebook.. and how everybody goes to the most popular social network sites to create a buzz, but he went onto explain that these sites just arent niche based enough.

It got me thinking.. in any nuiche at all there are social networking sites specific to that niche. I did a google search that took me all of 5 seconds and it listed all of the Christian social network sites in a post from

Church tech review

I didnt realise that there was this many. These are great places to find other Christians and is great for the niche I am operating in.

For evanglelism purposes I thought of how to get a niche to work for you in the local area to provide
impact for your local church.

Here are 5 things you can do.

1. Go into groups on myspace, facebook for your city, town or district.
2. Research what people are talking about. What is the buzz in that niche?
3. Participate in the discussion
4. Look to build relationship s not go for the throat, you are wanting to build credibilty
5. Research other social networks that may be part of the discussion or be location specific.

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The secret to getting more traffic to your church blog - Part 1

Yesterday I spoke on why we should blog and how we can get a ton of traffic for our church blogs and eventually bring people through the doors of our churches and further advance the Kingdom of God.

Today I am going to lift the lid on my preferred blogging software that is free. This is the start of the series of tutorials on why you should have a blog and what you should do to drive traffic to your blog.

Firstly, you should host your blog on your own domain. I know there are so many websites that offer free blogs hosted on free websites like blogger and wordpress.com. I am a big fan of wordpress but you need to use the self hosted free install, please let me explain why.

When you are using wordpress on your domain you can use the plugins to optimise your blog and gain visitors to it. You are promoting a brand, a domain that people will start to remember. All the other free online blogs give you a sub domain such as yourblog.blogger.com. This is all well and good but you cannot control it and optimise it as much.

You maybe a preacher, a youth leader, a Pastor and cell group leader, you may be looking to launch a blog for your church to keep the community informed. Whoever you are or whatever your role, the best way to set up a blog is self hosting wordpress.

Steps 1 – Research your potential audience

We covered the importance of keyword research the other day, but we need to just cover over it again.

One of the biggest mistakes of all bloggers is the lack of research of what people want to read about in the niche you’re operating in.

I would recommend you follow this process.

Go to google.com and type in your number one keyword.

Have a look at the top 10 websites and view them. Have a look at what content they have, if they are easy to read and do they look good.

Make a list of what kind of content they have and we can use these lead keywords next.

With these “lead keywords” put them into a keyword research tool. There are plenty out there to use that free.

Here are a couple I would use.

http://www.hexatrack.com (free version for a limited period)

http://www.wordtracker.com/ (free trial then pay site)

When using these tools you are looking for “long tail keywords”. These long tail keyword are searches that people search on a regular basis but there isn’t as much competition as the “lead keywords”. This is the approach of many internet marketers that have the luxury of working for them and it works in any niche. Here are some other articles that may be worth a read.

Evangelism Blogs Evangelism Through Blogging: HOW TO START A BLOG EVANGELISM THROUGH BLOGGING: WHY YOU SHOULD DO IT Blogging: Cyber-Savvy Outreach Mark Beeson: Leverage Your Evangelism Moments The Benefits of Blogging / Social Media - Part #2 Church Marketing: Three Ways To Drive Traffic To The Blog

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Why Ignite

Welcome, I always like to share a little about me. My name is Steve Prescott, I am 29 years young, I live in Bolton in the UK. I am the founder and author of igniteyourministry.com.

I have set up this site to share, teach and learn from other online marketers in the Christian world. I have been marketing online for the last decade but only over the last 3 years I have really seen massive growth online in the secular market. More about that shortly, a bit about me first.

I am Steve, I have been a reborn christian for 3 1/2 years now and my life has been turned around. I am now studying at Nazarene Theological College in Manchester, England training to become a Pastor. I am part of a church called Kings Church Bolton and is part of the Assemblies of God denomination.

I have a beautiful daughter called Stephanie whom is 7 this year and is growing into an a brilliant young lady. I have learnt from some of the best online marketers in the business and feel compelled to share what I have learned to the Christian community to build local church, and Christian para-organistaions, which in turn will build the Kingdom of God. Some of this information will be free, other courses will have a cost.

Read the vision statement on how I can help.

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