What I Meant Was…

Sometimes, I wonder how what I’ve said can be misunderstood until I get a fresh perspective from someone else to re-read what I’ve said. And then it hits me: “Ooooh. What I meant was…”

I’ve learned that email is a poor communication medium for conveying emotion, sarcasm or subtlety. What I’m continuing to learn is that with social media – and the 140 characters of Twitter, in particular – it’s important to re-read what we say before we have it hit the web.

This happened to me tonight, and it took me a while to understand what the hub-bub was all about. Here’s what I tweeted:

“PASTORS: Please use Twitter & Facebook to share your life instead of spamming scripture. We’ve already got YouVersion.com.”

What I Meant Was…

I intended to help pastors understand that while tweeting scripture is OK, you’ve gotta do a lot more than send lots of verses our way if we are to get to know you. So, my intention was to help them think about sharing more personal stuff and less about multiple verses a day making up the bulk of their tweet stream. So, I used some humor (or, attempted to) to say that we’ve got lots of scripture opportunities online already with YouVersion.com (online Bible tool).

What Happened Was…

I had some people read what I wrote as making scripture look unimportant, or, worse, less important than sharing their personal insights. So, as a way to set the record straight, I then sent a second tweet out on the heels of the brewing controversial tweet:

“REVISED 4 clarification: Instead of spamming scripture, share life application & revelation, not recitation. Share the impact of the verse!”

From my perspective, one of the best benefits of Twitter/Facebook is the ability to gain insight into what you think and how you receive revelation. To me, a tweet that illustrates the application, truth and real-life moments of scripture are – usually – more insightful to me than seeing a litany of verses tweeted ad nauseum. Sure, the Word never returns void, so tweeting scripture is good, but it’s not the only thing you should tweet.

Step out from behind the pulpit and show me your sermon illustrated in how you live life. Help us understand how scripture comes alive in your life, your actions and your thinking!

So, we good? I hope so!

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A Reasonable Expectation to Privacy

A reasonable expectation to privacy. With the online world intersecting more of our lives on a nearly daily basis, do we have really have a reasonable expectation to privacy?

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. That’s one type of privacy that, at least here in America, we can expect. But beyond denying someone access to things in our homes, cars on wallets, are our lives really private?

I submit that we’ve willingly sacrificed privacy for immediacy.

We share our lives out loud. From GoWalla or FourSquare telling me exactly where you are, to Twitter and Facebook telling me what you’re up to, and blogs telling me what you think, to out of office email messages, we’re providing an unprecedented level of access into our daily lives.

It used to be we had work lives and personal lives. No longer. The lines between our work life and personal life have been blurred due to our propensity to share. Though not anonymous, there is a certain sense that because we’re not looking directly at someone when we share something, our status update is somehow still limited to a semi-private audience.

Though it is possible to use multiple accounts and limit networks to only a few followers – I do this myself with a ‘family-only’ Twitter account – the reality is that anyone can choose to re-post anything I say in a very public fashion. You see, privacy today is limited only to the extent that I control what I share and when I share it.

We seem to have forgotten that what we share, say, post and do online is stored, forever accessible, cross-indexed, referenced and cached. I wonder how many young people looking to advance in a career 10 or 20 years from now will have what they’ve shared today come back to haunt them? And here’s another thought: our kids and our kids’ kids will have more than a photo album and grandma’s memories to find out about good ‘ol granddad.

Do we have a reasonable expectation to privacy? I think we have a very limited expectation to privacy when we share so freely. What say you?

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What Social Advertising Can Teach Churches

With consumers searching, researching and buying online at an exponential rate, the advertising industry has realized the need to change from “shotgun marketing” to “laser-focused marketing”. The concept is simple and the application for churches is intriguing.

Put simply, since people are searching and looking in specific places more often, it’s possible to provide the right ad to the right person with greater frequency and accuracy than has been possible before.

Not too long ago you’d buy a billboard ad, for example, in the hopes that some small percentage of people would see what you had to say and respond to it. This “shotgun” approach worked the numbers game; high traffic areas meant more eyeballs and more eyeballs meant the greater chance of reaching the right person who liked or resonated with the ad. You still see this approach online with banner ads on websites that do a slightly better job of targeted by being placed on specific sites with unique topics. Better, but still a virtual shot in the dark.

Today, more of us are logging into sites – even retail sites – because we get a discount or some other benefit of shopping while logged in than if we just skim the website. Ad firms realize this and are working like crazy to be the behind-the-scenes engines that handle that log-in information on behalf of the merchant so that they can not only report on buying and traffic patterns but because they want to engage – often in real time or near real time – with the person while they’re online. For example, a woman named “Beth” might use a trip planning website to look at possible destinations for a vacation. The site, recognizing she’s logged in and tracked that she’d last searched for flights to Scotland, might pop up a question like “Hey, Beth, we thought you might like to know we found a great deal on airline tickets and a cozy bed and breakfast for a trip to Scotland. Click here to watch a 15 second video and see more details.”

Because they knew she’d been looking at that kind of information in the past, along with her basic profile information, it’s safe to make an educated guess that she might like to stay in a bed and breakfast once she arrived. Laser-focused ads are served up based on previous interactions, potentially providing “Beth” with something that she’ll want to buy. Taking it a step further, when “Beth” answers the question and chooses to watch a 15 second video from a major airline, she can earn points for virtual currency, Facebook credits, drawings and more.

With Facebook striking deals left and right with advertisers and businesses, it’s common knowledge that advertisers are tying into these websites with Facebook integration, providing even more accurate predictive targeting opportunities. Customization that’s tailored to our tastes and budgets all because we simply use the sites we’re on and we share information – a lot of it – through social networks.

Ignoring the obvious privacy implications (that’s being addressed on multiple fronts and is not the focus of this thought train, though the reality is that most people don’t realize just how public their life becomes with how much they share online), the thinking I’ve had since reading about this has been on how this applies to churches.

Today, churches don’t “sell” very much (mission trips, summer camps and maybe concerts being reasonable exceptions), so how does this behavioral marketing apply? Simple: people use your website and often log-in when you offer a way for them to stay connected (online calendar, volunteer reminder, small group leader reporting, online giving and contribution statements) to their life within the church. It’s not unreasonable to think that missions organizations or non-profit organizations would take advantage of this and potentially offer to tie into church websites.

On a more practical, we-can-do-this-today note, it’s also possible to consider that churches may want to be diligent and strategic about using analytics on their website, in combination with data in their church management software, to see where people click, what they fill out (or don’t complete), which videos they watch (or don’t) and begin creating a trend analysis to look for opportunities to improve the value and functionality of their websites. Beyond that rather simple measure, the communications options available to churches today mean it’s possible to utilize multiple methods and channels of communications. In effect, churches can move from a “shotgun” to a laser-focused approach by developing a strategic communications methodology that includes personal (face-to-face), phone calls, email, text, website, announcements, print materials and social media to develop a targeted communications campaign.

Regardless of the whiz-bang future predictive ad-serving or the more simple analytics analysis, this will first require church leaders to sit down with some knowledgeable folks (possibly inside their church) and take the time to understand their goals, develop proper strategies and apply the best tactics to more effectively connect and reach their people.

What say you? Please share you thoughts below.

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