Agreed! The ONLY thing (and this is a minor one) I'd change is to NOT tell people to search on their podcast platform for your podcast. Instead, provide a web page where they can go and click to link to Apple podcasts, etc. b/c podcast directories are NOTORIOUSLY horrible at search. Still, the rest was SPOT ON! If you build on others' land, they can evict you at any time (as someone with 10k UA-cam subs, a 43k Facebook group, and nearly 30k twitter followers, I'm VERY aware that it could all go away at any moment). Your email list (and phone list, and website) is what you truly own (along with your podcast RSS feed and therefore subscribers' attention).
You’re definitely right about podcast search being awful. I’ve found it has improved a ton in the past few years - but there’s a reason we link to our podcast page on our own website directly in the description of every video.
Our church streams every week on FB and we’re having to dispute copyright claims every Sunday even with explicit permissions, sometimes successful sometimes not. We’re building a new app and website with subsplash but I think we better look into nucleus. Definitely sharing this with the team.
This is true. I have about 7,000 followers on my FB business page and when I post something I get 3 reactions. After years of advertising posting content this is what it comes down to. FB wants you to advertise to the same people you already advertised to get in the first place. It has hurt my business bad and I don't have all this money to advertise every time I post a single thing.
I the case of UA-cam deleting my church's channel, I mirrored the whole channel to Odysee, which is decentralized . I try to mainly use open and privacy respecting tools at my church. So instead of having a youth facebook group, we use a Signal chat.
"Those who control the platform, control engagement." The "play by our rules" is hard when the rules change so much. Platforms should make the shifts in their algorithm public to content producers in advance of making changes. There is an unnecessary "us vs them" mentality that exists between the people who run the platforms and those us produce content on the platform. What would happen if they worked together?
Email and text is difficult.. people don't really keep an eye on that. We use a custom WhatsApp business API integration with our church database and an online CRM combined. It hasn't replaced our social media etc yet, but since I moved over all of our communications away from email and text to WhatsApp, we now have a read rate of 80%+ and a lot more responses from our online and in person congregation. Works amazing, but a painful process to get set up and implemented!
@@prochurchtools we based it on the responses we got and feedback from the congregation. Using the WhatsApp Business API you can see the stats for messages sent, delivered and read. When we started sending out newsletters via WhatsApp API instead of email, we got a lot more engagement than with email. WhatsApp Business API has become our main communication and marketing hub at our church. Now we can WhatsApp selected groups etc. We aren't limited by a WhatsApp broadcast list now and it also increased the communication from the congregation towards the church office. Using a CRM like this, it also enables you to connect it to your social media pages for chat management and automation. Pretty nifty.
@@prochurchtools oh and also because most people use WhatsApp for daily communications. It is now just another contact sending through messages with interactive buttons and quick replies built in.
✌️Are you outside the U.S.? In the U.S., WhatsApp isn’t as popular as out… and it’s owned by Meta (aka Facebook) so many people are concerned with privacy. Would you also please share your church website so we can see how you have what you described set up please?
Just so you know I reached out on your website to find out more about your community site. And both times I never heard back. You might want to look into your customer service process.
@@ClydePRiddlesbrood Do you know which email you contacted? Or through which website? I just searched both of our customer conversation databases and couldn’t find any tickets with that email.
Start by asking yourself this. "Who's to say its MANDATORY to open up any Social Media accounts AND For What PURPOSE? You figure that out then you shouldn't have to be worried about anything that involves YOU and the inter-Web-of Lies. (Everyone has a Choice in the Beginning. But, be Accountable in the END.)
This is a feature not a bug of the internet because it is a thing to be managed not a place gather in. That thing, grants people power and the last thing anyone wants is other people to arbitrarily have power that they also don't have.
I know I'm in the 10%, being at a church of over 900, but we recently integrated an app, and I could not be happier. It's the "owned" space versus "rented" as you discussed, but we have messaging groups, push notifications for different ministries, and (best of all) complete control over our content. I know you often don't recommend an app, and I agree for the most part, but again our church is a large church. I'm curious about your thoughts on the app in the sense of the "owned" content?
The thing about an app is that just a couple of years ago Apple changed the rules about which apps they’d accept and virtually every church app was affected. App companies scrambled to change how they published apps. There’s a precedent from Apple. Apps aren’t really owned space because Apple must approve them, and they really have monopolistic control there.
@@prochurchtools Unless you're not in North America. Out here, there the vast majority of users are on Android, thus meaning Apple has zero say in it. (Google does, yes, but that is different.) FWIW, many of our people now don't use email at all (as in they don't look at it, or look very infrequently), so we're getting to the "how do we talk to them?" stage, given texts are pretty expensive.
What do you think about using the church website Blog as the main communication for weekly newsletters? That way it is on our “owned” platform and the website is a main hub for church communication, BUT the only opportunity is then how to get people to go to it each week? Would we send a simple email, and social post, with a link that the newsletter (aka blog post) is now up and ready to read?
That all makes sense to me. Your website should be the record of truth for anything a person in your church may need. Then it comes down to building a culture where your congregation knows whenever they need something they can find it on your website - that’s The Central Hub philosophy. You shouldn’t need to spoon feed your church the info they need (that won’t work anyway). Instead, empower them to take next steps themselves.
Hi Brady! Thanks so much for the informative video. I have a question. Does Nucleus on it's website for churches, have a module to show a livestream on the site? Most people link to our livestream through the site anyway. it would make sense to offer that livestream on the site.
WHy would anyone rely on temporary platforms like facebook and youtube is beyond me. People I have seen quit jobs to be youtubers and they are stupid because that platform will be gone one day.
You mentioned Web3 in passing, but I'm curious of your take on Web3 and what that could change for churches. I've heard both arguments, "The Church will grow like never before!" and "Christians should avoid this thing at all costs" When a new communication technology comes out, we see two sides, but eventually it's widely adopted. Will Web3 be any different? How much should churches invest in Web3 technologies? Or should we even be concerned at all?
The time of the Orc has come. 👾 Yikes. Do these four things to protect your church online!
Brady, you're a gem to the Kingdom. Thank you 🙏🏽
Agreed! The ONLY thing (and this is a minor one) I'd change is to NOT tell people to search on their podcast platform for your podcast. Instead, provide a web page where they can go and click to link to Apple podcasts, etc. b/c podcast directories are NOTORIOUSLY horrible at search.
Still, the rest was SPOT ON! If you build on others' land, they can evict you at any time (as someone with 10k UA-cam subs, a 43k Facebook group, and nearly 30k twitter followers, I'm VERY aware that it could all go away at any moment). Your email list (and phone list, and website) is what you truly own (along with your podcast RSS feed and therefore subscribers' attention).
You’re definitely right about podcast search being awful. I’ve found it has improved a ton in the past few years - but there’s a reason we link to our podcast page on our own website directly in the description of every video.
Our church streams every week on FB and we’re having to dispute copyright claims every Sunday even with explicit permissions, sometimes successful sometimes not. We’re building a new app and website with subsplash but I think we better look into nucleus. Definitely sharing this with the team.
Love your videos Brady! Thanks for these insights. Shared this with our social media influencer on our church team.
Thank you Brady, thank you Brady, thank you Brady. And thank God for you and the team!
This is true. I have about 7,000 followers on my FB business page and when I post something I get 3 reactions. After years of advertising posting content this is what it comes down to. FB wants you to advertise to the same people you already advertised to get in the first place. It has hurt my business bad and I don't have all this money to advertise every time I post a single thing.
Very good advice. Thank you very much.
So good! appreciate the breakdown!
I the case of UA-cam deleting my church's channel, I mirrored the whole channel to Odysee, which is decentralized . I try to mainly use open and privacy respecting tools at my church. So instead of having a youth facebook group, we use a Signal chat.
"Those who control the platform, control engagement." The "play by our rules" is hard when the rules change so much. Platforms should make the shifts in their algorithm public to content producers in advance of making changes. There is an unnecessary "us vs them" mentality that exists between the people who run the platforms and those us produce content on the platform. What would happen if they worked together?
The highest value for the platforms is revenue and profitability. I don't know if there's a case that partnering with creators maximizes that.
Great info! Thanks 🙏🏻❤️
Email and text is difficult.. people don't really keep an eye on that. We use a custom WhatsApp business API integration with our church database and an online CRM combined. It hasn't replaced our social media etc yet, but since I moved over all of our communications away from email and text to WhatsApp, we now have a read rate of 80%+ and a lot more responses from our online and in person congregation. Works amazing, but a painful process to get set up and implemented!
That’s an innovative solution. You said text is difficult because people don’t keep an eye on it. How would you see WhatsApp as different from text?
@@prochurchtools we based it on the responses we got and feedback from the congregation. Using the WhatsApp Business API you can see the stats for messages sent, delivered and read. When we started sending out newsletters via WhatsApp API instead of email, we got a lot more engagement than with email. WhatsApp Business API has become our main communication and marketing hub at our church. Now we can WhatsApp selected groups etc. We aren't limited by a WhatsApp broadcast list now and it also increased the communication from the congregation towards the church office. Using a CRM like this, it also enables you to connect it to your social media pages for chat management and automation. Pretty nifty.
@@prochurchtools oh and also because most people use WhatsApp for daily communications. It is now just another contact sending through messages with interactive buttons and quick replies built in.
✌️Are you outside the U.S.? In the U.S., WhatsApp isn’t as popular as out… and it’s owned by Meta (aka Facebook) so many people are concerned with privacy. Would you also please share your church website so we can see how you have what you described set up please?
@@riaanleroux_za I agree with Bob & Lisa below. FB/Meta owns them, so it's STILL rented land that you're building on.
Just so you know I reached out on your website to find out more about your community site. And both times I never heard back. You might want to look into your customer service process.
Hey Clyde, can you let me know what email you reached out to and what name and/or email you used?
@@ClydePRiddlesbrood Do you know which email you contacted? Or through which website? I just searched both of our customer conversation databases and couldn’t find any tickets with that email.
Start by asking yourself this. "Who's to say its MANDATORY to open up any Social Media accounts AND For What PURPOSE? You figure that out then you shouldn't have to be worried about anything that involves YOU and the inter-Web-of Lies. (Everyone has a Choice in the Beginning. But, be Accountable in the END.)
LOL
Thank you
This is a feature not a bug of the internet because it is a thing to be managed not a place gather in. That thing, grants people power and the last thing anyone wants is other people to arbitrarily have power that they also don't have.
ua-cam.com/video/sNYILxq65Xk/v-deo.html
Wait till the squeeze comes on the online giving platforms. :(
Got a prediction?
I know I'm in the 10%, being at a church of over 900, but we recently integrated an app, and I could not be happier. It's the "owned" space versus "rented" as you discussed, but we have messaging groups, push notifications for different ministries, and (best of all) complete control over our content. I know you often don't recommend an app, and I agree for the most part, but again our church is a large church. I'm curious about your thoughts on the app in the sense of the "owned" content?
The thing about an app is that just a couple of years ago Apple changed the rules about which apps they’d accept and virtually every church app was affected. App companies scrambled to change how they published apps. There’s a precedent from Apple. Apps aren’t really owned space because Apple must approve them, and they really have monopolistic control there.
@@prochurchtools Unless you're not in North America. Out here, there the vast majority of users are on Android, thus meaning Apple has zero say in it. (Google does, yes, but that is different.)
FWIW, many of our people now don't use email at all (as in they don't look at it, or look very infrequently), so we're getting to the "how do we talk to them?" stage, given texts are pretty expensive.
What do you think about using the church website Blog as the main communication for weekly newsletters? That way it is on our “owned” platform and the website is a main hub for church communication, BUT the only opportunity is then how to get people to go to it each week? Would we send a simple email, and social post, with a link that the newsletter (aka blog post) is now up and ready to read?
That all makes sense to me. Your website should be the record of truth for anything a person in your church may need. Then it comes down to building a culture where your congregation knows whenever they need something they can find it on your website - that’s The Central Hub philosophy. You shouldn’t need to spoon feed your church the info they need (that won’t work anyway). Instead, empower them to take next steps themselves.
Are you guys still capturing audio with mix pre iii? Sounds great!!
We are!
Hi Brady! Thanks so much for the informative video. I have a question. Does Nucleus on it's website for churches, have a module to show a livestream on the site? Most people link to our livestream through the site anyway. it would make sense to offer that livestream on the site.
WHy would anyone rely on temporary platforms like facebook and youtube is beyond me. People I have seen quit jobs to be youtubers and they are stupid because that platform will be gone one day.
What’s your shortlist for church management software to organize and maintain that data?
Well, I'd be remiss not to plug our software: www.nucleus.church/people
@Brady Shearer Would you say it is still worth it to start doing weekly/monthly emails now even if we have not started it yet?
Absolutely.
You mentioned Web3 in passing, but I'm curious of your take on Web3 and what that could change for churches. I've heard both arguments, "The Church will grow like never before!" and "Christians should avoid this thing at all costs"
When a new communication technology comes out, we see two sides, but eventually it's widely adopted. Will Web3 be any different? How much should churches invest in Web3 technologies? Or should we even be concerned at all?
Nothing to invest in currently. My stance is forget about what’s NEXT and focus on what’s NOW. There’s an abundance of opportunity to seize currently.
Sad. Difficult to accept. But true. Yikes!
Quit complaining and start baptizing people old school.
LOL