Build A Better Site For Your Church: Features That Every Church Needs

Modern websites are more interactive than ever before and they can serve as a repository of information for the members of the church. Members expect the church’s site to be more than just a simple landing page and some pictures of events; they expect to be able to post and speak with each other online. These features create a sense of community and can bring your church together in ways that were very difficult to do before. For the modern church website there are three features that will help your site stand out and provide your members with the services that they are looking for.

Social Networking
Source: mkhmarketing, cc-by-3.0, Flickr

Sermon Archives

When new members are looking to find a new church one of the first things that they will do is look for old sermons on the church website or on iTunes to make sure that the preacher is a good fit. Even long term members of your church will find that they can enjoy listening to their favorite sermons again and again. Many site developers will put a limit on the amount of information that you can have posted to the site, though some developers, like Ministry Designs, offer unlimited sermon storage. The more exposure people have to the theological leanings and tendencies of your church, the stronger their commitment will be to the church’s ministry and direction. If your church is medium or large sized, then you might also consider adding a stream to the site so that visitors and members who are unable to attend services can still see what is happening.

Social Media Integration

Because so many people use Facebook and Twitter, easy integration of those services to your site are more important than ever. Sharing and liking things on Facebook exposes a wider range of people to the events and ministry that your church provides, while Twitter access allows for an open and almost instantaneous interaction between the members and the church leadership. Members will also enjoy being able to post and tag other members when they upload pictures of church events to Twitter or Facebook.

Electronic Tithing

Tithing has long been a problem for many churches, as convincing people to give up a part of their earnings every week is not an easy task. The growth of electronic payments has made this even more difficult, because more and more people are living a cashless life. Electronic payment processing on your site will make it easier than ever for your members to make their tithes. Credit card, debit card, EFT, electronic check and PayPal integration will give your members more options to make payments, and you will see an increase not only in the number of tithes, but the amount tithed as well.

Bible Study Forums

Finally, adding forums for the different Bible studies or home study groups that your church has will make it easier for new members or visitors to find a group to join. You can set the forum threads up so that visitors can browse the general sticky threads and find out general information about the groups, while members can share more personal information and ask for prayer from other members of the group.

Churches have to be willing to adapt to new technology, and the church website is one of the best ways to integrate that technology. With the right combination of technology and a good website, your ministry will be more powerful and reach more people than it does now.

I am Morgan Moore and I have been a church leader for ten years. I have always tried to stay up to date with church technology, and I wrote this article to talk about how powerful a church website could be.

Read More...

A Guide to Social Media for Real Estate Professionals | Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin

As you rush out the door, you may see your spouse and children nestled into their handheld devices, from tablets to cell phones. They aren't texting or doing homework, but are using some of today's top social media websites. Although these sites were written off initially as time-wasting entities, their use for self-promotion has grown considerably. Currently, you can use social media for advertising your real estate expertise. Gathering a wide audience, your choice of client is not limited to the immediate neighborhood.

Twitter

Scoffing at the limited 140-character limit of each tweet, Twitter may appear like a lost cause for advertising long real estate listings. However, people tend to respond to short news blasts compared to long, essay-like emails. For example, a new listing with a rock waterfall pool can be announced mysteriously from your Twitter account. "Feel like you are swimming under a mountain waterfall with today's hot listing." It is short, intriguing and begs clients to comment about your statement.

You can keep people listening to you for longer with short statements throughout the day. Or, change the style and ask trivia questions about the neighborhood you are covering today. With consistent tweeting, you keep yourself, and real estate profession, in people's minds. You'll be the first person they call when they have a realtor question.

Facebook

Set up your professional Facebook account to advertise your favorite listings. On this website, you can post pictures with detailed information without a character limit. Tag clients that you believe may like a listing, along with real estate colleagues. You never know when you may find a new client. New relationships form everyday with comments, "likes," and tagging.

LinkedIn

As a more professionally-driven site, LinkedIn allows you to build a business profile and add connections. Sign up, set up your profile and connect with your immediate real estate colleagues in the neighborhood. Introduce yourself, through the site's platform, to other professionals your contacts may already link with directly. In essence, you mingle with others to gain new connections for completing business deals.

For example, you have a home listing that just will not sell. A new LinkedIn contact may be across town, but was unaware of the unusual listing. You can introduce the contact to the property online initially, and eventually meet up for an in-person walkthrough. The virtual world brings the real world into perspective as you open new doors to opportunity.

Blogging

Set up a blog dedicated to your real estate passion on your website. Although blogging is not a traditional social media gateway, it does generate buzz and conversation, especially when you link it to your Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts. As you add new blogs, use relevant SEO, or search engine optimization, wording. When search engines understand your business through keywords, you rank high on the listed pages. More people see your name and business, generating potential new leads.

Blogging also engages your clientele, especially when it is consistently updated. Don't just talk about current listings, however. Write about any home-related items, from organizing closets to repairing the dishwasher. Being familiar with your face and name only brings clients to you faster when they are in need of a real estate professional.

Take some time out of your schedule and try at least one social media site. Get familiar with the site's use to fully realize its marketing power. You can gain many new clients in just a few weeks if you are persistent and creative!

About Author:

Hailey Harper is a marketing strategist and writer from Tucson, Arizona. She has written published articles on business, marketing, social media, and Tucson real estate.

Read More...

The Impact Of Blogging In Public Engagement | Social Media

Blogs are playing an essential part into this technological arena. With this medium you can not only exchange information more effectively but communicate as well with the people of same stream. People love collecting information that can not only keep them up to date but also put them on to peak with the easy engrave.  However, the concept of blog is not quite new but it is coming from the advent of print media. The newspapers are itself a proof where people put their thoughts into column to make people acknowledged about. Various researches also articulate that blogging is also a remedy for people of every age especially, when you have no medium or a number of populace to hear about your thoughts. By this medium, you can put your thoughts ahead to people by wrapping them with a number of words and it gives you an immense pleasure to get into every time.

You might be acknowledged about the consistent changes into the world’s scenes and scenarios, people are going to be more demanding and they look an ease whatever they desire for. With this sort of requirement, internet came into the front and made certain things possible by making the things public outreach more hastily. With the help of this technological invent, you can easily connect with the people of every corner and keep them up to date with your thoughts and other things you find useful.

People always look for their ease whatever they do. Various techniques like digital marketing and other are here that are making the dreams of people come true. With their efforts they put a message of their brand or business ahead to people to make them more acknowledged and stay tuned with the current hush bush of the related arena. Good thing with these blogs is that they contains a number of paragraphs and lines written in sensible manner and thus becoming a great source to those looking for particular news or subject. People love reading all the time and they put their good time with it thus if you have blog column in your website it helps a lot to win the trust of people and also increases the traffic engagement with a particular manner.

It is really a hard stuff to understand what exactly users want from you so good thing is to get their sentiments also and comment section integrated into the same works very well in this sequence. With the comment, people can tell how effective you are with your subject or how much loopholes are here in particular contest along with the suggestions to make them more attractive. Blogging is being used for various causes and due to the ability to drag more users into a wallet it is also a part of marketing campaign. Thus, if content is attractive and has an ability to communicate right message for the people of all streams then why not keeping it to the use. By doing so, we not only be able to get great reputation of the subject we are talking about but we will be able to acknowledge them better with lot more stuffs and updates of any manner.  

About the author:-

I am Kamal Singh, I am social media and online marketing writer and founder of www.technologynews24x7.com.

Read More...

Facebook vs Google+ | Who Will Be The Winner | Social Networking

Facebook Vs Google+
Source: Sam Steiner, cc-by-3.0, flickr

What is better Google + or Facebook? So many hours have been wasted pondering over this very subject.  So we have decided to launch a full investigation to determine which the best is!  Does Facebook frenzy with its large user database dominate the social network, or does Facebook fall in the shadow of Google +, with its more reputable owners and sleeker interface?  Let’s find out.

Google +: 

Interface: The Google + news stream is customisable, there are different layouts to choose from, and easy filtering depending upon your circles. The images in the news stream allow the benefit of high resolution photographs and videos to play inline. An easy to use collapsible toolbar along the left hand side, allows easy navigation of the rest of the website without navigating away from the page you are viewing.

Profile: You can now upload a large image to your Google Profile, and can edit your details at any point, including your name.  You can customise the tabs you have on show for friends to view, making it very easy to allow certain friends to have access to certain tabs.

Chat:  Google chat is hidden on the right hand side of the screen, until you need it, it doesn’t tell you who is online and available to talk, nor does it show you a full list of your friends, instead it chooses which it shows you.  It does have some additional functions such as blocking other users and snoozing notifications, as well as video chats in ‘Hangout on Air’.

Facebook:

Interface: You can’t customise the layout, and approximately a third of your news feed is cluttered with adverts and there is no way to quickly filter through the news feed.  Photo’s and videos are all the same size, and if you want to view it larger you have to navigate away from the page.  Facebook keeps users up to date with likes and comments, and gives suggested posts. The navigation bar, though cluttered and in part useless, allows easy navigation of the site.

Profile: Facebook differs from Google + in the sense that it has a timeline rather than a profile, separated into two columns, updates on the right and summary on the left. You can edit your profile without any annoying tabs or pop-up windows.

Chat: The chat function on Facebook can accessed from two places, it shows you exactly who is online and/or available on mobile, and you can easily search for friends. You can create group chats and video chats and saves your messages even if you are offline.

An Overview:

• The best interface goes to…easily Google +
• The best profile goes to… Facebook, but it is a close one.
• The best chat provider goes to…Facebook, due to it offline features.
• The best friends options goes to… Google +, though it is perhaps less personal, the circles method is much better.
• The best posting Updates goes to…Google + offers more options, is more flexible and allows you to control who sees it better.
• The best site for uploading Photos goes to…It’s a close one, but Google + has more features.
• The best Privacy Policy goes to…though they both excel in this department, Facebook has simplified its privacy settings, making them easier to control.

Overall, Google + is the winner, though it was a close one!

Language Connect, a Times Fast Track 100 company, provide efficient translation services in over 150 languages. With a global presence and renowned reputation, Language Connect are well poised to meet your immediate translation requirements. 

Read More...