Social Church News 001 - July 2013

A new report from marketing software provider Custora found that customer acquisitions gained via email marketing has quadrupled since 2009, with email delivering more customers than Facebook or Twitter. According to the report, email accounted for only .88 percent of online customers acquired in 2009, but that number grew to 6.84 percent by Q2 2013.

Recently something terribly obvious--yet powerful--occurred to me: If you want to achieve things that no one else has done, you need to do things no one else does. So, I thought, who achieves things that very few do? I made a list of the top 10 entrepreneurs that I learn from daily.

Potential content sources contained within... // "I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot." - Steve Martin People are spending huge amounts of time on social media now possibly because they are bored, looking to be entertained or they are just hooked on being digitally connected.

It's out, the 2013 CMO guide to the social media landscape. What surprised me in this year's edition? Less is more and some strange assumptions. I very much liked the 2012 CMO Guide. The 2012 edition facilitated sane conversations about brand and business objectives in social media.

Content is the foundation for blogs and websites. It is what makes your readers and viewers come back for more. The range and type of content that is available on a social web is extensive and includes multimedia such as videos, images and infographics and of course plain old simple text.

Yep, people are getting tired of it...

With more than 48 million users, Pinterest is one of the most popular social networks on the web. After its recent fundraising round of $200 million, it has an estimated value between $2 billion and $2.5 billion. Not too shabby for a virtual inspiration board founded only three years ago.

Late Monday night, Sports Illustrated writer Richard Deitsch tweeted, "How many of you have a photograph of the single best moment of your life? If so, what a gift." A flood of people tweeted back at him with photos of them at their happiest.

If you asked Google a few years ago, "What makes things go viral?" you would get a simple answer: It's luck. No one can predict what will go viral. You might as well buy a lottery ticket. And that's a great theory - except for the fact that it's completely wrong.

Instagram added the ability to embed photos and videos on Wednesday. Users can find the embed button - available only on desktop - on the right side of public photos or videos. The button provides a code users can insert into blogs and articles.

I've been stuck in business before & not known what to do next. Even when your business is going great, there can be so much to focus on that we don't focus. I want to share how The Rocket Company, of which I'm the CEO, has grown by 832%.

Beware, this one is a monster. I used to have a round up series on this blog awhile ago and with growth of my businesses I had less time to devote to it so the round ups stopped.

First paragraph has links to 3 great examples

When your institution communicates through social media, it is taking part in a global conversation. But no matter how many individuals represent the institution in that conversation, your brand needs to be presented consistently. Using social media effectively requires a clear strategy.

June 12, 2013 - It seems not a month goes by without a social media brouhaha involving a high-profile Christian leader. Such was the case when a prominent pastor tweeted about the recent Oklahoma tornado in a manner that seemed to connect the deadly storm to an act of God's judgment.

Facebook privacy settings are complex and, to make things more difficult, they change on a regular basis. We explored how to lock down your Facebook account's privacy settings, for both your public profile and under the hood. Follow this simple step-by-step process to make sure you're not sharing anything outside your comfort zone.