SoChurch Blogtasticalness

The Official Blog of SoChurch

Your regular dose of SoChurch news, communication ideas, true stories, and more. Who's SoChurch, you ask?

People, Charge Your Engines

On our blog, we’ve talked a lot about the importance of staying consistent with communication. Well, we could have taken a bit of our own medicine seeing that it’s been way too long since our last post! Our apologies.

But there is a takeaway from our long absence. As I was thinking about this “break” in communication it caused me to reflect on the general feeling in our society of “down time”. For many, productivity is of utmost importance. Particularly for leaders, the thought of taking time off or time away for nothing all too important causes guilt, a sense of obligation to be doing something. We are often compelled to start something, finish something, accomplish something. After all, as Christians aren’t we called to be laborers, soldiers, workers? How many times have you been on a vacation only to be thinking about all the things you need to do when you get back (can someone say, “full inbox”)?

But what about that time off, time away to just recharge?

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5 Quick Tips on Engaging Your Online Audience

Most organizations know that their audience is thirsting for more deep and rich engagement from them and yet most of them never completely follow through! When you sift through the excuses you eventually realize that it’s not a lack of intelligence, interest, or drive but simply an inability to execute in the simple ways instead of the much larger ones.

And we all know that sometimes it’s the smallest changes that can make the biggest impact! Here are a few tips that we’ve learned from creating our own socially-powered web app that you can instantly apply to your social media efforts of community engagement:

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1-877-AWE-SOME

One of the biggest unknowns for us as we opened SoChurch to the public was how much support would be needed by our customers. From the very beginning, we have desired to provide world-class support, without the costs of dedicated account representation. From the sounds of our own customers, we’ve fulfilled that goal effectively.

But, that didn’t solve the problem for people who had questions about SoChurch before they made the leap. Now, that changes… Continue reading

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Gettin’ on Board

Call it what you will: catching the vision, getting on board, being won over, feeling the vibe, or any other name. But regardless of your chosen expression, the need to have buy-in from the people you are leading is crucial to the success of any organization–especially churches.

A key part to any effective communication strategy has to include some priority on winning people over to your cause. At its core, the gospel requires its listeners to be “won over”. Leaders need to win over their followers. Pastors need to win over their members. Businesses need to win over their customers. And so on. But how do you do it and what should you remember in your efforts to win people over?

If you really want to know, read what Kem Meyer, one of our trusted advisors, has to say in her post: 5 Things to Remember About Winning People Over.

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Share the Communication

As most of you know, SoChurch hasn’t been around that long. We just recently launched our communication tool to churches at the beginning of this year. We now have over 200 customers, 7,400 followers, fans and friends, 60+ affiliates, and several partners. But what some of you probably don’t know, is that we have spent zero, zip, nada on online advertising.

How is it possible then, that after only a few short months and before ever releasing a product, we had acquired a large audience that was tuned into our messages?

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Announcement Slides

Announcement Slides

Since our inception, we’ve planned on providing the necessary resources, guides, videos, and content to help those that use SoChurch roll it out as quickly as possible among their community. While announcement emails, start guides, and other elements have already been developed and integrated within SoChurch, we wanted to go a step further.

Today, we have launched another resource to help churches get their members on board–presentation slides. It seems every week in church there’s something to be announced via the standby PowerPoint and projector. With that in mind, we created roughly two dozen slides for you to pick and choose from when you announce your SoChurch community to the church. We hope these will make your life easier and potentially even spark some additional announcement slide ideas (P.S. if it does, shoot them our way; we’d love to share them with others, too).

Of course, we won’t stop here. We look forward to continuing to provide additional resources down the road. To access the resources we’ve created to date, just visit our Media Center. And, as always, if you have any additional needs, questions, or ideas for us, simply email weloveyou@sochurch.com.

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We Love You at SoChurch (Truly)

Our support email address says it all: weloveyou@sochurch.com. Our job is to help, serve, and listen to you. Support is one of the three pillars of our company, and we take the job very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that we wanted to publicly address a few questions that have arisen privately about how our support works, hopefully encouraging you to reach out to us if you haven’t done so already. To begin with…
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SoChurch Scandal

Pocket SketchesIt was recently discovered that SoChurch executives have been identified as the culprits in an elaborate heist, which resulted in the unknowing theft of several iPhone Pocket Sketch Books. Available at PocketSketches.com, these handy little pads depict real-sized iPhone templates on 16 double-sided ruled pages, with a thick cover for added protection. These pads are ideal for any iPhone visionary, designer or developer looking for an easy way to jot down notes and wireframes of the next big iPhone application.

When owners, Jade Meskill and Derek Neighbors, were alerted to this seemingly perfect heist they responded with a hearty laugh and complete understanding. You see, it was simply a misunderstanding. In addition to being iPhone Sketchbook moguls, both Jade and Derek lead a successful Ruby on Rails development company, Integrum and collaborative workspace, Gangplank, which routinely leave out free energy drinks, food, and other fun goodies. We simply thought these were among the free giveaways they so frequently have laying around the office. Oops.

SoChurch has issued its dearest apologies and encourages their followers to learn more about this stellar little venture and resource when you have the chance.

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Knowledge is Power

Everyone likes learning new things, especially when it’s easy to understand and aesthetically mind-blowing! For that reason, we have recently launched the first of many infographics, which we plan on producing for everyone to use and enjoy.

These graphics are not only valuable for your own edification, but also a great way to share information with your family, friends, and church members.

We do ask, if you post these graphics on the web, please give us a little link-back action to SoChurch.com/infographics. And, if you have any ideas for future infographics, please just let us know.

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Embedding Media

Media. It’s at the very heart of engagement on the web. Let’s be honest–if it were nothing but text on the web, it probably wouldn’t be quite as popular as it is today. That’s why we have been hard at work on developing media embedding. This won’t be the end of what we have planned for media within the application. In fact, it is just the beginning.

As of this weekend, you can now: Continue reading

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