Guided Online Publicity A Paper Presented by Evang. Promise Uzoma Okoro on Tuesday 3rd July 2018 at Evangel House National Headquarters of Assemblies Of God Nigeria at the Occasion of the Retreat for Corporate Ministries Executive Secretaries with the THEME”Pragmatic Strategies For Corporate Planning for AG Nigeria”.
Text: Romans 12:2 ,Hebrews 12:11
Romans 12:2 New International Version (NIV)
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Hebrews 12:11 New International Version (NIV)
11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Protocols.
Preamble: Assemblies Of God Nigeria has indeed come of age,the way we packaged our Programmes years back should be changed to equate the 21st Century Best Practices in Programme Packaging. The Church as that which goes where the masses are should embrace Online Publicity as part of Pragmatic Strategies For Corporate Planning in Assemblies Of God Nigeria.
Definition of Terms:
Guided: To assist a person to travel through,or reach a destination in,an unfamiliar area,as by accompanying or giving directions to the Person
Online: Simply means being Connected to the Internet.
Publicity: There are several definitions of publicity, but the most appropriate one is from a marketing angle. Publicity in its simplest form is the means of conveying information to the general public through the media. The information being publicized could be news, awareness about a product and service, etc. It is the process of creating awareness of new products and services.
In this digital age, there are two major types of publicity – offline publicity and online publicity. Offline publicity is done without the internet. Offline publicity includes print media (magazines, journals, newsletters, daily newspapers, postcards, bills, and fliers); television; radio; and giant billboards. The Church before the coming of the internet used the Offline method for Publicity and awareness of its Programmes.
On the other hand, online publicity is the one done through any internet-based platform. Some online publicity techniques are email marketing, web page pop-ups, blogs, websites, Facebook publicity, Twitter publicity ,Whatsapp and referral links/ad banners.
One thing that makes publicity successful is traffic. While offline publicity is meant for offline traffic, online publicity is also meant for online traffic. Regular traffic is key to publicity and advertisement. It is why several billboards are displayed in a stadium only when there will be a match in that stadium.
Publicity is an inevitable part of marketing. No matter how good your product is, without effective publicity, you will just be “winking in the dark.”
The Ways we packaged our programmes has Totally Changed with the coming of the Internet,days are gone when we believed that those who use the internet are Spoilt People,Corrupt People or even Fraudsters.
With the coming of the Social Media,you dont nee to travel to London before you Publicize your programmes,just stay at the Comfort of your home,encode the message and it flows immediately without hitches.
Some Strategies:
Build a Website: If you haven’t built a website yet, this is your first priority to growing your church. There are billions of people who are using the internet. People in your own neighborhood could be searching for your church online and you could be missing opportunities for engagement. However, its not enough to just have a website. Ensure that it is captivating and entices the visitor to take action.
Get on Social Media: Once your website is built, then you need to figure out how you are going to drive people to it. Social media is a place where billions of people interact with one another and have conversations about literally everything. So you can bet there are people looking for a church home right now. Being on social media allows you to join the conversation with people visiting churches and invite them into yours. Check out one of our church client’s Twitter campaign that is actively driving visitation:
Advertise Online:
There are many free advertising platforms on the net like Google Maps, Yelp, YP directories, social media and more. Take advantage and sign up to increase traffic to your website. Also, you can pay for advertising with search engine marketing (SEM) which can include google, youtube and display network advertising. Digital advertisements have proven to be very effective and measurable for many churches. With digital you are able to configure a formula to how to grow your church.
Today even Local Churches have embraced the use of Streaming as a great Marketting tool into reaching out to people,you can Stream on Your Website,Facebook among other platforms.
The First task into building Online Publicity is to build an audience First.having just a Facebook account which you have not logged in for One week ago is not enough into building huge Online Publicity for your District, Section and even Local Church.
Creating Your Brand. What do you want your audience to know with you,this is a major area that once you cross it,then you have successfully broken the jinx of online Publicity.
Your Audience are waiting each day to hear from you and you must show cause why the should remain with your Brand.
FACEBOOK BOOSTING:
In 2014, Facebook decided to clean up its News Feed by only showing content of the highest quality. While the move was designed to benefit the Facebook users, some businesses were left out in the cold, seeing giant drops in the amount of fans that saw their posts.
The drop in organic reach continues in 2018, with little hope of coming back up.
Facebook Advertising offers more effective ways to improve post viability, for a price of course.
“Facebook Boosting ,” a type of Facebook Advertising that allows companies,Organisation,Institutions etc to choose a post and have it distributed in the News Feed to anyone they want, based on interests, demographics, etc. While this may seem like a simple concept, there are certainly challenges.
Have a strategic goal in place
First, it’s important to understand what needs to come out of promoting a post on Facebook. There are many reasons to boost a post, such as:
Increasing brand awareness
Increasing brand engagement (Shares, Comments, Likes)
Boosting website traffic
Promoting new content or blog posts
Companies can spend money fast boosting a post, so having a specific goal in place is necessary to use that money effectively. The next tips will go into specific ways on how to successfully reach these goals within Facebook.
Maximize targeting options
It’s easy to boost a post. It’s hard to effectively boost one. The key lies in who you are targeting. Based on the goal, companies have the ability to target anyone they want on Facebook. When boosting a post, Facebook offers the following targeting options:
Audience (fans and/or friends of fans)
Location
Age
Gender
Interest
Facebook Boost Posts
If the post is focused on information only relevant to current fans, it’s important to target only those people. On the other hand, if the goal is to interact with potential new customers, that needs to be reflected in the targeting.
Choose the right post
I have stressed this point in the past, but it’s worth stating again the importance of using a high quality image or video. When boosting a post, especially to users who might not be familiar with the brand, the image will be the first piece they see. It needs to be eye catching and engaging at the same time.
In order to determine if a certain post is performed well enough to boost, it is essential to check post results in the Insights tab on the Facebook business page.
FUNDING of the Posts:
Facebook Management made it easier for you to select a Specific Budgeting for your Post,you can even start with N500,1000,N5000,10000 Perday depending on your level of Finance.
But the higher the money the higher the audience Facebook shows the Posts To .
For Online Media Outfits such as PUO REPORTS,we have a Budget of 100 Dollars Per Day each Time we tend to promote or advertise a content of Facebook.
Online Media is not going away anytime soon,and any organization that is online Shy may be missing out numerous potential audience in this Digital Age .
