Strategic Digital Outreach

Videoblogging Article

Aaron Flores is blogging about an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about Christians who are videoblogging (you may need to register to access the article - I did, but it looks like you might be able to reach it without registering by going through the front page).

About a week ago, I was contacted via email by the author of the article asking for my perspective on videoblogging. I guess he had found this site through an earlier article I had written about vlogging (another name for videoblogging). Some of what I wrote back to the author ended up in the article, but Aaron had something valuable to say in response to something I had said which was quoted in the Journal Sentinel article.

My portion:

If the church could catch a vision for using video technology to present an authentic presentation of the life of the church - not rehearsed videos, but spontaneous records of conversations, laughing with one another, weeping with one another, people sharing their lives, etc. - the average person might take notice,” Frank Johnson wrote in an e-mail interview.

Aaron’s response:

The key is that spontaneous conversations and showing life should not be a strategy to proselytize / evangelize. The videos then become suspicious to the viewer as religious propaganda.  It must be natural to the community sharing their life.  They must be as open, sharing, and accepting as what they portray online.  If anyone meets me in real life they know that I am just as open, sharing, and accepting of others (some say too open and sharing).  It would be a shame to share the life of the community in a positive light online, but in real life the community is nothing like its online presence.  Also, weeping with one another and showing the gritty side of sharing life with each other is so important.

Aaron’s right - authenticity is so important and what we do online should not reflect something different than what we are in real life.

It reminds me of discussions I’ve had with pastors about branding. Here’s an illustration I often use from the world of business:

If I see an advertisement in a magazine which presents a business as having great products and wonderful customer service, but the first time I call the company, the receptionist is rude to me, then all of the “branding” effort that was put into that magazine advertisement just went out the window. Because the “ultimate branding” of a company is the experience I, as a customer, have with that company’s people.

I remember years ago when I had purchased a laptop from a warehouse store. After a couple of years of using it, I decided I wanted to upgrade the memory. It turned out that, in my earlier ignorance, I had purchased a laptop which required proprietary parts to upgrade the memory. I couldn’t just go to my local computer store and buy some memory chips - instead, I had to purchase a special add-on memory board.

So I called the company that made the laptop. They said that they no longer sold those parts, but they could refer me to a company that did - Penguin Portables in Massachusetts (unfortunately, no longer in business).

I called Penguin Portables, and I’ll never forget what the person on the other end of the line said after I explained to him that I needed that memory board which the manufacturer no longer sold. He said, “They (the manufacturer) think it’s bad business to keep selling that part. We think that it’s never bad business to make a customer happy.”

That experience is indelibly “branded” on my brain. I still remember exactly what he said. And notice one more thing - I still remember the name of the company (more than 10 years later). Ultimate branding, for good or for bad, is determined by the experience I have with a company’s people.

It’s no different for churches and ministries. Ultimate “branding” (what I think of Christians and churches and ministries) happens when I have an experience (for good or for bad) with the people in a congregation or associated with a ministry.

All that to say that we should make sure that the “branding” on our websites matches the “ultimate branding” people will experience when they participate in our community of believers.

Make sense?

Posted by on 08/24 at 12:28 PM
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