The Best Practices for Your Church Digital Platforms

Nick and Matt discuss specific and individual best practices for Digital and Hybrid Ministry. Because there are a lot of platforms out there, what should we actually be doing on those platforms? Like Church website, Church App, Instagram, Facebook or TikTok? And what should we do about Discord?

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Or find full transcripts and show notes at http://www.hybridministry.xyz

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TIMECODES
00:00-01:15 Announcement and FREE giveaway
01:15-5:26 The New Normal of Church
5:26-13:03 Best Church Website Practices
13:03-15:55 Should our Church get an app?
15:55-20:00 How can our church use YouVersion?
20:00-24:57 Facebook best practices
24:57-29:38 Instagram best practices
29:38-32:00 TikTok best practices
32:00-34:42 How about Discord?
34:42-36:51 Texting Best Practices
36:52-38:13 Outro and Conclusion

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:00):
Think that they were gonna, uh, keep it going. I thought that I thought that was gonna be it.

Matthew Johnson (00:07):
Yeah. That one more season left.

Nick Clason (00:09):
Yeah. So it like when they did, which it's like the first season that they've never resolved, you know? Yep.

Matthew Johnson (00:15):
They said like, it was the first time they've never done that, so

Nick Clason (00:18):
Yeah. Well, Hey everybody. Welcome back to, uh, hybrid ministry, the podcast. I am your host, Nick Clason alongside my good friend. Matt Johnson. How you doing this morning, Matt?

Matthew Johnson (00:34):
Doing good, man. I can't complain got a cup of coffee and uh, it's a beautiful Friday morning.

Nick Clason (00:39):
Yeah, we're ready to roll. You know, what's so fun. Uh we were in a meeting yesterday about this exact topic, like in our, in our church talking about the new normal of church, you know, a little bit. Um, yeah, which I think is, is interesting cuz uh, I can't remember how you said it, man. It was so good. You were saying like the way that we've done church for so long, it, it has to shift and it has to shift into a hybrid type of world. What, like what do you mean by that? What did you, what were, what were kind of your like thoughts going into that statement?

Matthew Johnson (01:16):
Yeah, so we, the church as a whole has had two main philosophies over the last, let's just say 60 years, it's gone back obviously much further than that, but uh, here it's been straight to seat. What I mean by that it's like find someone on the street, they can come to church and they can take a seat in for Sunday service. And then probably since the internet age, I'd say probably in the last 15 years, maybe 20, I, that might be pushing it, let's say 15 to 10. Cause the church is, um, always a little bit on the back. End of everything is sight to see. And, um, what that means is like, Hey, you come to our website and then you can come to our church, but now we're in this new world, which what the heck is next for us. like, uh, what is, what is post COVID look like? What does this hybrid approach? And we know the church has to evolve in some fashion just based off of where technology is going. No matter how much we all say that we hate technology, this is the world we live in now. So that's really what I've been, just trying to figure out like where should we evolve?

Nick Clason (02:29):
Yeah. And I like, one of the best examples I ever heard of, of hybrid was like a department store. Um, I was, and, and I, it came to fruition for me a couple weeks ago and I was walking through, Lowe's like physically walking through the Lowe's department store. I was in person, all the things, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. And so as a typical millennial, instead of stopping and asking an associate where to find the thing, I downloaded the Lowe's app on my phone, searched it. And it told me exactly where to go. Um, yep. And so I used a digital tool in a physical environment and I think that's sort of what we're talking about is this, this hybrid approach. And I don't think either one of us is necessarily advocating for getting rid of everything. That's why I really like this word, this word hybrid, because it's, it's not either or it's both and

Matthew Johnson (03:27):
Exactly. Yep. And

Nick Clason (03:29):
So that's, that's what I wanna talk about today is what, what specifically can we do? Like let's get nitty gritty, get down to some of the, like specifics of some of these platforms and some of these best practices. And I think, you know, just shooting straight, like we have ideas and we have data to back up some of this stuff, but we don't have all the answers. And, and I don't think any church is really hitting it, you know, bating a thousand and hitting all these things a hundred percent outta the park either, you know? So like, yeah, same is true for us. So these are just things in our brains that are rattling around and things we wanna, you know, kind of try where we wanna start. So.

Matthew Johnson (04:09):
Yep. Absolutely.

Nick Clason (04:10):
All right. So let's just talk through like, um, LA on episode one, we talked a little bit about this. Um, but like if, if you have nothing, you know, um, is the best place to start, Matt, would you say like a website, like getting your own, your own domain, your own place that, that you own, that you're not on like borrowed social media space or anything like that, your own website, is that the best place to start? And then if so, um, what do you like, what are some best practices as it pertains to web these days?

Matthew Johnson (04:44):
Yeah, so I would say the best website could be one of the best places to start. Uh, I'm not gonna say it's like a blanket statement. Like everyone should start there, but I will say if you don't have a website and you have the means and, um, energy to make the website, you definitely need to get on that. And, uh, websites are so easy to make right now if you like square space and WICS, you need even WordPress plugins, like Elementor, um, make building a website very easy where you don't need to hire developers and have a huge upfront cost anymore. Um, your website, like we're saying earlier in the episode is, was originally like this, you visit our site and then you come to the church mm-hmm so site to see, um, it was more of probably a front porch approach, um, to the church, uh, as in, okay, I'm, I've entered into your fray and now I'm gonna come all the way in your house.

Matthew Johnson (05:51):
Yeah. The website now can function as multiple. And the first thing it's gonna function through for is I I'll call it your window. Um, and that's the sense that I'm just viewing in to what your church holds. And then I will decide just from the viewing in, if I even want to attend online, if I wanna check out your social, if I want to check out your campus. Um, so those are all the questions that you're your first time person is gonna be faced with. Um, especially as you're trying to reach lost people, the more approachable your website is the better because you want people to not feel intimidated to come check you out. So when I think of a website, the first thing I always tell everybody is 90% of what you wanna put on your website. You don't need to put on your website.

Matthew Johnson (06:46):
um, the reason I say that is cuz everyone thinks they just need to put everything in the kitchen sink on their website. Um, and Donald Miller who, uh, is just kind of become a marketing guru, um, has really coined this term of like story branding, your website, story, story, branding in general, your, um, your church, whatever your company is. But I always love his idea of the website, which is a lot of the junk that you put on your website belongs to the junk or on your website. Hmm. So what that means is like, it all be, you can put it on your website, but it should not be easily accessible and it should be at the bottom of the website where if you wanna find it, you can find it, but that's not what you're trying, you're there for. So when you go to someone's website, the first thing I should see is what you want me to do.

Matthew Johnson (07:38):
Um, and that's going to vary church church. So, uh, at our church it's uh, Hey, attend online right now or, um, here's the church services mm-hmm um, is that the best course of action? I don't know. Um, there's a lot of philosophies, uh, and really you should only have one decision. So if you're whole idea says hyper approach, I would just say a 10 0 9 should be your first call to action. If you had that capability mm-hmm so you gotta simplify your website, get rid of the junk on your website and then make your website purposeful. So what are you trying to tell people as they learn about you? Like I said, your window, it's like a window shopping. So it is really easy, Nick, for you or I to go and Google type in Christian Church near me and find probably 50 churches within 20 miles of us.

Matthew Johnson (08:39):
Mm-hmm and we can go and look at all these churches, all their beliefs, who they are, where they're at, what they're teaching and we can window shop used to not be like that. You used to have to go into church or the window shopping was more, oh, these people have this service time, so I'll go check them out. now I can see everything about you. Uh, I can see everything your pastor has probably ever said. So you need to be very cognitive of that as you're building out your window, your website on what is it that you're trying to communicate about you about your church?

Nick Clason (09:16):
Yeah. And then like the, the, the nerdier you get into that, right. There's things like search engine optimization, words and titling and, and things like that. That you're also gonna want to start to explore at least get a handle on as you're building those things out. Right?

Matthew Johnson (09:34):
Yeah, absolutely. So then you can start once you define what you want your website to be, you can really get nitty gritty with, um, how we're gonna title everything and how you're gonna lay it all out. Um, what the proper course of action is, how you leading me to those calls to action. That's all super important stuff that you'll like, like a story brand is a great option to kinda learn how to do that. Um, but also just being able to like use Google trends, you just go to Google trends.com. You can type in like words that people are searching. And if you really wanna start like investing in some stuff, you can look at like SCM rush or href, which are both about a hundred dollars a month where you can actually look up search terms that people are using for your website specifically, and also what Google is weighing highest.

Matthew Johnson (10:27):
Hmm. Um, and what that's gonna do is, uh, if you, if you're like, okay, we're at the point that our church is growing, but we want to grow more and we want to reach new people. That's your best option to do that? Cause Google it, it's wild to think about what Google did. So, um, back in the days of when Yahoo was around, Yahoo was literally ran by librarians. Like you had a room full of librarians that would archive pages. So you'd go to Yahoo, you type in, um, churches near me or whatever, or, uh, um, looking for, you know, a Christian sermon. And it's only what the librarians have gotten through and archived. Um, that's to obviously change now, but that was back in the early days of the internet. And then Google came around and said, Hey, we're gonna make this automated through search terms through our search engine. And those will be weighed differently. And, uh, algorithm is constantly changing. So the best way for you to find out, to get more recognition is for you to find out what people in your area are looking for. Um, and then just make your website, your content targeted towards them.

Nick Clason (11:41):
Hmm. Yeah. Okay. So, so that's website, um, let's talk about app apps. Yep. So, you know, like if you and I are using our cell phones, most of us are interacting with people on our cell phones, through various apps. And so do you think that that's a platform worth looking into worth investing in for a church? I mean, it's, it feels like it would be a pretty hefty cost. And then, you know, if it's not a hefty cost, that means that you're probably getting a pretty basic, uh, service from a company that your app is gonna look, um, much like any of the other apps that are out there. And, uh, it's gonna look, it's gonna be very similar to, to your church's website. So couldn't, we just use a very like phone friendly, mobile friendly website. That's gonna, that's gonna play well on people's cell phones, as opposed to trying to get them to adopt an entire app or like, talk, talk me through this. What, what should we do with that? Should we do anything with that?

Matthew Johnson (12:45):
Yeah. Great, great question. So, um,

Matthew Johnson (12:52):
Yes, I will say the best course of Ash action is to just make, um, a mobile friendly website. Uh, so yeah, my professional opinion, the app should really be an interactive way to engage with your church, your congregation, your content, whatever it looks like. So it's not a front porch anymore. Like you're involved, like you're, I want people to come to our church and download our app so they can be as directly tied with everything we have going on. Hmm. But that's not for the wide people. So I'm not going out to people on Google or on our Facebook pages and going, Hey, download our app when I'm just trying to get them to come check out who we are like, that is, that's a deeper step. Like I'm asking you to put me on your phone forever. Mm-hmm I would say, yeah, mobile friendly website is the best place to start.

Matthew Johnson (13:55):
Then let's say you are a larger church and you're really trying to figure out what's next for your digital platform and what you should do online. Then I think the app is a great course of action of different things you can do on it that are not what your website does. mm-hmm so that's the key. The app cannot just be an extension of your website. Just have a mobile website at that point. Like your app should be, Hey, this is where all our small groups are facilitated at. Hey, this is, has a interactive map for us or, Hey, this is where all our content is. Or we do our prayer studies and there are Bible studies that'ss own world that is not directly correlated to your website.

Nick Clason (14:36):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh, so moving on this, one's one of my favorites. I'm not sure if I've optimized it yet, but as a youth pastor, this is one of the things I love to try and, uh, both create, uh, but also challenge our like small group leaders and students to participate in. Uh, it's the U version Bible app, you know, they have a, they've built in some kind of social media components to it recently. Um, and one of my favorite things to do, and it was a thing that, you know, I, I think, uh, really came to a height during the pandemic and stuff was reading like devotional plans together. And I thought that was a great way to, to do spiritual practice in the other, um, hours of the week that weren't like our programming time for like small groups to do together, whatever, uh, obviously, you know, like the people at life church, they're the ones that put you version together and are continuing to run it and everything. Uh, are there any things that we can do as a church to optimize those better? Um, or, you know, think about them creatively to, uh, get our people to be en engaging with the Bible, uh, in that way, through that platform.

Matthew Johnson (15:54):
Yeah, absolutely. I love you version and what the team at life church has been able to kinda accomplish with that platform. Um, I think a great use of your version is finding content that is relevant to whatever you have going on in your church or as you, and I know if you wanna start getting, you know, a little crazier developing content for you version. So, um, both are great avenues, but I would just start with curating content on new version that it can actually facilitate conversations and you can create prayer request in it and, uh, um, be going through studies together. And it's just a good way to nurture and continue to have people think about your church other than on a Sunday. Yeah. And that's a big key of everything we're talking about is how do we get people to, you know, be engaged with church with your church, not more than one day a week, and as we know, more than one day a month, so,

Nick Clason (17:00):
Right. Yeah. Yeah. That, and that's interesting that you say that whole thing about, uh, once a month, that is, that's what we're seeing, right? One in every four, uh, an average attender or an engaged attender is attending one in every four weeks, which to your point is what you're saying is one, one once a month, which is why I think this hybrid approach is so like important. Like it's such an important thing because if we are only discipling people on the weeks that they attend church, that's 12 times a year, 12 hours a year, there is nothing in my life that I care about that I'm only giving 12 hours a year to yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so if faith is important and faith matters, it needs to happen more often. And yeah, like all of this right is an ownership step that we need to try and help facilitate for those people that are attending our church.

Nick Clason (18:00):
But the reality is is that you and I, as people who work at churches, uh, we've only made that priority a thing that we do once a week for our weekend services, you know, and we're just trying to, to challenge everyone to think outside of that box. Exactly. And to say, okay, great. Like we're already doing that. We're not throwing that baby out with the bath water, but what are the other ways in which we can disciple our people through the means and the, the avenues that they're already using through their cell phones and through online and through digital. So I think in a, in most cases now I wanna talk social media for a minute because in most cases, I think when people come to this idea of hybrid or digital, that's the first thing, right. That comes to everyone's brain is like, oh, so you're Spanish again, social media. Um, and that's true to an extent. Um, and so let's talk through some social platform. So the first one is, is Facebook, what is best practice on Facebook?

Matthew Johnson (19:04):
So Facebook you're gonna be reaching people that are probably 35 and older mm-hmm , um, usually, um, it's actually probably even older now it's more in your forties or older. So if your congregation's a little bit older, like that's a great platform to start navigating on. And what the real big use of Facebook I can see now is the Facebook groups, which we had talked about. Mm-hmm , um, in a earlier, earlier episode. Um, but really just getting some Facebook's groups going that you can actually create community that have people interacting with each other, and it's not a sole reliance on you. Um, also we just know Facebook has some massive plans with, you know, becoming meta and what web three looks like. So I just think it's always gonna be a part of our Zeki, no matter what. Um, and I think it's gonna probably morph into more of this web three platform, which then you start getting crazy with like virtual reality and, you know, the metaverse and stuff. But I, I would not worry about that yet. Um, I would just stick to, let's create some Facebook groups. Let's do, uh, let's have a strategy behind when we're posting content and why we post content. Um, I always say start with the why of what you're doing. Um, and if you're just using Facebook to promote stuff, stop doing that. ,

Nick Clason (20:30):

Matthew Johnson (20:31):
Just, let's be, uh, more creative and cognitive, uh, what people want and promotional stuff is just gonna fall in deaf ears. So, uh,

Nick Clason (20:40):
So let's, let's, let's actually talk about that for just a second, because I think that's, that is a, a standard default for a lot of churches is, um, just create, uh, like it is, it has like another billboard or another avenue to announce your things. Um, so if you're not, if we're in the event business as a church a little bit, like, you know, it's not events more spiritual than an event, but yeah. Like we're hosting an in person thing, uh, that feels a lot like an event. What are we, what should we be doing then on social media, on Facebook, if we're not posting it as events, what are things that we can be putting on there that people are actually gonna want to engage with?

Matthew Johnson (21:23):
Yeah. Great question. So this is something I've been wrestling with, um, from the marketing world for the last few weeks, actually. So I think we, as people that are communicating, we, uh, we need to get away from the industrial realistic nature of marketing. So what I mean by that is we're trading like everyone, like their cog and this machine of communication. Um, when we know every single person is unique and different. So what is the content that people are gonna engage with? Well, the biggest content that anyone will engage with is story based content mm-hmm . So tell the stories of the people at your church. Hmm. Tell the stories of what your church has been doing for your community. Not about, um, it doesn't only have to be about, Hey, join us Sunday, but like share when you guys are going to the food pantries and serving share when you guys are having block parties and, uh, the life change that people will experience at your church because we know that's what people wanna be involved with. We know that isolation, loneliness, and anxieties at an all time high and that people are searching for community mm-hmm and relationships. So share those stories and you're gonna get a lot more engagement than just, Hey, join us Sunday, or Hey, check out this worship that we did. Um, yeah. That stuff is fine, but that should not be the only thing you do.

Nick Clason (22:52):
Yeah. I think, uh, I mean, think about this, right? Like why do you get on social media? Like mm-hmm, I get on social media to be entertained, uh, to laugh or, you know, maybe to be inspired. Yeah. But I don't get on there to learn about events. Yep. Almost, almost never.

Matthew Johnson (23:11):
Exactly.

Nick Clason (23:12):
And so, you know, and I think, you know, we're gonna get to in a second talking about TikTok and Instagram, uh, but I think that's Mo that's where a lot of people are kind of going to, you know, it's like that short form video content, cuz it's, it's funny, you know, that's that's I, when I share something, I share something that's funny, you know, exactly. Or maybe a little bit inspirational, but for the most part, something that I think is funny so let's, let's move that way then. So let's talk about Instagram. Um, Instagram is obviously owned by MEA, which is owned, which is the parent company of Facebook and all that stuff. So should your Instagram strategy be similar to that of Facebook? Should it be identical to that of Facebook? Because you can do that right. Where you can post on Instagram and duplicate that exact same content over to your Facebook page. Um, is that the best practice for Instagram right now? Or what are you seeing out there?

Matthew Johnson (24:04):
No, so you definitely can just, you know, post straight from Instagram to Facebook, that's the easy way out, but you'll probably see one of your platforms as doing better than the other. And the reason is, is cuz it's drastically different demographics on both platforms. Like I said, Facebook is older, you're gonna have, let's just say 40 and up Instagram is gonna be your millennial. Yeah. They're starting to get weary on the, on just the Instagram algorithm. Um, so people are using Instagram. They're not liking as much, they're scrolling more. Um, so that is, uh, something you also be need to be cognitive of. So really your Instagram content should just be strong piffy storytelling content that is meant to either entertain or make me feel. And honestly the win on Instagram right now is short form video.

Nick Clason (24:58):
Yeah. And that's very TikTok adjacent, correct?

Matthew Johnson (25:03):
Yep. Yep.

Nick Clason (25:04):
So what's so is there best practice then on if you're posting content to TikTok that's a minute or under 30 seconds or under, should you also then be posting that same thing on Instagram reels should or should those be individual pieces of content?

Matthew Johnson (25:22):
So right now, as we're recording this, I would say post your TikTok content on Instagram with your TikTok watermark on Instagram, cuz the TikTok demographic is gonna be your 18 to 25, 18 to 30 year olds. So you are still hitting a very similar demographic. Um, and you can kind of kill two birds with one stone. Uh, but TikTok should be your more entertaining, fun stuff. Um, I will say it's pretty hard to go viral inspirational on TikTok. It's a lot easy to go viral on Instagram with uh, inspirational. So, Hmm.

Nick Clason (25:59):
So that's interesting that you say that before we, before we jump straight to TikTok, um, Instagram feed posts, Instagram story posts. Are there still value in those or are you saying double down on, on like reels and abandon those other things?

Matthew Johnson (26:17):
I would double down on reels and stories. So stories is still, um, a massive driving factor for people on Instagram. You'll actually see most people get on Instagram. And the first thing they do is scroll through, um, as many stories as they can. Now, what I will say to help you on Instagram is to go live on Instagram more. Mm um, so why I say that is cuz Instagram pushes that content higher still and you can get on front of people's feeds on their stories quicker if you go live. So if people aren't liking your content or they're not scrolling through your story, going live will help you get in front of their eyes more.

Nick Clason (26:59):
Now you now back to the, you talked about posting with your TikTok watermark. Are you, are you saying do that as a, as a way to promote and raise awareness that you do have a TikTok account?

Matthew Johnson (27:13):
Yep. So right now that is what they're recommending is that you post from TikTok to Instagram, with the TikTok watermark, cuz it shows that you're on TikTok and also Nick, you and I both know, um, content takes off quicker on TikTok and usually it takes off more virally on TikTok before it will Instagram. So I'll be scrolling through Instagram reels and I'll see a TikTok that I saw last week that already had gone viral. Yeah. And it's just cuz talk's algorithm is just next level crazy, which also has a lot of concerns behind it. But we could talk about that earlier.

Nick Clason (27:51):
Yeah. It's so interesting that you say that though. Cuz even, uh, even in my own experience, like I'm looking right now on our church, social media and everything that was first posted to TikTok and then posted to Rios has almost no views on, on Instagram, but it's doing well over on TikTok. And so that's been a, that's been a little bit of a thing to try and kind of navigate. So let's talk TikTok then for a minute, should we be on it? It feels like it's a place we sh you know, a lot of church people are maybe even scared of it. And so if we've been trending younger is TikTok the youngest of all the platforms that we're talking about.

Matthew Johnson (28:30):
So we're gonna talk about today. Yeah. It would be the youngest. So your demographic is gonna be that, um, 18 early or later gen Z to, uh, you know, 30, 25 to 30. So okay.

Nick Clason (28:46):
And, and best practice on there is like, we've been saying short form video. You can do trends, you can do maybe inspiring inspirational content, um, and also just humor. Right?

Matthew Johnson (28:58):
Yeah. TikTok is really good for that humor aspect. Like you can definitely do some inspirational stuff. Um, and it's also the hashtag feature of it is, uh, a great way to find other like minded tiktokers. Um, like I said, the algorithm of TikTok is very effective, but I also do understand the reservations behind TikTok with, uh, just everything behind it. So, um, but I will say that is where your younger audience is and if you wanna be reaching those people, you need to go there. Unfortunately.

Nick Clason (29:29):
And the thing that's so crazy that changes the AB the absolute game with TikTok is even as like, I look into our like specific analytics, I was looking at them yesterday. Um, the majority of, uh, people who watch your videos, um, at least ours are not followers of ours, right? Mm-hmm, , they're, they're people that discover us from like the four U page.

Matthew Johnson (29:55):
Exactly.

Nick Clason (29:55):
Which is, you know, so much different than the way that we've treated social over the years. And so in a lot of ways is TikTok, can it be an evangelistic tool? Can it be like a way to reach people that aren't connected to your church? Is that a good strategy for it? It feels like sort of the opposite of what we've been talking about with going hybrid.

Matthew Johnson (30:15):
Yeah. You definitely can reach people with TikTok and you just need to have a strategy behind where do you take someone from TikTok to this hybrid approach. And that's what, we're not seeing a lot of that right now of like, okay, you get people watching the videos on TikTok, but now what

Nick Clason (30:31):
Mm-hmm

Matthew Johnson (30:32):
Mm-hmm so you gotta give them that next call to action and take them to your church website or to your online platform, whatever that looks

Nick Clason (30:38):
Like. Yeah. All right. So this one's up for debate a little bit discord, is that a social media platform? What even is discord and why, why did you tell me to add it to our outline?

Matthew Johnson (30:51):
Great question. So discord is, um, I think you can probably consider it a social media platform right now, but what I love about discord is the aspect that you can create very curated, focused groups. Um, there's a lot of really cool stuff you can do on discord, and you can create different breakout rooms. Um, you can create different channels that people can talk about different stuff. So, uh, I, uh, have been involved with a couple of new Christian discords that people have been wanting me to help them, um, get going. So what you can do in discord is like this one that I'm in is like, there's a whole prayer request, channel Bible, verse channel, David stories, channel general chat. And it's really, um, and you can just break it down more and more and more like, you can create your, you, if you wanna do a sports league in it or whatever, you can do that.

Matthew Johnson (31:50):
And, uh, um, there's like a lot of fun stuff you can do in it. What's good about it is that you're getting all like-minded people in that discord together. Mm-hmm so you can actually talk about, Hey, we have X, Y, and Z going on in youth group also, here's where all our prayer request is. And here we're talking about fantasy and, um, you're getting your community built together in a very cohesive platform. And I will also tell you, is that your young people in your church are on discord? Hmm. Um, most of them are, especially if, uh, so like during the pandemic something I heard all the time, as we were trying to get everyone to go to teams and zoomed and, um, trying to do these virtual events, uh, there was all these kids that were telling me, why are you guys not just using discord?

Matthew Johnson (32:37):
We're already on it? Mm-hmm . And I was like, and I laughed, cuz I've been on discord for years, but I've always thought about it as a gaming thing, but it's more than a gaming thing. Now it's now a chat functionality that you can create your community in. So if you wanted to put your youth group in there, you could, if you wanted to put your women's ministry in there, you could, and learning curve is really easy for it. Hmm. And you have a captive audience that is interested in your, in your group, your culture and what you're doing. So whatever you communicate they're gonna be engaged with.

Nick Clason (33:09):
Yeah. That's interesting that you, that you say that the learning curve thing, cause I think that's probably everyone's biggest reservation, right. Is the introduction of a new platform. How hard is it gonna be to figure out? So, um, yeah. Great. All right, Matt, last one, text messaging. Uh, I recently heard that the open rate on a text message is 99%. Is that true?

Matthew Johnson (33:35):
Yeah,

Nick Clason (33:36):
That's crazy. So that has to be a platform that we should be using as churches, right?

Matthew Johnson (33:43):
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so texting is the best, one of the best ways to do communication period. Um, we know people reply to text messages and open text messages, um, way more than email as you just talked about with open rate. Um, also, uh, if people give you, if they trust you enough to give you their number to text, 'em the trust level with you and your church, um, is extremely high, which that tells me immediately is, oh, I can communicate, uh, differently with these people. Cause I've already built that trust bridge with them.

Nick Clason (34:23):
Mm-hmm yeah. Yeah. And again, to, to the point that we're making with all of this, right? So if we go back through web and app, you version social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, discord, and text messaging, every single one of those things exists in you and my pocket every single day. Yep. And so the, our people from our church are carrying the access to all of these things with them every single day of the week. And so I think as a church, it's a miss, right? If we're only, uh, talking to them once a week on Sunday, but then if we break that down, even more understanding that people are only coming to church once a month, we're only talking to them 12 times a year. Why would we not try to create connection, create discipleship, content, create inspirational things through the things that they're carrying around with them every single day of the week.

Matthew Johnson (35:30):
Exactly.

Nick Clason (35:31):
So, so that's what, that's the idea. Uh, this was very nitty gritty and, uh, you know, appreciate Matt, all of your marketing knowledge and demographic studies and everything that you have, man, cuz uh, I know the reason that, uh, the reason that I love having you on this is because you are just for me an absolute wealth of knowledge. So I hope that, uh, as everyone else who's listened to this, able to pick your brain, um, or just hear some of these things about all these different platforms is advantageous to them. Um, beneficial. So I appreciate, I appreciate that, man.

Matthew Johnson (36:08):
Yeah. Don't thank you. I appreciate it. It's been a blast and I hope everyone's going, uh, get something out of this. So

Nick Clason (36:14):
gosh, I can't imagine that they didn't so good. Hey again, thanks everyone for hanging out. Uh, feel free to subscribe. Give us a rating. If you find this helpful, share it with a friend. Um, you can follow along on Twitter at hybrid ministry and online at hybridministry.xyz Uh, but until next time we will talk to you all later.