The Stats: Progress Report, 2023, How Am I Actually Doing?

The Stats: Progress Report, 2023, How Am I Actually Doing? In this episode Nick dives into and shares the stats from his recent results of running social media, a new website and everything he's helped implement in his new job and student ministry. How is it actually going? What's going well? What needs tweaked? And what have we learned?

See Nick Sip his Coffee, don't just hear it: https://www.youtube.com/@clasonnick
Daily TikTok Clips: https://www.tiktok.com/@Clasonnick
Shownotes & Transcripts for this Episode: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/047

SHOWNOTES
Building a Digital Strategy from Scratch
https://www.hybridministry.xyz/011

The Results PDF
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vNimYieoP8N8gbDX-cxQssRrez5Lmo-f/view?usp=share_link

6 Part Social FRAMEWORK
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngXlSr64YaIbzg_DNJrTrCtBHQnxcOVo

My Student Ministry's Website/Hub
crosscreekchurch.com/students
Q&A Link
Brady Response to Theology in the Raw Podcast
https://podtail.com/podcast/pro-church-tools-with-brady-shearer/christian-author-urges-churches-to-not-use-tiktok-/

Can you Be Discipled Completely Online?
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1-U_mfQEoI&t=7s
AUDIO: https://www.hybridministry.xyz/042

TIMECODES
00:00-04:03 Intro
04:03-13:37 What is the Current State of our Current Social Media and Generation Z Demographics?
13:37-17:20 How are we doing on TikTok?
17:20-19:18 How are we doing on YouTube?
19:18-21:20 How are we doing on Instagram?
21:20-22:33 How are we doing on Facebook?
22:33-26:05 What this means for my social media moving forward?

TRANSCRIPT
Nick Clason (00:01):
Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hybrid and Ministry podcast. I, as always am your host, Nick Clason, sip my coffee. If you're on the YouTube stream, you get to see here and listen to this beauty rest of y'all said to be with you. Sorry that you had to endure that, uh, coffee pause, but thrilled to be with you. And in today's episode we have, um, a little bit of a recap. And so I, I linked a couple of things down in the show notes, but you'll notice, um, and if you were around, um, or have been around for a minute, you'll know that, well, I just recently started a new job and I say recently, um, within the last, you know, 11 months or nine months or so, started in September. So whenever this is airing, you can do the math on that, right?

Nick Clason (00:53):
And, um, I dropped an episode, episode 11, um, a little bit, just honestly a little bit of a filler episode. I was trying to limp myself through, uh, thinking I was gonna get a co-host back. Never did. May he rest in peace. He's not actually dead, but, um, he's dead to this podcast and I miss him. But, um, we have moved on and, and gone on to greater things. Anyway, um, the episode was flushing out a digital strategy. And so in that episode, I spent a lot of time talking about website, email, seo. And then in, um, our, one of our more recent runs of episodes, we dropped the complete six part social media framework, seven episodes with an intro. And so I have linked that playlist on YouTube, uh, that playlist to YouTube. It's also on our podcast catcher, just, um, you know, in order for seven weeks in a row.

Nick Clason (01:44):
So you can go back and listen to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. You can see them in your feed here either way. Um, but I wanted to drop both of those because basically, um, that's what I have been on this podcast saying, you should do this, you should do that. Here's why. Here's the strategy behind those things. And now I am going to take those things and I am going to report them to you how they're going. So the first part, um, of that was, you know, website and email. I'll just be very clear, I don't have any analytics to go off of that. We use Church Community Builder and we send all of our emails through that and for two reasons. Number one, I don't care enough. And number two, um, someone has told us that we are unable to track open and click rates. I don't know that that's entirely true, but again, I don't care enough and I haven't dove into that, just being completely frank.

Nick Clason (02:30):
Um, I know I should, but I haven't, haven't really had time. So I don't have any analytics on that. The other thing is our website. I can show you what we came up with. I'm not, uh, personally a huge fan of it. Um, there are limitations and constraints, um, both by our website builder and by the way that our website is built and fleshed out to the rest of the church that make ours, um, less than what we would hoped and less than optimal. Um, but you know, if you've ever worked in church any bit of time, you know that there's a just a game to play with getting along with the other people. So, um, I can, I'll link our website to, in the show notes. You can check it out and see, um, if you know what I said in episode 11 matches what we have now, I don't think it does.

Nick Clason (03:13):
Um, so I'm just gonna give that full disclosure. You can look at and like, this stinks and I can be like, yeah, I know. Um, but anyway, uh, all that to be said, I am gonna dive into our stats on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. But before I do, like I said, so thrilled to have you, if you wouldn't mind dropping a rating or a review or a like, or a subscribe on YouTube, that would be incredible. We're also trying to start gathering some questions for a couple coup a couple future q and a episodes. So if you don't mind, head to our website, link to that in the show notes as well, um, with just some, uh, questions and things that you have about regarding social media, running, social media, digital ministry, any of those types of things we would love to answer them.

Nick Clason (03:53):
But without any further ado, let's dive into this episode called Progress Report 2023. How am I actually doing? Let's go. What is the current state of our social media and our Generation Z demographics? First of all, let's look at some overall social media data. So what we know is that we have 4.7 billion people that are using social media worldwide. That is 59% of the population. And when you look at that through the lens of the Great Commission, go therefore and preach the gospel to the entire world, making disciples of all nations baptized them, the name of the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Like you see that, that social media is actually an opportunity to preach the gospel to all nations, at least 59% of the population. In addition to that two hours and 29 minutes is the average daily time spent using social media.

Nick Clason (04:51):
And 73% of customers, according to a, um, a company called Wise Owl prefer to watch a video than they do prefer to read a text-based post. This is like marketing. So this is like a company saying like they'd rather watch a text ad than l read a, uh, or they'd rather watch a video ad than read a text ad. And then, um, 96% of people in the world have ever watched an explainer type of video. And finally, people are two times more likely to share video content than other content. So that's social media worldwide. Here's what we have about Gen Z. And if you've been on this podcast or listened to us any length of time, you've heard these before, but Generation Z is the first generation in history to use their mobile device more than any other device. So more than any other device, I should say combined.

Nick Clason (05:44):
Okay? So Gen Z is using their mobile device at a alarmingly high rate. They are not just digital natives, like they are becoming digitally dependent. And, um, I shared this I think on a recent episode as well, but Jen Alpha behind them is going to be even more digitally dependent. The mobile device is the key to all of this, and I know if you're listening, you're thinking that's bad. We need to get them away from it and uh, it might be bad. Um, I don't know that we're getting anybody away from it. So I think the question needs to shift to be like instead of how do we get people away from it? Because let's be honest right now, if you're listening to this, you're using your mobile device right now, if you're on a road trip, let's be honest, you're probably using your mobile device as your GPS today.

Nick Clason (06:27):
You're probably looking at your calendar on your mobile device. And are all of those things possible? Can you buy an old school GPS and um, use a paper daytimer and listen to a podcast just on your computer while you're sitting in the office? Technically, yes, but it's not very convenient, right? Your mobile device is your one stop shop, your hub for almost everything in your life. And so it's not just about social media, it is the fact that it is a lifeline. It is a lifeblood. It is everything that you do and that you use. And so the problem with that is a lot of times we try to disciple teens, gen Z, young people away from their phones when what we need to be doing is help produce within them good digital hygiene and good coping mechanisms and good, uh, skills with interacting with their phone and using, learning how to grow in their faith while having a phone as a part of their life as opposed to just discarding it and getting away from it.

Nick Clason (07:25):
Because yeah, we can, you know, just scale back and go to, uh, flip phones. But two things. One, probably most people are not going to opt into that. And two, it's actually more expensive and more inconvenient to do that through the cell phone companies. So how do we help move people through and, and help them grow in discipleship? I just think, I honestly think that is a sign of a time, a thing that any of us in church ministry leadership, youth ministry, whatever your role is in church staff, that's something that we're going to have to be prepared to do. That's a conversation that we need to be willing to have. And I just think that pulling back and just saying no thanks to it is not very, um, it is just, is not good stewardship of what God has given us. In fact, what I'll do is I'll link, uh, an episode to, um, one of the pro church tool shows that Brady Shearer, he actually did a response episode to, uh, a guy who was on Preston Sprinkles podcast talking about the dangers of technology.

Nick Clason (08:24):
And I thought that him and his co-host Alexander Mills had really, really great thoughts and responses to it, and it lines up a lot with what I think. So I'll link that episode in the show notes, if you're interested in that, go check them out. They're amazing. Love everything that they do. But go check that out. Okay. Um, further data on Gen Z, millennials and subsequently Gen Z I should say, have said that a hybrid version of church will suit their needs going forward in a post pandemic world. That comes from Bara's recent study came out about a year or so ago on Bara's six findings of the hybrid and future of the church that, um, I was already thinking about doing this podcast, but I hadn't launched it yet. So that came out right around when I launched this podcast. And, and I love that word hybrid.

Nick Clason (09:06):
Um, and, and Barna used that word hybrid and it's just, it's, I've, I've latched onto a lot of the data out of that thing. And so, uh, hybrid is one of the means and measures going forward that Gen Z and millennials prefer. Um, I just think we have to do that in such a way that we don't lose the good elements of in-person ministry or in-person community, um, and give them, you know, like a framework to help them grow in their faith but not become too dependent upon technology. And I just think that's a tricky balance to walk and I think that you and I are the leaders that God has chosen to help navigate that. Finally, greater than 80% of 18 to 29 year olds, which is the youngest age data available legally, cuz you can't survey anyone under the age of 18. Um, greater than 80% use at least one social media app regularly, which is the highest of all the age breakdowns between 18 29, 30 to, you know, 39, whatever the breakdowns are.

Nick Clason (10:01):
Um, and we can just assume that it's gonna be higher in generations younger than the age of 18. Um, and moving forward. So all that being said, social media, cell phone usage, and hybrid ministry, not really going anywhere. That's a backdrop basis for why we do this. Why I'm so passionate about hybrid ministry. If you go back and listen to the intro of episode 11, I say I'm in the buckle of the Bible Belt, Dallas, Texas, I'm at a church that barely shut down for covid and I'm in a ministry that is thriving with an in-person moment. They're not clamoring, begging, or looking for hybrid. So why did we lean into it? This is the reason why, right? Like this is why we went for some of these things. We pushed the chips in on the middle because, well, right now it may not be a priority, it may not be on the forefront of people's minds.

Nick Clason (10:50):
It is the currency, it is the, the native tongue of generation Z and subsequently soon to be generation alpha. And so we wanna at least be out there doing some stuff, trying some stuff. Listen, I'll be the first to say, and this is the report is gonna yield this a little bit. I don't know for sure if what I'm doing is the best way to reach disciple, preach the gospel to generation Z and generation alpha. However, the fact that we're doing things makes whatever potential future shift, um, possible, makes us be able to adapt quicker because we have cameras, we have infrastructure, we have someone thinking about it. We have, we're posting regularly, we can watch some of those trends. So rather than just sit back and wait for the picture, perfect thing, we're gonna go out there and we're gonna try some stuff and we're gonna tweak and adapt along the way.

Nick Clason (11:43):
And we are like, I have some shifts coming and I'm gonna let you know about those at the end of the episode or in a future episode. So all that to be said, like this is why we're doing it in person is important, it matters, it's meaningful. But episode, I believe it's 42. Uh, can you be discipled exclusively online? I don't think the answer is an either or a both. And my my conclusion is that if someone really wants to learn and hone in on some of their skills, they can do that. And I gave several examples of things that I have learned without ever having any sort of in-person experience or moment. Um, my wife included, like, there are a lot of ways that you can learn and you can dive deep in all sorts of topics. And the Bible should not, does not have to be excluded from that.

Nick Clason (12:30):
Like, that is very much a, a possibility, um, of things that we can do. And the beautiful thing is, as a church, if we offer some of those moments and some of those learnings, we have to go with that. We compare with online stuff, we compare in-person moments, we compare authentic community, family feelings, and we confuse those two things together. That's where hybrid really has its opportunity to, to make its most like impact. I think you don't have to be either or both. And like the reason in episode 42, can you be discipled exclusively online? The reason that I don't have a relationship with any of the people from the Oklahoma City Thunder podcast, it's because I don't live in Oklahoma City. I've never had an opportunity to get to know them. I'm three hours away now in Dallas, but before that I've been like 12 hours or 15 hours away from Oklahoma City.

Nick Clason (13:20):
Online was the only way, it was the only path forward for learning the only path forward for education. And, and so I took it, okay? But now as a church, we can offer these things online that also supplement and go right along with what we're doing in person. All right, so how are we doing on TikTok In just 11 years, from 2011 to 2022, TikTok grew from estimated zero users to around 1 billion estimated users. That is the fastest, most skyrocketed, um, growth. It's behind Facebook at 2.9 billion. YouTube at 2.2 billion, Instagram at 1.4 billion. And then TikTok is at 1 billion. Obviously we're assuming that that's going to continue to move and grow. And so I wanna share some of our individual personalized data. And I'll be honest, TikTok has adjusted some of their algorithm. There's a lot of people even on the TikTok four U page lamenting that shift in talking and chatting through why people's views are stuck at two 300.

Nick Clason (14:20):
And we're squarely there. I'm just gonna lay it out for you fully, you know, completely, honestly. Um, but, but all that being said, okay, um, we started at our TikTok account in mid-September, maybe October. Um, so somewhere around there. And whenever you're listening to it, I'm recording this on May the third. And so I have the most up-to-date data based on May the third. I also shifted our TikTok account, um, the second day of March, I believe. So we, uh, right around two now at this point, um, shifted it to a business profile account, okay? And so we have the ability to have some creator tools and some deeper analytics that only really date back to March. And so we have, um, lifetime data, which we have, we are following 18 accounts. We have 236 followers, and we have 7,473 likes. Not amazing, honestly, it's not, um, most I will say though of our followers are completely organic.

Nick Clason (15:18):
And so you gotta think in, uh, a church that runs its student ministry, about 200 people. Um, we have reached basically 200 and, uh, 36 completely random people. Um, and TikTok followers are not the same as YouTube followers. They don't, they, they don't respond the same. Um, I've heard that from other like creators and stuff like that. All that being said, you just gotta think like 10 years ago, 20 years ago, would you as a pastor or would you as a social ministry or social media manager want the desire to have an audience, 236 people, um, that, that commit to follow you? That doesn't even include views and likes and those types of things, right? Just followers. Would you want that? And most of us would, would say yes. And so well, I might be like, man, that's not amazing. I know I'm aware of it, right?

Nick Clason (16:06):
Like I'm running it actively. Um, it's, it's still also not nothing, right? Okay, so what about since we converted to a business profile. So here's some of the stuff that we have. Video views 34,184, we have 308 profile views. We have 2,827 likes, we have 84 comments and we have 118 shares. Furthermore, if you dive into just specifically last week's content and analytics, um, here's what I'll do. I will link this report. I won't bore you with this, but I'll, I'll just pull out, um, at a quick glance. I haven't even like really dove into it deeply. Yeah, I think the highest view that we had was just like 269, um, with a couple of comments and the like, and you know, like 22 or something like that likes, and, and that was me filming a game of some of our students playing a game called App Store Showdown.

Nick Clason (16:57):
So you can see that, like, it doesn't require you being all up on trends. Like, I recorded a game, I did some edit, some brief editing, and I made, you know, I had 10 questions on it or whatever, and I made 10 slides and then I'm just sprinkling 'em out, scheduling 'em out throughout the month. So not super difficult. That is our most recent up to date TikTok Analytics. All right, so let's talk about YouTube. What is it go looking like on YouTube? You'll know that I'm a big proponent of YouTube. I think that shorts are much more advantageous to use right now. And I also think that if you post, um, messages or any sort of like spiritual content than all of your short form content, because by the way I should have said this earlier, everything we're doing is short form content on all of these platforms.

Nick Clason (17:46):
Like, there's barely any other strategy around anything else. And so if you have those, having something longer on YouTube allows you to push your content, um, and push your people or anyone that stumbles across any of your videos to follow you for longer form stuff. YouTube is the second or third, depending on who you talk to, largest search engine in the world. And if it's considered third, it's only behind Google Images. So it's Google, Google images, and then YouTube. If Google, if you consider Google images a part of Google, then it's the second, right? Because Google and Google images are the same. And then YouTube is the second. So our analytics, we have 126 current subscribers in the year 2023, which is our YouTube channel's only been around since January of, uh, first of 2023. We have gotten, um, 52,432 views in our videos. We've had 291 hours of watch time and our subscribers are up to, uh, up by 125, cuz I think I subscribed before it launched in in January.

Nick Clason (18:50):
Um, so 126 subscribers. Um, our top performing long form video has gotten 56 views, four hours of watch time, um, I think 18 subscribes. And then our, our analytics, our channel analytics is that we have 32,000 unique viewers, 42, um, returning viewers, and then, uh, plus 80 on subscribers from people who have, uh, come across our stuff on you. All right, so what about Instagram? While Instagram is skewing older and older being used primarily by millennials, there's still 62% of us teens that claim to be users of Instagram. Our Instagram, like most of you, you probably have had an Instagram account for a while, and that's the same with us. We inherited an Instagram account of all the things. TikTok was new, YouTube was new, and our Facebook page is uh, also a retread. But the main thing we're doing on Facebook is our parent group, which is also new.

Nick Clason (19:49):
So Facebook, Instagram, something that has already existed. Everything else completely brand new. So all the data I have been, I have been sharing with you is from things that, um, are completely brand new. So we inherited an Instagram account, so these stats are gonna be a little more leveled off. Two reasons. One, we already had a pretty big following on there, so we're not gonna see some of that skyrocketed type growth. And secondly, um, it's, it's skewing older and it's being used less and less by current Gen Z teenagers. So we've had 1,829 profile visits. Um, in the year 2023, we have 785 Instagram followers. Um, I have age demographic breakdown, but the highest, honestly 20% is 35 to 44 year old women. So we just got a all moms on there, right? Um, we do have 18 to 24 year olds and it doesn't go younger than that.

Nick Clason (20:40):
Um, as a high, that just might be also cuz teenagers have to lie about their age to get on there. Um, and then Instagram reach is 122,872. Um, they say that that's a 0% change though, so we're pretty much holding steady. Uh, that being said, we have reached, since January 31st to April 30th, we have reached 40,900. We have, uh, 576 accounts engaged and we have 785 total followers. So I say all that to say like, while Instagram is slower and whatever, there are still valuable data happening here on Instagram. 32% of users on Facebook are teenagers. That's not a lot. Is it worth doing? It's not a lot. It's also not nothing. And, um, you can very seamlessly link your Instagram and Facebook. And so I don't even go to Facebook. I literally post on Instagram and also double post on Facebook. And so, like I shared a couple episodes ago, um, the lottery ticket vibes, um, of just posting it in four places, sometimes some's gonna hit and sometimes it's gonna hit over on Facebook.

Nick Clason (21:49):
And so our page and profile data, which are the things that have existed, but we've, um, recently revitalized a little bit. We've had 656 page visits, that's up 283.6%. We have, uh, reached 26, um, on our post reach tw uh, I'm not, I'm not, I'm sorry, not 26. 23,000. Um, our Facebook page reach is 37,803. Um, but probably the best thing I think that we have going on in the last 60 days, we've added 80 total members to our parent Facebook page and none of that, zero of that is from organic growth. That is all from like people in our church. We send out an email, they click, they join our Facebook group. All right, so in conclusion, uh, I'm not stopping, right? Like we're gonna keep barreling forward. I've been posting three times a day, um, five days a week on all of these platforms.

Nick Clason (22:45):
I do think one of the things I want to do is I have been focusing a little bit more just, you know, full disclosure on quantity, uh, as opposed to quality now that I'm trying to put crappy stuff out there, but by posting three times a day, 15 different posts a week, like that just becomes a lot. And it's hard for every single one of those to be really good and really meaningful. And so I wanna start spending a little bit more time on the edit, um, which is just going to have to ultimately reduce the number I'm doing. Uh, that being said, I don't know that I'm gonna see much of a depreciable drop off from three to two. And so really like I'm trying to do like one spiritual post a day and one fun or interesting post a day. Like I said, I'm not just like some consultant out there trying to like get rich tell you a bunch of stuff and not care about the results.

Nick Clason (23:32):
Like I am a youth pastor. I am trying to live into these hybrid moments. And so I just wanted to share with you, I pulled some of these results for the first time, uh, for a work thing and I wanted to share with y'all. I mean, here's the thing, right? Like none of these numbers are outlandish. And the reality is like, I, I don't think they are. Maybe you heard them and you're like, wow, that sounds crazy. Like I'd love that. Let me just encourage you, lean in, like you can do this. Like nothing I've done in my personal opinion is that insane, that difficult, that crazy, that hard to, to come by. So just wanna encourage you, uh, you can get these same results cuz we have been very much middle of the road with our results. Nothing viral, nothing crazy. So just go for it, lean in, make it happen.

Nick Clason (24:14):
You can do it. Hey, as always, so excited to have y'all with us for this episode. If you're not subscribed to the YouTube channel or us on podcast, please do that or consider a rating or a review share with a friend. Help us get the word out. That would be phenomenal. We would love it. Um, we also wanna let you know about our 100% completely free ebook. Um, there are also some free downloads in this episode, the report, the analytics, um, other episodes and show notes and things that we've talked through. And go check all of those things out. That's at hybridministry.xyz/047 And until next time, and as always, don't forget, stay hybrid.