"Today is somber, I have spent time with a hospice a 92 year old who went to her reward this AM. The Cinnamon rolls are in the oven and the coffee is dripping. Hope you have room for a few, heavy on the frosting and a cup of JOE." - brbruceaspgren
If your organization has a Facebook page or Twitter account, use the NE1 Facebook or Twitter modules to help connect your website visitors with you on Facebook or Twitter.
P.G. Builders provides home improvement services in the Maryland, D.C. and Virginia region. Some of their specialties include roofing (residential and commercial), window installation, vinyl siding, wood decks, brick patios, and building additions. They recently hired OurChurch.Com to create a Custom Header for their current NE1 Website. They asked us to include their logo, name, slogan, and several images, showcasing some of their work. We utilized a Flash header so that we could add animation effects and movement.
Whether you know it or not, you are already in social media.
Even if you don't have a Facebook page or a Twitter profile, other people are probably already talking about your organization there. The issue is not whether conversations about you will take place but whether you will be a part of them, influencing them, feeding them.
Because August is Social Media Month at OCC, you'll find a lot of social media resources in this month's newsletter. Also check out the inspirational video and 2 new NE1 templates.
In His Service,
Paul Steinbrueck, CEO
OurChurch.Com
1) HELPING YOU JUMP-START YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA
August is Social Media Month at OCC. We're doing everything we can to help you and your organization put the power of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to work for you. We've got Facebook & Twitter modules for your website, blog posts about social media, opportunities to promote your site in social media, and a new approach to our own social media which we hope will serve as an example to our members. Read all about these opportunities in the Social Media Month announcement.
Today we’ve given the Christian Web Trends a brand new look. The new design embraces a number of trends and values we believe are important for blogs. Here are some of the changes we’ve made.
1) Gave it a cleaner look. The previous design was very cluttered. We removed the image and 5 ads from the header. We removed the entire left sidebar. And just in general I think this font, spacing, and color of this theme is much easier on the eyes than the last one.
2) De-emphasized OurChurch.Com. Previously, Christian Web Trends was designed to be more closely integrated with the OurChurch.Com site. The header was the same, the menus were the same, the sidebar was the same. We’ve removed most of that and given CWT its own look. We kept the logo at the top to make the association clear and kept links at the top to our main services.
More...
4) TAKE THE CHURCH/FACEBOOK SURVEY
At the moment there is little data on how churches are using Facebook or how church attenders would like to engage with their church and other attenders. OCC would like to change that and help churches better utilize Facebook. Would you take 5-10 minutes to complete this 35 question, mostly multiple-choice survey?
6) WIN $50 THE BUG OF THE MONTH CONTEST
To make everyone's experience on the OurChurch.Com website even better, we've giving away $50 every month to someone who reports a misspelling, grammatical error, dead link, or other problem in our monthly Bug of the Month contest. Each bug you report will give you an entry into a monthly drawing we'll do for $50 towards OCC services. The more bugs you report, the better your chances to win. Congrats to Doug Walker who won this month's $50.
7) NEW FOOTPRINTS AND MUSIC TEMPLATES
We've got two brand new NE1 templates this month. The first, Footprints was chosen through a vote on our Facebook page. The second, Music Violin, features a beautiful violin and scripture from 2 Samuel 6:5. Watch our Facebook next month for an opportunity to vote on next month's templates.
8) NO COUNPON HERE. IT'LL BE ON FACEBOOK
If you read our newsletter regularly, you've probably come to expect a coupon in each issue. Well, we're changing things up this month. In the spirit of Social Media Month, we're going to post a coupon to our Facebook page. It's not there now (publication time) but if you become a fan, you'll see it when we publish it. (Oh, and we're giving away some free books there right now too!)
That'll do it for this issue. Thanks for hosting your website at OurChurch.Com. Please post comments and questions concerning this newsletter in our forums.
OurChurch.Com's Webmaster Newsletter is sent to everyone
who has an active website hosted at OurChurch.Com. If you wish to
cancel your site, you can do that on your Webmaster page. After
canceling your site you will no longer receive OCC Webmaster News.
If you've forgotten about your website address,
username, password, etc., you can Request a Report and that information will be emailed to you automatically.
In His Service,
