Identify Your Media Platform
1. Read
How is Your People Group Using Media?
Doing persona research should provide insight into how your people group uses media. It is important to investigate multiple sources to answer the questions where, when, why, and how is your people group using media.
For example:
- SMS is an extremely strategic way to connect with people. However, depending on your location, the security risk could simply be too high.
- Facebook is a very popular media platform around the world, but most of your content may never get seen as it competes with other content in people’s endlessly busy newsfeed.
- You might want your audience to subscribe to something that will notify them of new content. If your people group doesn’t use email then creating a Mailchimp listserv isn’t going to be effective.
What skills does your team have?
Consider your (or your team’s) capabilities and skill levels when deciding which platform to start with first. It might be strategic to eventually have a website that links to your various social media pages. However, start with the most strategic and workable platform for your first iteration. As you become comfortable with the platform, posting and monitoring content, and managing your follow-up system, you can add more platforms later.
Questions to consider:
Before rushing to get a media platform set up, take some time to thoroughly evaluate the role of media for each of your identified persona(s).
- When your target people group is online, where are they going?
- How and where do local businesses and organizations advertise online?
- What are the most frequently visited websites and the most used messaging apps?
- How prevalent are smart phones, the use of email, and text messaging among your people group?
- What is the role of radio, satellite, and newspapers? Has anyone started ministry efforts from these platforms?
2. Fill Out Workbook
Before marking this unit as complete, be sure to finish the corresponding questions in your workbook.
3. Go Deeper
Resources:
- Download this Word document for more questions to think through.
- Search for articles about your target people and media like this one: 10 Social Media Lessons from the Middle East in 2016.
- Digitial Ministry Atlas: The Digital Terrain in 40 of the Least Reached Countries