5 ways to share the gospel online at Christmas time.

5. Send an E-card

 The following E-cards are available to be sent to friends (for Free) from Mormon.org/Christmas. Or you could pin them on Pinterest!

4. Share the Mormon messages video on the true meaning of Christmas. Place it on your facebook, google+ or tweet it out. In my opinion, this is one of the best Mormon message videos they have produced yet so SHARE IT. When you do please add short message of why you like the video... that will help more people watch it.

 

There are also other Christmas videos to be shared.

3. Change your cover image on facebook to this:

or post the following pictures

 

Visit the LDS app on facebook for additional images.

 

2. Invite a friend to watch the Christmas devotional.

Watch Here

 

1. Simply write your personal testimony of the Savior on facebook or google+ wall.







 

 

Share your faith on your Christmas Card

As we are in the Christmas season and people are making Christmas Cards to share online or via the mail. I thought I would share our postcard from last year. You can see below what we did but the missionary tool in it was that we put a QR Code on it and the address to our blog where we put together a video of our family acting out the Nativity. Also the front of the card was inspired by the church's theme on lds.org during that season. Put your mind to it and I am sure you will find a creative way to make your Christmas card into a missionary activity.

WHY I created this blog

I have a strong belief in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In fact, I love everything about the church. It really has led and guided my whole life. It has taught me how to stay out of trouble. It has taught me of the love of the Savior and the power of His atonement if I repent. Each day I try to live by the teachings of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and of the prophets in the scriptures. The love I have for the Savior and the belief that I have that this church will improve the life of anyone who is willing to learn about it, has led me to this overwhelming desire to share the gospel with others. Missionary work is very dear to my heart.

From March 2004-2006 I served as a full time missionary for the Church in Spain. I was assigned to multiple small towns that only had population of 20,000-30,000 people. I knocked on every door in all of those towns within 3 months. Most towns only had 2-10 active members and missionaries had been in those towns for 12 years already. I felt like no one was going to listen to us because they already had had missionaries knocking on there door 40 times before. Every door I knocked on caused my mind to reflect on ideas for another way- another effective way to do missionary work. After much pondering, I figured that our message must be taken to newspapers and media.

After I got home from my mission, I married my best friend and graduated with a doctorate in Audiology. 5 days ago we welcomed our fourth child into our home. Life has become busy with four small children, a full time job and other church callings, but my mind and heart are always reflecting on ways I can do effective missionary work. The Hastening The Work Broadcast was thrilling to me. I remember cheering inside of my heart when Elder Perry said the era of knocking on doors and contacting in the street were over and that full time missionaries were now allowed to use the internet.

I believe that the internet is a huge way that the church will fulfill prophecies on missionary work. But in order for those prophecies to be fulfilled, members need to be trained on how to use the internet in missionary work. Therefore, I felt inspired to share all the ideas that I have found to share the gospel online. As always, I welcome any comments and your ideas on online missionary work.

Donate to the church by using Smile.Amazon.com

Amazon.com has put out a new thing called smile.amazon.com. It's the EXACT same website, but with one small difference: instead of Amazon giving google (or whatever site you came to Amazon from) giving a kickback- at smile.amazon.com, they give that 0.5% kickback to a charity of your choice and I am giving to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (They were on the list of charities to choose from). So, if you can change your shopping from amazon.com to smile.amazon.com, you can give that kickback to a charity instead of google or whomever. Anyway, spread the word about smile.amazon.com!!!!

New inforgraphic to encourage online missionary work

Please Pin to pinterest or share with your friends to encourage more online member missionary work!

New articles related to online missionary work and blogging

Here is a list of recent articles in the news about missionary work and how blogging is a missionary tool. Enjoy

Tips for LDS bloggers from the 'ultimate blog' — the Book of Mormon
Open, honest and vulnerable: one blogger's journey
Entering the world of LDS blogging
LDS Boston blogs used as a missionary tool
Blogging bishops: 2 Mormon men talk about sharing the gospel online

Share the Gospel Online infograph



 

I created this poster (and this blog) in hopes that it could be spread around pinterest or facebook to help people understand some ideas on how to share the gospel online. I was inspired by the infographics that the church has done (see here).  Obviously, I am not a professional and never took an advertising class, I would love to see if anyone else could create something better.

 

I feel that so often people do not understand what is effective and what is not effective in online missionary work. Someday, I intend to write a blog on all I know but as of now I don't know a lot so I am doing what I can to teach other members what I do know about sharing the gospel online.

 

The way I see missionary work is broken into two categories:

First, by going to other people and preaching to them. This would be traditionally knocking on doors or contacting in the street. If we convert this into an online setting this would be sending facebook friends invites to Mormon.org or repeatedly sharing Mormon messages or other gospel related things without a personal note. Success from this is probably very limited.

 

On the other hand the second category that I believe is more successful is when people search us out to learn the gospel and we teach from what they are interested in. Traditionally, this would be when friends ask members questions or when someone randomly shows up at church. I think this happens online when people search in google and they find a site in what they are interested in and then read about it.  That is why I think Elder Ballard has spoken often about blogging because then readers would be coming to you instead of you going to them.

 

However, we need people to spread links online for the church websites and other church oriented sites because it will optimize those links for google searches. So even if you just sharea  facebook post or pin things on pinterest it will help others find the church on google searches more often.

 

But there are many ways to share the gospel and so I tried to create this poster and this blog to teach some of the other ways.



Giving the free gift of an app for this Christmas Season

      

For this wonderful Christmas Season. A wonderful easy gift to give someone is an app for the church.
This can be simply done through itunes, Google apps store and probably many other apps stores that you use.

The bible video app would be awesome Christmas gift as it is all about Christ. Any church app would be a great gift for co-workers, past friends, or even your dentist. I hope that you will find joy in giving apps as it is so easy to do.

Facebook Ad campaigns

The blog that I mentioned early this week had an interesting comment on it:

The commenter name Keith Heid said: "Have you all noticed the Ads Manager on the left side of your Facebook Page? For very little money you can make up some church related ads and link to official church pages. I have been running one on free Book of Mormons with links to: http://mormon.org/free-book-of-mormon You can target any country or city in the world.

I also just ran an ad linking to Mormon.org the plan of happiness. I targeted Ireland, Fuji and Botswana, it gave 37,000 impressions on facebook, 14 clicked through to the church website. And the cost? only $1.

Owner of the blog, Andy Proctor, responded. "Keith thank you for your suggestion. This is great. I'm so glad you have gone the extra mile to do this - although no member is expected to pay for a facebook campaign.


I felt that I should share this idea as I am trying to create a collection of many ideas of things that can be done. I think that this is a great idea but I agree with Andy in that you can do many missionary activities online without any need to spend money.

However, running an ad will probably reach people that would not be reached in other ways, however, the down side would be once your funding runs out it will be removed from the internet forever, while if you put it on a blog it will likely remain their for a long long time.

A note on SEO for your blog and inspiration

Tonight, I was searching the internet and found a post that I really enjoyed reading from thereturnedmissionary.com. The author, who appears to have much experience in the industry, outlines what you can do to help other church websites be found more or how you can help your own blog be found more.

This is a great read. Well worth your time.
Read it here http://www.thereturnedmissionary.com/onlinemissionarywork/

Book of Mormon challenge: Mormons share 2-minute testimonies on YouTube

A recent Deseret News article (found here) detailed how a member of the church only found negative videos about the Book of Mormon on youtube. He decided to do something about it. Read the article and help him out!


President Benson said: "The time is long overdue for a massive flooding of the earth with the Book of Mormon for the many reasons which the Lord has given. In this age of the electronic media and the mass distribution of the printed word, God will hold us accountable if we do not now move the Book of Mormon in a monumental way.
"We have the Book of Mormon, we have the members, we have the missionaries, we have the resources and the world has the need. The time is now!"

Search blogs for a topic and then link to an general conference talk.

Recently, I reread Elder Holland's talk on The Parable of the Worker's in the Vineyard.  As I read it I said to myself that it was such a wonderful and unique interpretation and that I should share it with anyone who ever blogged on that parable before.

So what I did was search in google blog search (make sure you go to the blogs tab) for the parable and went to the first 100 website and added almost the following comment to each:

"good work. I also really like this other perspective on the laborers in the vineyard. http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/the-laborers-in-the-vineyard?lang=eng it something I had never heard before but made complete sense"

Now out of the first 100 results, I probably found 50 blogs that I could leave the comment on. Hopefully, whoever reads those blogs in the future will check out Elder Holland's talk.

The other benefit to doing this is that the more links there are out there of his talk on the internet the higher it will get ranked in google search results.

You could find any general conference talk or ensign article that you like and repeat the above process.

Submit your sacrament meeting talks...

The More Good Foundation created a website called LDS talks.

You submit you sacrament meeting talk to them and it will be shared on their website or another website owned by the More Good Foundation.

"Talks will appear by category and are easily searchable online. Honest seekers browsing the internet will easily be able to find answers to questions and concerns as well as solid information on doctrinal topics."

My view on this is that there are many websites/blogs run by LDS members who need good original content to share to bring others closer to Christ.

This is a very easy way for you to share a talk that you have already prepared.


It may also be a good idea for Ward Missionaries is to ask the members who gave talks in church on Sunday to submit their talk.

Edit wikipedia articles to show an LDS perspective.

Edit wikipedia articles to show an LDS perspective.

Look at this example
Parable_of_the_Workers_in_the_Vineyard
Torah
Ten Commandments

Help other people blogs by posting comments

Many other Christian Mormon as blogging and they need great comments on the things that they post. Please search for their blogs and read them and COMMENT. Create a conversation in the comment section. It will help them be successful and spread the gospel message further. You may search for the blogs in google or go to a website like http://www.mormonmommyblogs.com/p/about.html
 which lists a lot of them.

List church activities on Craigslist

Craigslist is great for listing community events. It will help get non-members to any activity. However, Please check with your local leadership before you post something.

Last Christmas a local stake did a live nativity for Christmas in which they invited the public. They even created a website. http://thenativitylv.com/

A few simple post on craigslist was a great free way to get the word out.

Tips for entering the LDS blogging world

Deseret new posted an article that you should read for additional tips on LDS blogging. The link is http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865589490/Entering-the-world-of-LDS-blogging.html?pg=1

It gives church leader guidance on the need for bloggers and shares one ladies story of her blog.

Let me know your ideas or good facebook posts

Let me know your ideas or good facebook posts.
Add a comment and we will add it to our lists.

Helping in the Vineyard

If you do not know about helping in the vineyard... you should. https://vineyard.lds.org/

This is a volunteer service website that lets you donate your time online and help out with a church project.

They have many church projects and a lot of them are about online missionary work.

Facebook Post Idea "what is your favorite scripture"

A recent friend of mine put "what is you favorite scripture" on facebook. The post had over 40 comments in the first 24 hours and people just listed their favorite scripture.

This is obviously an effective post as many non-Mormons posted their favorite scripture and members alike posted their favorites from the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants. I am sure other people who did not know what those reference were could look them up.

If you were to answer your own question, I would encourage you to add a link to the reference so people who be directly linked with a church website.

Ideas from "The Power of Everyday Missionaries" by Claytom M. Christensen

The author Clayton M Christensen who is a professor at Harvard and a member of the quorum of the Seventy recently wrote a book on missionary work. One of the chapters was on being a digital missionary. Luckily a summary of each chapter is on his website at http://www.everydaymissionaries.org/


His stake called digital missionaries. Who wrote blogs on items that were commonly searched in google. Then they had other missionaries write comments to generate a conversation on their blogs. After which they would have other online member missionaries promote their blogs on other web sites to attempt to drive traffic to their blogs. 

If you do not want to create you own blog you could promote their blogs or ask to be a guest writer. The blogs that he mentioned that his stake started were.

Next Door Mormon
Mormon Perspectives
Young and Mormon

Make sharing gospel on facebook more effective

To make yourself more effective at being and LDS ONLINE MISSIONARY you need to understand how the News Feed works and how to make your post be seen by more people. A detail review can be found here http://socialmedia.biz/2011/02/07/how-facebook-news-feeds-work/

The basics are: The more people that comment on your post the longer it will stay and higher in people's newsfeeds. Also the number of people that like your post the longer it will stay and higher it will be in people's news feeds. Remember COMMMENTS are worth a lot more than LIKES. Also post are viewed as more important if they contain a picture, video or link.

Write a TV or Movie review for a movie that is not appropriate and post it on Netflix, Amazon ,RottenTomato.com, imdb.com and then at the end suggest something else for the people to watch that is more uplifting.


For Example,
Review on MTV show Teen Wolf.
" I recently watch the first 5 episodes of this show. I was shocked by how much the show was about sex. This show is for teenagers and yet the whole plot is making out and getting condoms. As a parent I really value clean entertainment. I think the best clean TV shows right now are being produced by BYUTV and we can all watch those for free."


You can see Mormon movies that are available on Netflix here.

Promote your BLOG learn about SEO

Blogging is a great way to share the gospel. Whether it is gospel related or about you life. But to be more effective you need more people to read it. For more people to read it you need to learn about how search engines are going to find it.

The best guide I have found:
http://ldsmediatalk.com/2007/12/22/how-to-build-links-to-your-web-site/

Here is a basic guide that blogger has available. https://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

Now, this is a lot of work and probably only for the advanced who want to put a lot of work in.

Ask a question on your facebook page about your calling. Your member friends will sure to comment. The more comments you get the longer your post will stay in people's newsfeeds. Try to add a link to what your calling is about or what you will be teaching. Maybe non-members will offer advice and in the process they may look over the link you sent.

People will learn a lot about our church when they see the service you give and what is being taught. This is a very non-preachy way to share the gospel with your friends.

Share LDS gosple by posting review of mormon church on google maps

Find your local church on google maps and write a positive review.

Your review could include... the times of church, what to expect, what to wear, details about primary, nursery, YM/YW, Relief Society, or Priesthood.

Also speak about mutual night and how it is the best youth group for any faith based family.

Your review could also mention boy scouts and how any boy can join who will live the standards of the church found here.

Once you have done your building. Write one about Wards you used to be in or have otherwise visited. The more reviews the better.

Spike ranking of kindle version of the Book of Mormon

The more people that download the kindle version of the Book of Mormon, = the higher it goes on the sales charts = the more people that will see it.


It's free to purchase. So do it


ALSO PLEASE WRITE A REVIEW FOR IT.  A great place to share your testimony online is here.

Basic Ideas of online LDS missionary work

The most basic ways of sharing the gospel online is by doing exactly as the church suggest on their website.

Sharing using Social Media. On facebook or google+, personally invite friends to hearing the gospel or share your testimony.

Another way that is not as direct is to share things on your wall that are gospel related.
The easiest way to do so is by reposting something from a Mormon page.

How to do it:
Find a Mormon site on facebook and like it.
Some options are official church page, Mormon channel, BYUTV, Mormon.org, Mormon newsroom, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, LDS Missionaries, or LDS Youth.

When on that site and you see a picture or video that you want to share on your wall, simple click the share button.

This will post it on your wall for all of your friends to see.