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