Quick Links for a Happy Wednesday - Ministry and Business Marketing, Media and Strategy Blog

I love learning about a wide variety of ministries and businesses. Not only do I get bored easily, I also find others' successes and failures to be profoundly instructive regardless of what I'm currently slaving away at.

Sometimes though, insights are lurking not around the corner, but within my own organization. Check out this great post on The Consultant Within.

You likely have folks within your ministry or business that came from other fields, utilized different technologies, and found solutions that you've perhaps never considered. Next time you're stumped, seek out these talented problem solvers who've successfully sown in a variety of soils.

On a completely different front, this great article from Fox Business chats up commerce in the "recommendation age." The key thought: don't miss the chance to participate in and encourage online conversations about your organization. These discussions are happening with or without you.

No, you shouldn't become as obsessed with what's being said about you online as a teenaged girl vying for prom queen. But you shouldn't fool yourself into believing that virtual ratings and dialogue won't impact your ministry or business success.

Want proof that you're living in the recommendation age? Look closer at the next news article or blog post you read online? Those "digg it," "fave it," "seed it," and other buttons allow folks to recommend or bash the content at hand. And tens of millions of web watchers depend on such ratings to choose ministries and businesses.

Embrace the recommendation age. If you're not sure where to begin, drop me a line.

The New Indiana Jones Movie and Your Ministry - Ministry & Business Marketing, Media and Strategy Blog

Go with me here...

As many of you may know, a new Indiana Jones movie is coming out this summer. It apparently features 60-something American actor Harrison Ford pushing around a walker and popping arthritis medication, as he battles the bad guys in an action-packed adventure for the whole family. Kidding...

Actually, I have no idea what the plot is for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But that's not the point. I mention the movie to point out how they're promoting the film with great success and how you can use the same tactic to advertise your ministry or Christian business.

Say it with me: widget. A widget is a simple little tool that can be easily placed on blogs, websites, and elsewhere, that promotes something and is able to be shared with others. Notice the widget on the left of this post, offering you a chance to chip in a few dollars/pounds/rubles to support the Lucky Rock (your author's non-profit ministry).

The Indiana Jones marketing folks, geniuses that they are, created a trailer and then hired a company to make a widget out of it. The result--literally millions of people have watched the trailer! In fact, on the heels of the mind-boggling success of the first preview, they're now putting out a second trailer via widget. Read the Hollywood Reporter story about it here.

"I think the reason that studios are excited about widgets is that word-of-mouth and buzz is what Hollywood is after all the time," said Peggy Fry, senior vp sales and client services at Clearspring. "If you think about it, what a widget is, it's a digital version of word-of-mouth."

Now consider your ministry or Christian business. Do you have sermon audio, testimonials, video, music, or other content? What about links to key info on your website such as model homes, tax advice, investment insights, etc? You may not have all the advance buzz of the latest Hollywood blockbuster. But you likely have a group of partner ministries, supporters, or contractors that would be willing to help spread the word.

You can build a widget out of just about anything. And the cool thing about widgets is that pretty much anyone can copy and place them on other websites and blogs...the very definition of viral marketing!

I hear a bunch of you saying, "Hold the phone! How in the world do I build a widget?" That's where SproutBuilder comes in. I blogged about it extensively here.

Sprout is a free, web-based service (meaning the interface is online like Hotmail and others), that allows you to build, store, and publish slideshows, audio jukeboxes, link lists, and a bunch of other media. Log onto SproutBuilder.com, sign up for a free account today, and start building. If enough of you ask for it, I'll soon post a SproutBuilder tutorial.

Think about what your ministry or Christian business offers. Then think about how you can make it go viral.

Say it with me...widget.