A new year needs new ideas. I started to blog at Catholic Web Solutions in August 2010 to help people in ministry create websites and use social media to carry out their ministries more effectively. The expectations of people who come to our websites and read our social media posts have grown over the past five years. The question is whether our websites and social media usage have kept pace.
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5 Characteristics of an Online Presence that is Ministry
Last week, I asked whether we as a Church in the U.S. are taking advantage of the web (now 25 years old) for evangelization and catechesis. Some of us are, some of us are not. I also pointed out that not every Catholic presence online is a quality presence. It is simply not enough to be online–we have to be online with a vision and a purpose. Here is a…
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Are We Old-Fashioned When It Comes to the Internet?
Most of us in the Church have moved on from rotary phones, but we know people who who resist, even oppose, using the Web for ministry. We have heard the reasons: no time, no interest, technically challenged, playing it safe, and so on. We can listen respectfully to their reasons. There is no point in trying to convince them to think otherwise, but the world is moving on and leaving…
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Did you Know that Effective Web Ministry is Work?
We have come a long way on the web. That evolution has brought together new skills and technologies that are changing the way we communicate, collaborate, share information. Creative entrepreneurs have used Internet technology to bring us email, instant messages, friends and followers, tweets, smart phones, Google and Bing search engines and on and on. More new applications are being developed every minute. It can be overwhelming when we think…