What is your site's one-sentence pitch for advertisers?
MyChurch.org provides social networking tools for churches to find, connect and grow their church communities.
Please describe the demographic makeup of your site.
Christians in the U.S., ages 25-35. Many have "graduated" from MySpace and Facebook, and want to participate in a clean social network catering to the community that they're currently involved in.
How many ad impressions and unique visitors are there within your network in a given month?
We just launched on Sept. 6, so the numbers are just starting to take shape. So far in September we've had 12,000 uniques, but it rises daily. So extrapolating to a month, I'd say 30,000 would be a conservative number.
What unique advertising products are available in your network? Any restrictions as far as rich media or video? We are signing on our first advertiser now. Sponsors are encouraged to participate in immersion advertising. They can set up a profile and add any multimedia they want, including audio and video. Not only are the profiles customizable, but a sponsor's profile can have a media library. Sponsors, like the individual churches themselves, can also set up a Paypal gateway to accept donations. This is especially important for our advertisers, most of which are non-profit orgs. Given the unique niche of our users, we have a unique group of advertisers wanting to get visibility. Thus, we provide them with unique tools and channels to cater to a Christian-minded, non-profit-sensitive audience.
Another thing that is unique about MyChurch is that some of the participants themselves are looking to attract eyeballs. We're not talking about your typical MySpace user who wants to express himself with photos and blogs. Individual churches themselves want more visibility and new visitors. MyChurch is a medium for them to create a profile for themselves that is dynamic, interactive and authentic. And it's free for churches to have a profile! What church wouldn't want to advertise for free to Christians looking for a church in their area? Of course, we also allow churches to subscribe to a premium service, which would give them special recognition (i.e., more visibility) on our site.
Describe an ad execution at your site that you're particularly proud of.
Our first sponsor will start appearing next week on our pages. It is Alpha International, a global non-profit organization that works with local churches to run an introductory Christian class for students interested in learning more about Christianity. They have never had a way of keeping in touch with alumni or individual students since they let the churches run the logistics of the course. (This is despite the fact that 1.5 million people have taken their course!) Now they have a direct channel to communicate with their student networks. It also allows alumni to give back to Alpha International, whether it be through interaction and feedback, or monetarily through donations.
Does your network provide controls to advertisers so they can avoid thorny content? If so, please describe.
Yes each profile has moderation and customization control. Since our site is family-friendly and Christian-oriented, we don't really have a problem with inappropriate content from users. But moderation is done both globally by us and locally by the individual running the sponsor's profile. By the way, because of the cohesiveness of our community, our users are very quick to point out inappropriate content. They love MyChurch, and many left MySpace because of the mature and racy content.
Are you open to other types of ad campaigns, beyond traditional advertising?
We highly encourage immersion and participatory advertising. We actually discourage simple banner or text ads, and already rejected a sponsor that wanted to do just that. We believe our unique group of advertisers wants to engage the Christian audience, and vice-versa. So we want to have a clear channel for them to converse and network.
Can brands become a member of your site?
Certainly, as long as they are family-friendly and Christians can identify with them. Some "secular" brands have expressed interest in getting in front of our Christian audience. Christians also seem to want to identify brands and companies that reach out to their overlooked niche. The irony is that Christians can hardly be considered a minority. Forty-five percent of Americans go to church weekly. It would be wise for advertisers to appeal to this audience.
Anything else you'd like to add about your site?
In keeping with our Christian beliefs and principles, we are dedicating 10 percent of our profits back to God's Kingdom. This will take the form of churches, non-profit orgs and charities. We will also let our users vote and submit organizations that we should allocate this money to.
Churches are unique from affinity-based social networks in that the community actually meets face-to-face weekly. And their members are enormously passionate about their community-- both in serving and participating in it and growing it. It is only natural for social networking to extend that tight-knit community online, between Sundays. Some churches have even resorted to replacing their church webpage altogether for a MySpace page-- check out http://www.lifecitychurch.com.
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