Effective Church Communications

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and a Biblical Perspective to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. Our tools constantly change; our task doesn’t; Effective Church Communications can help.

A video comparison of PicMonkey, Canva, and Snappa

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Comparison of PicMonkey, Canva, and Snappa
All three are great programs, this lets you see the strengths of each one.

 

After the recent overview/tutorial of Snappa, an Effective Church Communications member asked me how it compared to Canva and PicMonkey. That was such a good question and as I thought about it, I realized it wasn't something I could answer in a quick email and that the answer would be useful to many of you.

I like all three programs and use them all, but they are different in what they do best. Below I did a video review of all three. It is short and subjective and far from an exhaustive overview of any of them, but I trust it will help you see the differences. Below the video is a summary of the cost of each and a few additional comments.

Remember Effective Church Communications does not take any advertising or participate in any affiliate programs. You can CLICK HERE if you want to read more of our concerns about affiliate programs. On Pic Monkey (the only one I bothered to look up) they give affiliates 30% of what you pay. I would much rather they had a lower rate than participating in a system that can distort reviews of the product. But regardless of what others do, we will not be part of the affiliate kudzu that infects the web. You can read our reviews knowing they have no secondary agenda. [Read more...]

Snappa: Review and How-tos of a GREAT program to create social media graphics

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Snappa is a great program for the fastest, easiest ways to make social media and online graphics! I've used it for some time (in fact, all the graphics you see in the sidebars of this website were created with it), but I like to use something for a while before I recommend it because I'm sure that many of you have had the same frustration I have where someone does this raving recommendation of a program and with great excitement you go to it and after paying for it realize it is a piece of junk and not only that you signed up for something that keeps wanting you to upgrade or buy more junk from them. That won't happen here as we don't take any advertising or affiliate payments (often the motivation for rave reviews).

Below is my little overview of it.

Here are some additional videos done about Snappa, just click the link below them to go to them.

A video comparison of PicMonkey, Canva, and Snappa
https://wp.me/pDky9-8il

Snappa: The easiest way to create social media verses
https://wp.me/pDky9-8mw

Snappa: How to create a side-bar ad
https://wp.me/pDky9-8mB

 

A reminder of the features and flexibility of MS Publisher

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MS Publisher for Churches
MS Publisher is a great program for churches and this e-book shows many of the reasons why.

I just finished an article for Ministry Tech magazine (if you haven't signed up for the FREE subscription to it, CLICK HERE) and as part of that article talked about how and why years ago I switched from using primarily Adobe PageMaker to MS Publisher to teach and equip church communicators.

As part of that explanation I mentioned an e-book I created years ago to illustrate all you can do with MS Publisher and how in many ways it can equal the design capabilities of far more expensive graphic design and layout programs. I wanted to share the e-book and you can download it by clicking here or on the image at the start of this article.

Some of the material in the book is a little out-dated, as Publisher has continued to improve, but it is still a useful reminder of how flexible and useful this program is for church communicators. [Read more...]

SIX TIPS to chose paper wisely for the greatest church communication impact

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Paper choices for church communications
It's easy to get buried with paper choices for your church communications, but this article will help you choose what is most effective.

As we go into the holiday season, many churches are tempted to use colored papers to print brochures, flyers, newsletters and other materials. Lots of orange, brown, green and red paper will be used and though these colors might be appropriate to the season, they may not be the best to get across your message and help people show up to your events. Following are SIX TIPS on paper choice for the holiday season and year round to make for more effective church communications.

#1 Remember Readability

The most important aspect of the paper you use is how well it contributes to the readability of your newsletter or other communication. If people can't read your message nothing else really matters.

People don’t judge a holiday communication based on how fancy the paper is, what color it is or if it is slick or not. What matters is how easy is it to read. If a publication is difficult to read, today’s busy, stressed out readers will simply put it aside and won’t read it.

With these comments in mind, let's look in more detail on:

  • Paper opacity
  • Paper color
  • Publication reproduction method

[Read more...]