Interesting and important.
Mouse then tried to imagine reading this in the Church Times.
Mouse wouldn't want to talk down the Church Times, but has drawn up a quick comparison between the leading CofE and Catholic newspapers:
Church Times
- Twitters only occasional links to CT stories; 800ish followers
- Rare blog entries, supplied by part timer Dave Walker
- Editor (Paul Handley) not on Twitter
- Virtually everything paywalled - even back issues
- Website design - dated
- Facebook page - does nothing except post links when the new edition comes out; has 179 fans
Catholic Herald
- Very active twitter entries; 5,500ish followers
- Active blogs from editor, Luke Coppen, and key columnists
- Editor and key columnists (e.g. Anna Arco) active on Twitter with national profile
- Stories reserved for the newspaper edition have summary versions online
- Modern website design, including good comments system
- Active and engaging Facebook page; 930 fans
Just to put the stats into perspective, Mouse has around 3,500 twitter followers and 750 Facebook fans - is he really that much more popular than the Church Times, which claims to be the "world's leading Anglican newspaper"?
Now I don't want to be nasty about the good old Church Times, but he can't help feeling that they would do well to get out there a bit more, update the web presence (including doing something about the annoying paywall policy) and then circulation might pick up a bit.
What about the Methodist Recorder....
ReplyDeleteIt's good to know that the Roman church is more forward looking in this than the Anglicans, it seems a rare occasion.
ReplyDeleteIMHO ALL churches are poor where modern media is concerned. Our church has only had a website for a few years, and that took much longer than it should have.
In a way it's the old story about churches being behind the times, they have to go out there and get the young people, without them there is no future. They can no longer rely on people coming back to the church in there 'later' years, they won't come back if they've never been…
The Methodist Recorder doesn't appear to have a single Facebook friend. That's Methodism for you; Conference never votes against the platform, so they barely need to talk to us peasants at all. Until, of course, we decide to take a leaf out of the Egyptian book, and chase them away!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJohn - perhaps I should do a full round up! Someone suggested on Twitter that The Tablet may be a more direct competitor for the Church Times, so it looks like a four way battle. Chuck in the Baptist Times and we've got a five-a-side team.
ReplyDeleteAmen. In the hope that someone at CT might actually read and act on these comments, may I add that not having a web-only option at a reduced rate is absurd. Yet one can subscribe for a day every other Friday and get two online copies for £2. Are they trying to annoy us on purpose?
ReplyDeleteMind you, I wouldn't want their social-networking campaign to explode to the extent of the CofE Newspaper. CEN absolutely floods Twitter with updates, so much so I had to snuff them.