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Was just reading a post on Mumbrella about a new marketing campaign about to be launched for churches, and it took me back a year ago to a client I was working with - a church funnily enough.

So back then I tried to explain to this client the benefits of using digital marketing techniques to “spread the gospel”. After all, it’s all the same thing - Christians want to spread the word and convert people to Christianity, in the same way that advertisers want to convert consumers to trying and buying their product. Same same in my book, you think?

Pastors should blog. After all, they have so much to blog about and an instant audience. Use the content to create a podcast that can be downloaded and listented to on the way to work.

Then of course there’s Facebook. If your church doesn’t have a page, and be “friends” with every one of its members, then you’re a bit behind the eight ball. If you really want to get funky, grab a Twitter account as well - you’d be surprised at the conversations that arise from immersing yourself in Twitter for a while.

What’s big in churches? Sermons. Songs. Guest speakers. So video it. Stick it up on You Tube and then put it on your site, your blog, Facebook page. Link to it on your Twitter account. Put photos of the same event on a Flickr account and repeat the same process.

So needless to say, my client is a little digi-shy and I couldn’t convince him of the merits of digital marketing. But not all churches feel the same. Some are actually doing it well.

One of these, surprise surprise is Hillsong with Brian and Bobbie both blogging, and having Twitter accounts and dare I say some kind of Facebook presence.

Shire Live is also up with the times, with a blog, social media widgets and some pretty heavy use of You Tube (whether that’s just for hosting video who knows).

And I guess then it’s no surprise that Christian City Church are also stepping up to the plate and turning on the podcasts, using media and music to the max and allows for online giving (or tithes) and an online store. No blog to speak of, but their site screams new media.

All this to “make Christ accessible”. And it does just that.

If you don’t live under a rock, you would know by now. Michael Jackson is dead.

I am having some serious flashbacks to Princess Diana’s death when the whole world stopped. And I imagine the same thing happened when Elvis, John Lennon and JFK died as well.

The difference? Well when Princess Diana died everyone was glued to their TV. They made the dash for the paper as soon as the news broke there. It was the topic of conversation on radio, in playgrounds, in offices, on worksites.

So what did a huge number of people do today? Turn on their laptops, update their status and Twitter via their Blackberries and iPhones. The difference is that today, the world got to have their say. No longer do we just drink in what the media can find out and tell our friends and colleagues how we feel about it.

We tell the world.

Within an hour of the news spreading, at least 30% of tweets mentioned/mourned Michael Jackson’s death.

And if you’re not yet convinced that we’ll turn to social media before we turn to the telly, see if you can find out how many people think Jeff Goldblum died too. Don’t worry, he’s alive and kicking, but you’ll be surprised. How random.