It’s not news that our world is constantly changing. And that’s not a bad thing, but recognizing where change is happening is important. In the realm of development – the same is true.

When people see what we do here they get on board. The way I see it; the goal is to help as many people see what we do as possible. We do that in countless ways. We do that with the Navajoland Tour, the Bi-Fly, Navajo Taco Luncheons, and VBS teams. We do that by getting out into our community and telling people about what we do and inviting them to visit. When people SEE what happens here they get on board. When they merely hear about it, it’s easy to just brush it off.

We used to visit a lot of churches, but that is rare and difficult these days. The fastest growing way we help people to see us is through our websites and Facebook pages. In this digital age that is where people are and we must meet them there. Technology has been growing for decades at a pretty steady clip, and we must stay relevant in that way.

In that same conversation; we also live in a world full of such negativity. If you watch the news it is mostly negative. Everywhere we turn all we see is negative. Facebook is no different. You can spend just a few minutes sometimes scrolling Facebook before one gets sick of the negative garbage. And, of course, that garbage comes from every sector and category. A person might think there was nothing good in the world.

But we’re all sick of that. For myself on Facebook, if it isn’t funny or positive and uplifting, I move on! Most Facebook users are the same. They don’t want to see; whether it be pictures, videos, or rants – negativity. Anything that makes them sad, angry, or upset in any way is ignored. And no one wants to be “sold” anything.

What’s all that mean? Let me try to explain. First off, the purpose of our web and social media presence is to Create Awareness, Encourage others, and to Engage people who don’t know what we do. Create – Encourage – Engage! Everything fulfills one or more of those purposes. We want people to know what we’re doing, we want to engage them so that they become a part of what we do here, and to encourage them along the way.

For Facebook, there are three main types of posts: just words, words with a picture, and video. In the world of Facebook marketing having just words is bad and a video is best. The main reason is that it takes “work” to read something, yet it requires nearly nothing to watch a video. We want to see things! So nearly all of our posts at least have a picture, and we are trying to do more with video. If we are going to spend time doing something, we want to get the biggest bang for our buck.

It goes back to seeing – if people see what we do they’re hooked. Some of our pics and videos are just funny and may not seem to have a point … but isn’t laughter good medicine? How many like it when someone makes you laugh? I do! If I meet someone for the first time and they make me laugh I am much more inclined to want to visit with them again. The same rings true for our Facebook pages – someone watches a video that makes them laugh and they like our page. We just gained a bit of their trust, they like us, and they are aware of who we are. Later on, they see a post about becoming a sponsor and they just might give it a go. Why? They know us – they like us – they trust us. Without those three things they will never connect with us.

This is a good place to add that if any of you – anyone – captures a “Kodak moment” (who remembers film??) share it with me or Hannah. We may be able to use it!

Then there is the Rule of 27. Basically, the Rule of 27 says that our message must resonate with a person 9 times before they “get on board.” At the same time, because of all the clutter, they only see 1/3 of our messages. So our message must go out 27 times before it penetrates the mind of a potential sponsor or donor. That’s a lot when you think about it; so we must constantly be sending our message to the world.

That’s a lot to digest, I know. In a nutshell: we are doing a terrific work here and have an amazing message to share. We must share that message often and in a way that is encouraging and engaging. And when we’ve done that, we do it again and again. We keep telling our story!

Telling the story that is The Four Corners Home for Children …

Randall