The folks over at Friends Church in Yorba Linda have put together a great resource on their SnapShot Website for Thanksgiving week.  Each day this week, they will be posting something new to their Gratitude Initiative page.  Each post will include four things:

1. a theme that includes a song to listen to
2. a scripture to read
3. a prayer to pray
4. an action-step to take

They've included options for sharing via twitter and email as well as a way to add comments.  Check out what they've got going on and share something you are thankful for this week.

Bridge Community Church is an Assemblies of God church in the greater Philadelphia area.  Among other things, Mike Oldham oversees the media ministry at Bridge Community Church, which includes the church website - bridgecomchurch.org. Every Monday morning, Mike will spend a little time working on the church website.  He devotes most of his attention to the home page as it's the "face of the website."  

On the home page, Mike has set up a few different features that have proven very effective as communication and interaction tools.  He's got a great looking slideshow with some upcoming announcements, a calendar list, the latest sermon available for listen or download, options for sharing the site, and a place to login to their Church Community Builder account.  

Take a look at what they have going on their home page and let us know what you think. 

Check out the latest feature for adding great social elements to your church websites.  With the new year, we're set to launch some new ways of sharing and the Fancy Social Bookmark feature is the first.  With a few clicks of your mouse, you can offer your site visitors options for sharing a page via facebook, twitter, linked in, google buzz, and about 100 other bookmarking tools.

it's included with the Plus and Pro levels at SnapShot Web.  If you don't yet have a SnapShot Website,  Sign up for a 100% risk free 30-Day trial to test it out yourself.

Check out the video tour that will show you the Fancy Bookmark Feature in action and test it for yourself at the bottom of the page.

<

Sign up for a 100% risk free 30-Day trial to try out a SnapShot Website for yourself.

We've had lots of people asking about easy ways to add video and audio podcasts to their church websites.  We've had the Advanced podcasting feature for several months but we're now ready to announce that things just got a whole lot better.

The New Flow Podcast Feature is here.   Sign up for a 100% risk free 30-Day trial to test it out yourself.

There are all sorts of features that you are going to love.

Check out the video tour that will show the player in action.

Here are a few of our favorite features:

1. Easy Video Integration - If you are video recording your sermons, you can host the files on services like vimeo.com or blip.tv for free.  Now with a simple click of a button you can have your video popup right from your website so that people can watch and share.
    
2. Social Integration - Imagine that I came to your church on Sunday and heard a message that I loved.  I loved it so much that I wanted to share it with a friend (or all of my friends.)  Now, I can go right to your website and click on the email or tweet button for the sermon and just like that, I have shared the blessings with others.
    
3. Sermon Archive - Do you want to keep several years (or more) worth of sermons available on your site? With the new Flow Podcast Feature...

The Twitter Feed feature has been out for a few weeks now and we're getting lots of great feedback.  So far our favorite way that we have seen it used is as a simple and elegant newsfeed on a church home page.  It's an easy way to let your community and the rest of the world know what's going on at your church.  Check our current favorite instance of it.  

If you are using it on your site, let us know so we can take a look. If you have yet to get it set up, just send us an email at support@snapshotweb.com with the word TWITTER and your domain name and we'll have it configured for you so you can drop it on your site right away.

As always, you can follow the latest from SnapShot Web on twitter, facebook, and our blog.

We've just released a sweet new twitter feature for your SnapShot Websites.  It's included will all three plans.  If you don't yet have it on your site, just send an email to support@snapshotweb.com or a direct message to @SnapShotWeb with your domain name and the word TWITTER.  We'll add it to your site right away. Check out this quick demo to see the New Twitter Feed in Action...

We came across these Free Social Media Icons from Elegant Themes.  We think that may be a great fit for your website.  There are icons for just about every social media site you can imagine (and several that you may not have heard of just yet.)  Take a look, download them, use them, and let us know if you need anything.

Adding Widgets and Social Bookmarks to your Church website is a great way to increase traffic, improve your SEO, and allow people in your community to easily share your website with their friends and followers.  If you are new to all of this, here are six ways to get started:

1. Add a twitter or tweet this option
   
   You'll certainly want to make it easy for visitors to your site to tweet about your site with s simple click.  You can embed the javascript that you will find at a service like http://www.tweetmeme.com/
    
2. Add a Google Buzz button
   
   Google Buzz is a way to "share updates, photos, videos, and more."  You can generate the embed code to drop the Buzz Button on your site here http://www.buzzcounter.net/

SnapShot Web has been working on away to make Church and Ministry Websites more social.  The wait is over.  The new SnapShot Web SEO and Social Bookmarks Feature is here.  It's included with all SnapShot Packages and we're certain you are going to love it.  In order to celebrate the new release, we're offering a $5 gift card for Starbucks, Peet's, or Dunkin' Donuts to anyone who will check it out and give us some feedback.  Here's all you need to do for the free coffee:

1. Make sure that you live in the US and you are not a current SnapShot user.
2. Fill out the quick form here
3. Test out the new features and let us know what you think
4. We'll send you a gift card to the coffee shop of your choosing

It's that easy.  Enjoy.