Facebook's strength is its ability to pinpoint a target audience

How would you like to reach 980 Catholic women students and friends of Franciscan University at Steubenville between the ages of 19 and 25?

Simple. Use Facebook pay-per-click ads. Facebook, which today is expected to announce its IPO of stock, is two steps ahead of Google and other advertisers. Here’s why: you can narrow your target audience to get just the people, age group and interests you want, and send your ads only to them without throwing money away to people who don’t matter.

The above example shows how many persons fit these qualifications with these demographics. Facebooks tells you how many people you will reach as you create your ad. Include Thomas Aquinas College and Christendom, and your number will increase. Just set up an ad campaign and type in the keywords and interests you are looking for.

Interests are volunteered

Here’s the scoop on how it works: When a person signs up for a Facebook account, he puts in some personal information, such as his age, marital status, location, education, and whether, for example, he enjoys praying the rosary, going to Mass, or going to adoration. And even though the user decides, through his profile settings, that certain information must remain private, advertisers can base their campaign on this personal information. The ads, which feature a short headline, copy, and an image, can be directed to appear only on the users’ pages that fit these demographics.

As an advertiser, you don’t see anyone’s lists of interests, if he has made them private. But you can send your ad to him. The ads appear on the right-hand side of his screen. Clever, huh?

There is a lot more flexibility and possibilities here about what you can do, such as make the ads click to your own Facebook page, or to an external website. Facebook also tracks the click-throughs, and even the “likes.” The ad program has been around for five years, but with the growing number of Facebook users, the program clearly has moved promotion into a whole new level.

Facebook the new internet?

Some media commentators have wryly remarked that Facebook will become the new internet. It’s replacing email for some, for example. It’s also what’s used on smartphones and with texting. Of course, this is what young people use. In any case, Facebook has become the social media website of choice for hundreds of thousands of Catholics. Worldwide, more than 800 million persons use Facebook, a number that would make up the third largest country on the globe. And the platform is enjoying constant media attention because its popularity is skyrocketing.

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We at Vocation Promotion are testing ad campaigns aimed at young Catholics at the above colleges. Many of our ads are synched to our Facebook page, “Holy Vocations.” We’ll keep you informed as to how it works out.

The Order of Mercy, or Mercedarians, is looking for a cloistered religious community who would like to make the scapular for distribution. Their community in the U.S. is growing in size, and due to the importance of this part of their apostolate, they are expanding their website at OrderofMercy.org to include a page that will make the sacramental available. (See image above.)

The Order is seeking a scapular maker in the United States, and is willing to pay a fair price for bulk orders. This would be a great cottage industry for a religious community. If this effort does not apply to you, please pass along this email to someone you know.

For more information, contact Fr. Joseph Eddy, O. de M., at 267-670-0503 (cell), or vocations@orderofmercy.org.

Have you ever asked yourself, “How can I make an inexpensive video of my religious community?” A seven-minute video about the Visitation Sisters of Tyringham, MA, shows a candid view of the hidden prayer life and community activities of a cloistered order.

Produced by the Diocese of Springfield, MA, the video features Mother Superior Mary Ruth Dolch, who clearly explains why she is happy as a Visitation Sister and outlines the Salesian spirituality of the Order. “I’m proud to belong to this Order, simply because… I am devoted to the founder, St. Francis de Sales, but most particularly to the foundress, St. Jane de Chantal,” Mother says.

Praying, sewing, bowing

The video features images of the Sisters getting their seats in their chapel, sewing, bowing to one another after Mass in the morning, and their dog, Trooper, find his seat in the hallway. The video combines moving video with still images.

With the recent advances in mobile devices, such a video can be put together without too much trouble. The video portions can be shot with an iPhone, flip camera, or even a $90 still camera with video capability, which many have nowadays. The video clips can be emailed to a professional video producer, who can combine the clips with still shots, music, and text on the screen. The moving imagery adds a lot of depth that still imagery cannot.

If you hold the camera still and get a good interview or two, a good video can be crafted without bringing in a videographer from the outside.

For more information on how this can be done, email Kevin Banet, or call him at 708-393-4098.

Bring your word to others

God becoming man was an awesome event. The eternal Word was brought to mankind. This inspires us to think about the importance of bringing your word — the message of Christ’s call to follow Him exclusively — to others.

Three essential points

Using the internet involves three necessary aspects to put this into effect.

1) The shifting internet. The use of the web has shifted in two ways: the influence
of traditional websites has to a great degree given way to the ever-popular Facebook, the predominant social media vehicle for 800 million persons around the globe. Keep
your website, but set up a Facebook account and page, and spend time building a
community.

The second shift is in the use of mobile devices, and away from desktop
computers. On Facebook, for example, 350 million users access their accounts
via mobile devices. This means that your website has to be visible and readable
on the small screens of these devices.

2) Your message today. Potential vocations need to learn about your order or
congregation and its charism, but they also need to know how you carry out the
dream of your founder of many years ago. Does his/her vision inspire you today?
How? In what ways to you carry out this vision in today’s changing world? Or,
if you are a contemplative, why should your lifestyle remain unchanged?
Visitors also need to see an ongoing presence that shows that you’re alive.
Today’s  expectations of updates and news means that you need to supply
information on a regular basis through a blog, Facebook post, and so on.

3) Ask for something. Picture your web or Facebook visitor reading your message
or watching your video. What do you want this person to do? “Like” the page?
Recommend it to a friend? Take a vocation quiz? Download a vocation prayer? Or
contact the vocation director about a discernment retreat? “Ask and you shall
receive,” and build your online community.

Just take the next step, and you will receive the answers, Sr. Michael says in the video.

A new video by the Daughters of St. Francis of Assisi provides fresh insight on finding one’s vocation and also gives interesting vocation stories of a number of sisters.

Sr. Michael, Vicar Provincial of the congregation, for example, explains that a fear of not having all the answers is stopping a lot of young women from seeking a beautiful vocation as a religious sister.

“That’s where the fear is,” explains Sr. Michael, of the Lacon, IL congregation. “The person is hesitating to take that next step because they don’t have all the answers. You are not going to have all the answers, until you take that next step. And then the answers will come.”

Candid talk

In a candid, unscripted video interview, Sr. Michael provides fresh insight on overcoming reluctance in pursuing a vocation, and also on the spiritual benefits of living in a community dedicated to following Christ through the life of St. Francis. Other sisters are interviewed as well, and their vocation stories are refreshing and reveal a sincere walking of the path toward religious life.

The video, which has been viewed nearly two thousand times in its first week, is nine minutes long and was produced by the Sisters to let others know about a vocation to their community.

Community life a mystery

“Let me tell you what it’s like to be in a community of sisters,” Sr. Michael implores. “It’s a mystery at first because you realize that there is a spiritual bond with each one of them…. We all come from different parts of the world and different parts of the country. Yet we all have that bond, that common bond…. That bond follows us into eternity.”

Bishop Jenky is impressed with the Sisters.

The video also features an interview with the congregation’s bishop, Most Rev. Daniel R. Jenky, Bishop of Peoria, who says, “I am very happy to say I have great admiration for the zeal of the Daughters of St. Francis of Assisi.”

The Sisters’ provincial motherhouse is in Lacon, IL, and the congregation has its general house in Bratislava, Slovak Republic. They have been operating St. Joseph Nursing Home in Lacon since 1964.

The video, “Living the Radical Love of St. Francis,” shows how the charism of a community and the happiness of its members can be proclaimed to the world. Vocation Promotion converted the video to web format, added it to the sisters’ website and promoted it to its network of social media and religious websites.

The video, and a partial transcript can be seen on the Lacon Franciscan Sisters’ website.

The conference is sponsored by the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry (NFCYM). Vocation directors will be there as well. NFCYM has a good web resource page for vocation directors. It contains ideas on how to:

• Build a vocation culture
• Make youth events vocations friendly
• Organize vocation events
• Mentor youth
• Discernment tools
• Resources

You’ll find some fairly good tools at the Pathways2Ministry website for encouraging ecclesial vocations.

They also are featuring a talk by Catholic youth leader Mark Hart, who has written a compelling book with a catchy title, Blessed Are the Bored in Spirit. Read about Mark’s apostolate at the NC Register.

The above and other vocation director resources are at the event’s Vocation Directors Resources page.

The most popular website on cloistered life

Cloistered and monastic communities can now make use of the most popular website on cloistered life to get the word out about their charism to vocation candidates.  These communities can tap into the strength of the Internet with a new advertising program run in cooperation with the Institute on Religious Life (IRL) of the Chicago area.

The program is open to IRL Affiliates. Requests for ads from non-IRL Affiliates will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

For more information, go to our Cloistered Life ad page.

Large religious events are events of grace for vocations.

Any contact that a religious has with a young person can be a “vocational moment,” says a Vatican bishop preparing for World Youth Day in Madrid.

Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin, secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, told Catholic News Service recently that youths are “trying to sort it out,” and are thus open to consecrated life. Of course, follow-up with such youth is important, Archbishop Tobin said.

And the Vatican is stepping up its vocational efforts in connection with the event, which will be Aug. 16-21. For the first time at World Youth Day, 1,500 religious women under 35 will meet with Pope Benedict XVI. Read the article in the Baltimore Catholic Review.

Priests find vocations

Fr. Jim Heyd, of the Archdiocese of Chicago, is one such priest that I have known who traces his vocation to seeing the Pope in the United States. Many years ago, when Pope John Paul II came to Chicago, Fr. Heyd, then a young man seeking direction, came to the event, and through it, felt then that God was calling him to the priesthood. Years later as a priest, during the 1993 World Youth Day in Denver, he shook hands with the Pope and wanted to tell him that he received his calling during the Chicago event. But I don’t think he could say much because of the crowd.  Today Fr. Heyd is a fine priest who has served in pro-life ministries as well as a parish priest.

Another priest I know, a member of a religious order, met the mother of one of his future novices at the annual March for Life pro-life event in Washington, D.C. several years ago. While the man was not there, his mother was, and met the priest, and in their conversation she told him that her son was looking into various communities to become a priest. Today her son is in formation with the order.

A novice receives the veil at the Dominican Sisters of the Immaculate Conception near Chicago.

A new survey that I’ve written aims to help single Catholic women sort out one of the most common questions about religious life: How do I know if I’m called?

The seven-question survey, written in cooperation with the Dominican Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in Justice, IL, plumbs one’s desires and interests to help a woman or young girl discern whether she is called to become a sister.

The survey offers probing, thought-provoking questions about the interests and desires of the heart. It asks questions and then has answers, or affirmations as, “The zeal to live and share God’s love is something that won’t lie dormant within me,” and “When I see a religious sister, I think about what it would be like for me to become a sister.”

21 Affirmations

There are three such affirmations after each question, and the survey suggests that if a person checks off eleven of them, which is just over half of the 21 affirmations, they may have a calling to religious life.

It’s not supposed to be a scientific way to determine a calling from the Holy Spirit, just a way to prompt one’s thoughts and heart. I got the idea after noting an unusually large number of questions by Catholics on a popular blog site, wondering how they could tell if they had a religious vocation.

Survey Popular Already

The survey has attracted a fair number of respondents already, even though no publicity has yet been done. Many of the survey questions were adapted from the website of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, KS.

The survey, called “7 Quick Questions,” can be found at the Dominican Sisters of the Immaculate Conception.

Some of the top Facebook pages are Christian.

What’s the most popular page on Facebook? The popular singer Beyonce, or a gossip page about the latest scandal of a state governor? No, it’s “Jesus Daily,” with 2.3 million interactions in one week, according to a group that keeps internet traffic records.

The latest news from AllFacebook.com, as reported by Catholic News Agency shows that religion is one of the most popular topics on the internet. Other popular pages are “The Bible,” and the Spanish-language page, “Dios es Bueno” (God is good).

This is good news. If you recall, we carried a story about a Christmas video that gained three million views in its first week. See an article on the story on our sister website, TreeFrogClick, “Digital Christmas story puts Mary and Joseph on Social Media.”

It just shows how deep is the human heart for its yearning to learn about God, and draw close to Him.