To better serve a rapidly growing audience, a newly updated version of Mormon.org launched recently with a freshened look and enhanced video sharing capabilities. Visitors to Mormon.org have nearly tripled over the past year to 650,000 per month, thanks to promotional efforts and a growing public interest in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
| Temple Square is always beautiful in the springtime. Gardeners work to prepare the ground for General Conference. © 2012 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. | 1 / 2 |
The site provides a media-rich experience for its viewers and helps those not of our faith get a sense for who Church members are and what they believe,” said Ron Wilson, manager of Mormon.org. “It also builds excitement among Mormons and helps them to share their faith in a nonthreatening way.”
Originally launched in 2001, Mormon.org provides an inviting destination for people seeking online information about the Church. While the Church continues to share its message through over 55,000 full-time missionaries (over one million have served since the Church was founded), many individuals prefer to first seek information about the Church on the Internet before they speak with a missionary in person. Mormon.org plays a critical role in providing that content.
A core feature of the newest edition of Mormon.org is its video offerings. Over 100 new videos have been added to the site along with a player designed to make sharing video easier. Dozens of the classic Homefront public service announcements, which have previously been unavailable on the Internet, are now available on Mormon.org.
“The jewel of the new site is the “Videos” channel, which will deliver viewers a library of videos that can be watched online, embedded into blogs, or shared through e-mail or social networks,” Wilson said. “A cutting-edge feature of the ‘share’ and ‘embed’ functionality is the option for the viewer to crop a video clip to a specific section and then share or embed just that piece.”
The new site also profiles individual Mormons’ personal experiences with the faith. The experiences shared in the videos are real and unscripted. In one video segment, a woman named Rebecca, who was recently baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, says: “I did believe there was a God, but I didn’t really know what the meaning of Him was in my life. I didn’t know what role He played in my life. … It’s been confirmed to me that He does know me personally, which I wasn’t aware of before.”
Mormons who appear in the videos are from all over the world, representing the international reach of the Church. The majority of Church members reside outside the United States, and congregations are found in over 160 countries.
Prior to this latest release of Mormon.org, the Church implemented a chat function on the site so those interested in learning more about the Church could instantly chat with a missionary who could answer their questions, 24 hours a day. Missionaries have been conducting over 40,000 online chat sessions per month. In response to the remarkable success of the online chat, that feature has been given a much more prominent place on the new Mormon.org Web site.
Another important feature called “Worship With Us” provides a meetinghouse locator that lists the locations of thousands of Latter-day Saint chapels around world where everyone is invited to worship. Individuals interested in attending a service in their area will likely find a chapel on the site.