1 - Take Social Media Seriously – People that have gone far with social media and made a significant impact or useful for their effort are constantly connected. Updating and using these social tools daily. Some even consider it a major function of their full time job or an important part of their personal daily routine. If you don’t take it seriously and invest the necessary time, you probably wont find using it rewarding or very effective to draw attention to your cause.
2 – Promote Others More Than Yourself – Some jump into social media to simply use it as a bull horn to self promote. They completely forget about the SOCIAL in social media. Unless you are a celebrity you wont get very far without this principle. One great benefit to engaging in social media is new relationships. If all you do is constantly self promote people will catch on and other leaders that have potential to help you spread your message are more likely to ignore you.
3 – Be Real – Life isn’t always bad and life isn’t always good. If you are authentic on social media people will take notice. Obviously you don’t want to be too transparent especially if you are in the public eye and constantly under a microscope. However, it is important for people to get a glimpse into your life, your emotions, and your passions. Let others celebrate your wins and mourn your losses with you.
4 - Say Thank You- Be appreciative of what others do for you. When people RT on twitter, share things on facebook, encourage you with a quick note on your wall, promo your stuff, or mention you or what you do… thank them! Don’t take it for granted because when people see that it is meaningful for you, it will be even more meaningful for them and they are likely to repeat the behavior. People want to see that you care and a simple thank you can take you far.
5 - Keep It Simple – You don’t need to be a tech wizard or to buy fancy software to successfully engage others using social media. Some handle millions of followers on twitter simply with the web interface and others communicate with thousands on facebook using only their cell phone. If you are just getting started I’d recommend picking only one platform and doing it well before branching out onto others. For churches, facebook is a great place to start.
If you need help with getting your church started click here to contact me.
Lets face it, most pastors don’t use twitter. Many never will, and that’s fine but I think there are a some solid reasons why people in ministry should give it a try, so here we go:
1. Sermon Prep / Current events
To remain culturally relevant when we preach it requires we stay up to date on what is happening in our world on all fronts. Staying in touch with what is going on locally, regionally, and internationally impacts the people God has us serving. To serve them better in our preaching means we must stay current. Twitter can help us do just that by keeping us up to date on things that impact our congregations. To do this I specifically follow two twitter feeds:
- One – http://twitter.com/cbs3 for local Philadelphia regional news
- Two – http://twitter.com/cnnbrk for a broader everything news source
2. Connection Point to a Different Crowd
As pastors in ministry, we naturally connect with certain people in our churches through specific activities. We’ll connect with athletes through a softball team or by watching football, neighbors through working in our yard, and more than likely there are some techies or socially savvy people in your church already using twitter.
3. Think Differently
Trying new things stretches our thinking. Twitter is definitely different. The limitations on the length of your posts force you to be precise and change your communication style, at least on this medium. Let’s face it, most of us that preach and teach usually have too much to say and we could all benefit from some boundaries!
4. Fast and Easy
Twitter really requires little time investment. Especially because you can use it via your cell phone on the go. There are also lots of other tools to use to make twitter fun and even easier. Here is a post I wrote a while ago about some tools to make twitter easier – CLICK HERE.
5. New Relationships
This is probably one of the best reasons to use twitter. Lets face it, ministry is hard, and at times can be really lonely. What many of pastors forget is that we are not alone and there is no reason to try to work through these challenges without the help of others. Many people have been where you are, right now, in ministry today. Using these great social media tools we have the opportunity to make connections with other pastors and subject matter experts for advice and encouragement. CLICK HERE to connect with me on twitter!
One of my good twitter friends, Marybeth Stockdale, recently posted a basic instructional video to help you set up a twitter account. You can check that out by clicking here.
If you are passionate about ministry and are looking to connect with others on twitter, leave a link below in the comment section to your twitter profile page. I’d love to connect and others that visit this post will have an opportunity to connect with you too.
Other Related Posts:
Is Social Media A Fad?
Chasing Twitter Followers
Tools To Make Twitter Easier
- If 96% of Gen-Y has joined a social network… social media is not a fad.
- If social media has kicked pornography out as the #1 activity on the web… social media is not a fad
- If facebook added more than 100 million users in 9 months… social media is not a fad.
- If 80% of companies are using Linkedin to find employees… social media is not a fad.
Watch the video below for more great statistics on social media:
While having a high amount of followers on twitter is like a status symbol in recent months, I think its over rated. Sure, I could look at John Maxwell and be envious of the fact that he has 40,000+ followers, but is it really meaningful? Not really. What’s meaningful is what I can learn from John Maxwell. Especially, if he tweets small leadership nuggets that make me think about what I’m contributing to the world around me.
The truth is that you probably shouldn’t be chasing after twitter followers. What you should go after are meaningful relationships that can result from twitter. What is it that you have a need for, and what is it that you can contribute?
Here is an example, about a week ago a pastor out in California asked for some advice about launching a second worship service at his church. He asked a bunch questions on twitter, and through that social media tool we connected. We then connected further through facebook, and a few days later ended up in an hour long phone conversation about the benefits and challenges of multiple worship services. Had it not been for social media, my new friend might still be stressing over decisions he faces, feeling alone.
It’s not the number of facebook friends, or twitter followers that you have that matters, its how meaningful the connections are that counts!
If you like to connect with me online here are my links – FACEBOOK – TWITTER
Tweetdeck – by far my favorite twitter tool for my PC. It allows me to group the people I follow to make things so much easier. As you can see in the picture below, I set up 5 columns:
- Must Read – these are people I want to follow closely and do my best to catch everything they write. For me, this group includes ministry leaders, key people in technology, close friends, family, and our church staff.
- All Friends – this is a column with everyone I follow on twitter. I do look at this column but I don’t read everything.
- Direct Messages – twitter is basically a public conversation… However, you can send private messages and this column keeps me up to date on those messages.
- Mentions – Anytime people mention you on twitter it hits this column. On twitter when you use someones username like, @chiapperino, they are certain to see it and it makes it easy to maintain a conversation. Just remember it’s still public!
- Twitscoop – This column is a function that tweetdeck has built in to let you know trending topics on the public timeline. It displays key words to let you know what people are talking about. To give you an example, this is how I found out Farve was playing football again!
Twitterfeed – Do you blog? If so, this is an easy way to have you blog posts hit your twitter account automatically letting others that follow you on twitter know you have posted something new on your page.
Ubertwitter – a great application for the blackberry that makes it quick and easy to stay in touch with friends on twitter and send tweets!
Twubble- trying to figure out who you should be following on twitter? Twubble tries to “help you expand your twitter bubble.” By giving twubble access to your twitter account it looks through your friends on twitter and looks at who they follow to give you suggestions. Great tool that you may want to give a try…
WeFollow- On online directory of twitter users. If you are on twitter you should register here and it is also another place to find people that have similar interests, careers, or hobbies.
If there any twitter apps that you find helpful please share them below and fill me in!
Click here to follow me on twitter.
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