• Honesty
• Value
• Connecting people to each other, not just you
• Measure progress (stories and numbers)
• Conversation not broadcast

Benefits

• Relationship collateral
• Reputation management
• Idea generation
• Audience/competitor research
• Fan loyalty
• Help others
• Record keeping

How to Get Started

• Determine your audience and objective
• Pick one, start slow
• Watch before your interact
• Don’t put on a non-social in charge of it. Assign by “shape” not by “org chart”
• Don’t control, cultivate
• Don’t start it unless you can maintain it
• Don’t censor unless there’s a problem.

Other Thoughts…

• People are asking the wrong question first… it’s not how can I get more people to my spot… it’s how can I make people’s lives better. It’s a gift exchange.
• Deliver what’s unique to you. Don’t recreate the wheel or try to copy what other people are doing.
• Honesty is more important than talent
• Don’t be defensive. Just don’t give people an outlet to throw rocks.
• Would I do the same thing online if I was in someone’s living room.
• It’s a process, not an event. Be slow and deliberate.
• Don’t advertise it. Just practice, find your voice… find your groove. Populate your shelves before you invite the customers.
• Earn the right to share certain stuff. Start with your strength.
• Do new things in your own voice.
• Leave room for people to enter themselves into the story. If you do all the talking, there is no room for others to get involved. Leave it open ended.
• Reverse engineer advertising. From company to consume. Not “here’s what we think” but “what do you think?”
• Don’t overdesign… focus on the story.
• People can smell fake. What you put online should be an outflow of what you already do. It’s not an add-on.
• What question are you answering? That’s the difference between good content and just an advertisement.
• Have compassion for the audience.
• Consumer reviews are the purest form of content.
• Be minimalistic.
• Twitter is a community of “do-ers,” they’re active people. Wait on twitter until you’re ready to be active.
• 80% perfect and live is better than 100% perfect in your head.

As many other bright and much more brilliant minds that I have pointed out, the social web… the ability to share and receive information with networks of friends, co-workers, and acquaintances… is one of the most significant culture shifts to take place in our time. While the mediums have changed and continue to morph, the idea, relationships, and power of the social web have only continued to increase.

It can be exhausting to try and keep up with everything… I mused last week on Twitter: Tweets, Likes, Circles, +1′s, Friend Requests, DMs, Pokes, Adds, Status Updates… it’s all too much! #socialmediaoverload

However, after poking around and reading up on Google+, the early adopter in me is thinking this is something with paying attention to. Think about it:

• Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million users
• TV took 13
• Internet took 4 years
• iPods took 3 years
• Google+ added 10 million users in less than 3 weeks… and this is just in the exclusive, by-invitation-onluy debut. It’s just beginning.

I loved this video description of Google+:

Sharing is the currency of social media.

Google+ is redefining and simplifying the way we can share information. Instead of making lists or groups, Google+ makes it easy to add your friends to various circles and customize both your view of their news feed and allows you to select the content you share with your circles.

But, don’t take my word for it, here’s some great content from people wiser than me that’s worth reading:

• Google+: The  Complete Guide – everything you need to know
• 10 Things CMOs Need To Know About Google+
• How Google+ Can Beat Twitter
• For the churchy-types: The Pluses of Google+ for Church Leaders
• Is Google+ The Ultimate Content Marketing Platform?
• Google will not run Circles around Facebook, but it gets a +1

One of my favorite movies last year was “The Social Network,” and in a lot of ways, I feel like we are in the early days of “The Facebook.” There’s still some kinks in the system, it’s not perfect, everyone isn’t fully-connected yet but there’s room for infinite possibilities. We have no way of predicting where this will be in a few months or in the next year.

Google underwhelmed us with Wave and Buzz, but I feel like they are right on target for redefining the social web experience with Google+.

For church communications folks,  you would be well-advised to get ahead of the curve on this one. Who knows how this could be leveraged for churches or how the church could use it to empower our people to spread the word?

The entire social web revolution is in many ways a 21st century return to the roots of our faith. Our faith was a grassroots movement. There was no marketing or fanfare, only a group of people who knew they had something they needed to share with the entire world. Our faith spread from person-to-person from household-to-household, from city-to-city to the ends of the earth. All we see and experience today is a return to that personal sharing and telling of our story, from individuals to their networks, circles, and friends.

Google+ is a new platform and opportunity for us to consider what’s next.

We’ve got the greatest message worth sharing and we would be taking it and sharing it wherever people are… offline or online.

What about you? What are your thoughts on Google+?

Let’s Circle up! Add me on Google+!

Not on Google+ yet? I’ve got some invites, so drop a comment and I’ll try to an invite to as many of you as possible.

If you don’t know what it means to “crush it,” or don’t follow @GaryVee on twitter you need change that quickly. Gary is a leading voice in social media, focusing on how it’s changing the way companies do business, manage marketing, and maintain relationships with their customers. Don’t let those words scare you. The reality is we are in a different world and in an odd way, for the Church, it’s a turning back to the way things used to be.

We come from a viral faith.

The early Church wasn’t built with traditional marketing.  John the Baptist trekked through the wilderness in a unique wardrobe and diet to announce that Jesus was coming… there weren’t billboards or direct mail campaigns to spread the word. When Jesus was born, there wasn’t a TwitPic from the stable in Bethlehem of Mary holding baby Jesus. Angels had to appear to shepherds to announce Jesus’ birth, there weren’t text alerts back then. A star guided the wise men to Jesus and his family, there was no GPS or GoogleMaps. No one was live blogging or tweeting about the #SermonontheMount. There were no live broadcasts of the miracles or teachings of Jesus streamed online. You couldn’t send an evite or join a meetup group whenever Jesus was coming town.

The word about Jesus was spread by people… individuals who had encountered Jesus. Once they met Him they couldn’t help but spread the word to everyone else. It’s funny, there was even an instance when Jesus healed someone and He specifically told them to tell no one. I’m sure there’s a deep theological reason why He said that, but part of me likes to think that it was for the sake of the crowds that would flood to see Him if the word spread. Regardless, word spread and it spread fast. People showed up in masses to see, hear, and experience this man that everyone was talking about. And it wasn’t just a few or a few hundred, it was thousands.

After His resurrection, Jesus commanded all of His followers to go and spread His message and promised help, the Holy Spirit, to empower them to be witnesses. Long story short: the Spirit shows up, things get a little crazy, people from all around the world who just so happened to be in Jerusalem for Pentecost hear the Gospel in their own language, 3,000 people accept Christ, and from there the rest is history. Our faith spread… from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth and people have not stopped telling the story ever since. The word was spread from person to person, from household to household.

In marketing terms, our faith spread virally. Throughout the past 2,000 years the message has remained the same while the medium of communicating it has changed. New innovations and technologies helped amplify and extend our message. The printed press gave us our own copies of the Bible and birthed the Reformation. And in more modern times, broadcasting… well, I’m not sure how positive Christian broadcasting has been, but I digress. Regardless, the main thing that has fueled our faith spreading is individual people who have been courageous enough to tell the Story. Some people have lost their lives proclaiming it and others have given their life to keep spreading the message. It’s a mandate that all of us as believers are called to fulfill, and today the way we communicate and spread our message is changing every single day.

Social media isn’t a fad and it isn’t going away.

Social media is changing the way we interact, engage, share information, tell stories, and make everyday decisions. Think of the last movie you went to see, the last book you read, the restaurant you checked out last weekend… chances are you made those decisions based on what someone recommended to you. We don’t go by what marketers tell us, we trust the voices of our friends and social networks. Marketing has had to change dramatically and is becoming increasingly social. It’s no longer what companies or businesses say about themselves that matters, it’s what the individual customers say that sways public opinion. We have a voice.

Beyond the tremendous changes its brought to business and marketing, social media’s ability to spread news and idea is undeniable. From sparking revolutions to sharing news and information and literally saving lives during natural disasters, it’s become a new way of channeling information and breaking news even before the “news” even knows there’s breaking news.

And the thing that’s crazy is that we’re only a few years deep into this. Twitter just celebrated its 5th birthday yesterday.Facebook has only been around for 7 years. We have no idea what’s possible or what’s next. But we do know that things will never be the same.

For us as church leaders, all of this represents the return to how our faith began… people connecting people. Friends telling their friends. Person to person, household to household. It’s a return to the viral roots of our faith. I believe this presents churches with an incredible opportunity to engage and interact with their congregations and communities, and ultimately, to see our message reach people we would have never been able to reach before.

Corporations and businesses understand that in order to survive you’ve got to change. In order to be heard you need to stop broadcasting and start listening. And I believe that if the church wants to make strides and reach more people in today’s world it should look at the opportunities opened up through social media as a gift from God and discern how to steward it wisely.

So stepping off my soapbox and into the world of the Thank You Economy… in this book Gary paints a picture of what the future of communication looks like, and it’s not a distant future, it’s a reality we are living in today. In this book we’re presented with some amazing things to consider as we stand on the cusp of this cultural revolution. We can either be on the leading edge of this or be racing to catch up later. But the truth of the matter is that this new shift is going to impact your church at some level in the not-so-distant future if it’s not already.

Awhile ago I said that I believe that churches that fail to go online would run the risk of going offline… and in a short amount of time a lot has changed. It’s not about just being online anymore… it’s about being present, active and engaged. I believe that churches that fail to engage in social media will be left out of the conversation and miss one of the most significant opportunities we have to share and spread the message of the Gospel.

There, I said it.

Has the church grown and flourished without it? Of course. Will the Church keep on prevailing, with or without it? Yes, because Jesus said it would. But, I believe that just as the printed press ushered in the Reformation, that the Thank You Economy, the new way of connecting and engaging with people through social networks, presents us with one of the greatest opportunities we have to reach the world with the truth of Jesus Christ.

It’s not about getting your church on Twitter. It’s not about designing a cool Facebook page. It’s not about offering deals on Foursquare to first-time visitors. Although, for some of your churches that may be part of the solution. It’s about recognizing the cultural shift that’s taking place where we do less talking and more listening; where we create content that’s easily shared and spread; and it’s about being willing to tread in unfamiliar territory and see the web and social media as new means of engaging with people and leveraging online conversations to create offline relationships and connections. It’s a new mission field. And our challenge as communications leaders is to understand where conversations are happening in our unique contexts and to begin leveraging those platforms to connect people in our communities with our local churches and ultimately into relationship with Christ.

Over the next few days I’ll share some thoughts and reflections from The Thank You Economy, give away a few copies of the book, and hopefully spur some productive dialogue around a topic I think is important for communications leaders in churches to engage in.

In a nutshell, The Thank You Economy says:

• Care with everything you’ve got.
• Don’t be afraid of what’s new or unfamiliar.
• Speak your customers language.
• Allow your customers to help you shape your brand but never allow them to dictate the direction in which you take it.
• Build a sense of community around your brand.
• Play Ping-Pong between traditional media and social media.
• Aim for quality engagements, not quantity.
• Use shock and awe to blow your customers’ minds and get them talking.
• Remind customers why they should care about your brand.
• If you’re small, play like you’re big; if you’re big, play like you’re small.
• Don’t be afraid to crawl before you run.

Those ideas may seem very corporate or scary, but don’t worry, over the next few days I’ll translate them into Christianese for you.

So what’s your personal take on social media as it relates to the church? Do you think it’s good for churches to use social media? I would love to hear your thoughts. Share them below and I’ll buy one of you a copy of The Thank You Economy today. Submit your answer by 5 PM CST today and I’ll randomly pick a winner.

A former staff member of Big Idea Productions [creators of VeggieTales] and Willow Creek, Dawn Nicole frequently contributes to today’s leading-edge thinking of integrating Christianity and culture but is best known as a change agent who is intent on stretching imaginations, connecting people and making a difference.

Dawn participated in the M2LIVE webinar series sharing on 5 Ways Social Media Can Kill Your Brand. Here’s my notes and you can check out Dawn’s here.

• Over 500 billion minutes per month are being spent on Facebook.
• One of the fastest-growing demographics is middle-aged women.
• Twitter is growing fastest in the age 12-16 demographic.
• People are now connecting with brands through social media.
• Everything is moving mobile.
• Over 30% of people who are connecting to social media are doing it through their smartphones and mobile devices.
• Hear how Park is using texting.
• Technology can be leveraged for “holy” things.
• Some churches are allowing people to text in prayer requests.

1 – To be unprepared

• Organizations are rushing into the space out of a fear of being left behind.
• Since social media is free, many people are jumping into it without thinking about why.
• “If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.”
• Being unprepared will kill your brand.
• So many people are throwing darts without a bulls eye in mind.
• We have to have a clear, defined target.
• Planning is a key component of effectively using social media.
• There is no perfect fix.

2 – Having the wrong people lead it.

• Social media channels can get delegated down to the wrong person.
• It’s not the job for a tech person… they often don’t have the larger picture in mind.
• You need to look at social media as one of the first ways your church interacts with the public.
• Whoever is spearheading you communication channels needs to be involved in the flow of social media.
• Social media isn’t a siloed function of organizations.
• You have to have a cohesive identity in how you are expressed in social media.
• The people you put in leadership of social media will be “brand ambassadors” for your organization.
• Social media isn’t a task to tackle.
• It’s not an item on your checklist.
• Communications is another channel to deliver your vision.

3 – It’s not set it and forget it.

• It’s not uncommon for organizations to set up multiple accounts but have no one championing it.
• “If you build it they will come” doesn’t work anymore.
• If you build it, they expect a response.
• Silence on social media is worse than not having a social media presence.
• Every communications channel has its own rhythm.
• Content is king when it comes to blogs.
• Audience interaction determines the rhythm of other channels.
• Check Facebook and twitter hourly and daily and respond when appropriate.
• It changes the way we communicate and will impact our daily activities.
• Social media isn’t something everything should do.
• How does it fit around what you do well?

4 – Not Adding Value

• SPAM applies to content.
• People are looking value.
• Don’t just repeat what people have already heard.
• Leverage it to give new, relevant information to your audience.
• It’s not about YOU, it’s about your audience.
• How can you meet their needs?
• Social media is a two-way conversation.
• It’s also a listening tool to connect with your audience.
• You don’t have to always know the answer.

5 – Expecting miracles.

• Technology isn’t the end-all-be-all.
• Social media isn’t a substitute for other media channels.
• Print still has a place in most places.

Some examples of social media impact:

• Greenpeace vs Nestle
• OldSpice YouTube campaign
• TSA backlash

Closing Thoughts

• People have always had conversations but social media gives people a public platform to amplify them.
• Google removed front doors. It made everything accessible.
• Don’t get overwhelmed… you don’t have to do everything at once.
• Think through what you want to accomplish and how it fits who you are as a church.
• Does it matter to the people you are trying to reach?
• Planning will help your efforts become more fruitful and effective.
• Choose channels that are manageable. Try one at a time.
• Experiment and let people know about it.
• Experimenting gives you freedom to adjust.
• Don’t be afraid to collect information.
• Don’t be afraid to ask people questions to find the right channel.
• Conversation beats everything.

If you missed the webinar, you can watch it here.

I was going to post some notes but my friend Jerod at ChurchJuice took some notes while he was watching. Check them out here.

Also, here’s a few links to some blog posts / notes on texting:

• To Text or Not to Text – guest blog post on ChurchMarketingSucks.com.
• Texting from the Pews to the Pulpit – article from COLLIDE Magazine.
• Communications Revolution Part 1: Texting – the first time we used texting at Park in 2008.
• Tough Questions – examples of some questions texted in during our services at Park.
• Text Polling in Service – first time we did a text poll in service.
• Diving into Text Messaging – notes from Dawn Nicole Baldwin’s session at Echo 2009.
• Cutting Through the Static : Texting – great resource if you are starting out.
• Rethinking Capital Campaigns - how we used texting in a recent capital campaign.

Also, if you have been thinking about doing texting at your church, my friends at Jarbyco are offering a special deal now through this Friday. You can get $50 off your first texting campaign if you connect with Jarbyco by 5 PM CST this Friday [10/8].  You don’t need to run the campaign by that date, just claim your $50 by emailing prizes@jarbyco.com!

We’ve been using Jarbyco for texting at Park for over 2 years now and have loved working with them. If you are looking for someone to work with to get your church texting, definitely contact them.

One of the unique things we incorporated into this campaign was texting.

We’ve been using texting at Park for over two years now, both in our weekend services as well as a means to communicate important announcements and events.

During the campaign we used texting in some new ways that helped extend our message, engage our audience, and communicate information about the campaign.

Opt-in Text Group
At the beginning of the campaign we set up an opt in group for people to get text reminders throughout the sermon series.

During the week we texted questions for them to consider, highlighted what was coming up, and texted various verses and quotes on generosity and giving. It was also a great way to communicate announcements related to the campaign.

We announced the opt in group the first week of the [IN]VEST campaign and had over 950 people [that’s over ½ of our church] sign up to receive them.

It was a huge success and something we’ll consider repeating for future series as way to help people continue the conversation around our messages.

Text Polls

We’ve done text polls in service before, but for this series specifically, we wanted to ask some tough questions and challenge people’s understanding and motivation for giving.

There’s two distinct benefits to doing text polls in service:

1 – They create a shared experience. We all come into church with different experiences, thoughts, and ideas. Many people just  spectate and never engage in the service. Something as simple asking people a question invites them to participate, and in doing so, see that there are other people in the room who feel the same way they do.

One of the questions we asked during the series was, “Do you think people outside of the church view the church as being generous?”

2 – They help the speaker gauge the audience.

Texting in service can help bridge the gap between the speaker in the audience. And, it can help the speaker know where the audience is coming from or their understanding of a particular topic. In the few times we’ve done text polling the audience’s response has helped refine our pastor’s message and made the content more applicable to people’s experiences.

One question we asked toward the end of the campaign was what people’s primary motivation for giving was. It was a great way for our teaching pastors to see how our church viewed the topic of giving.

Commitments via Text

We printed about 3,000 paper commitment cards for people to fill out indicating how they’d like to commit to our campaign. Less than 100 printed cards were returned.

It took some creativity to make it work, but thanks to our friends at Jarbyco we were able to create a way for people to text in their commitment to the campaign.

Since our campaign was called [IN]VEST, we created the keyword IMIN and asked people to text in if they’d like to respond via texting. Nearly ¾ of our commitments for the campaign came in via texting!

The Results

• 455 households are [IN], representing roughly 600 adults – that number reflects the number of new people in our church since we did our last two campaigns!
• People committed to invest in hundreds of lives to help their friends cross the line of faith.
• People committed to invest in nearly 50 different neighborhoods around the city
• Our church has committed to fighting many different injustices, the greatest being those around education, human trafficking, and poverty.
• Our primary financial goal going into the campaign was to pay down 2 debts totaling $2 million.
• Thanks to those who continued to fulfill their pledges from previous campaigns and the new [IN] pledges we have enough commitments to meet our goal of paying off the 2 notes totaling $2 million!

Closing Thoughts

This was by no means a perfect campaign. There are probably many things we could have done differently, but it worked.

We didn’t follow a prescribed path, but charted our own course that was reflective of our congregation’s thoughts and experiences around a tough subject.

We focused more on the holistic aspect of stewardship instead of zeroing in on money. As a result, people are focusing on creative ways they can invest, make a difference in their neighborhoods, and in the lives of their friends.

More than anything else, we recognized there were many new faces in our audience and used the campaign as an opportunity to share our vision, tell our story, and invite them to invest in our future.

Facebook Inc., the world’s largest social-networking site, surpassed Google Inc.’s search engine in weekly hits to become the most visited Web site in the U.S. for the first time, according to research firm Hitwise.

Facebook.com accounted for 7.07 percent of visits in the week ended March 13, topping Google.com’s 7.03 percent, New York-based Hitwise said in a March 15 blog post. Facebook almost tripled its visits from a year earlier, compared with 9 percent growth at Google, the most popular search engine. (via Business Week)

Do you need any more reasons why your church needs to be active on Facebook?

Some churches are doing a great job using Facebook, some even have Internet Campuses on Facebook, and others, sadly, are still blocking their church staff from viewing it.  Regardless, I think this presents one simple reason why we need to be on Facebook: It’s where people are, online.

With baby boomers being one of the fastest growing user groups on Facebook, it’s no longer just something the young kids are doing anymore. My mom added me as a friend on Facebook the other day. I sort of freaked out.

Facebook presents an incredible opportunity for churches to connect with their congregations as well as those who they may never be able to reach.

Every church needs to have a Facebook Page.

A Facebook Page is going to become as important to churches as having a website.

The good news is Facebook Pages are FREE and easy to set up!

Your church should have one global Facebook page that is the information hub for your church on Facebook.  From there, individual ministries and/or church campuses should have Groups, and you should link to all of the Groups from your Page.

Emails are growing more and more passé and are being unread and deleted more frequently than we care to admit. Social media is now a key way we are connecting with people and driving them to our online content. Twitter and Facebook are in the top 5 referrers to our church website. That says something.

At Park, we rely on Facebook and Twitter to stay on people’s radar throughout the week. I posted awhile ago about Park’s Twolicy [Twitter policy] and the same ideals drive how we use Facebook.

If there’s a major churchwide event, we post it… if we have a new sermon or video, we post it… if we have photos from an even, we post them. You get the idea.

And the cool part is, as people who are ‘Fans’ interact and respond to our content, either by ‘liking it’ or commenting, it goes to their News Feed, which then goes out to hundreds and thousands of their friends, who in turn, can check out what the are liking and commenting about and then be connected with our content. That’s some of the best FREE advertising your church can do!

Look at Facebook as an extension of your church website and a vehicle to drive people to your content.

Park’s Facebook Page

Late yesterday afternoon we relaunched Park’s Facebook Page with a customized landing page. [Apparently that was great timing with the news of Facebook passing Google.]

If people aren’t Fans of Park on Facebook, it will take them straight to our custom ‘Welcome’ page that gives a quick snapshot of who we are and ways to connect with us… our campuses, events, volunteering, and our Sunday services. We also linked to other social media [Twitter, Vimeo, Podcast, etc].

It’s a short and simple way to give people some options and all of the links go to our website where they can explore and learn more about us.

If people are Fans, they bypass the Welcome page and go straight to our Wall.

It’s pretty sweet and I’m excited to see how people respond.

How Did You Do That?

We didn’t.

Eric Edwards from MonsterEyes did.

We saw the Page he did for Soul City Church and loved it, so I shot him an email. Turns out he was in town helping Jarrett Stevens with his move from ATL to Chicago, so we met up to talk. Fast forward two weeks later, our Page went live.

Eric does awesome work and is VERY affordable.  Check him out. [And he didn’t pay me to say that.]

Final Thought

Your church needs to have a presence on Facebook. You don’t have to have a fancy Page to be effective… you need to start of by having a Page period. If Facebook is a place where people are going, interacting and conversing, we, as the Church, need to be there too. It’s just that simple.

Jesus went to where people were, so should we.

The goal at the end of the day isn’t that they get connected with us, but that [through what we do] they get connected to Him!

I’m not a huge fan of policies. They take too long to write out and shouldn’t really be an issue as long as you are managing what you are doing well.

That being said, here’s a few tips on how we use Twitter…

Why Do You Use Twitter?

I think this is an important question every church needs to answer.

Don’t Twitter because everyone else does, consider your audience and your context and determine if that’s an effective way for you to interact with them [and if it’s worth your time].  If it seems like a large number of people in your church use Twitter, strongly consider how you could integrate it into your communications strategy.

How Did You Start?

We set up a Twitter account for Park and connected it to the general email address that all of our church-wide emails are sent from. We didn’t promote we were on Twitter, we just let the account sit there. In less than six months we accumulated over 100 followers without advertising we were on Twitter… people were finding us. The 100 mark was my milestone to begin Twittering, so we did… about a year ago.

Who Twitters for Park?

I do. No special reason why it’s just me – I’m just the one person who does it well, so it falls on my shoulders. Other staffers do have access to the account. [If you want multiple people to manage your Twitter account, CoTweet is a great product to check out.].

Who Do You Follow?

We will follow back anyone who mentions us, retweets us [and doesn’t appear to be SPAM], and anyone who follows us who is from Chicago.

Why Follow?

9 times out of 10, anyone who follows us attends our church. Following them gives us a great window into their day-to-day life. We’re able to see what they are talking about, what they care about, and what they are saying about their experience at Park. It’s free research!

What Do You Tweet About?

We Tweet about a number of different things. The idea is to use Twitter to connect people to information that matters to them. We try to Tweet at least a couple of times per day, not to create noise, but to keep us at the top of people’s minds. [Also, we will typically update our Facebook Page status each time we post a new Tweet.] And, we use Twitter to help generate traffic to our site.

People have to go to websites to get information; social media enables information go to people.

If you look at our blog stats, one of the largest referrers to our site is Twitter and Facebook. So, use any form of social media as a vehicle to get people to your site – or wherever you deem your “central point” for disseminating information.

An Example of a Week in Twitter at Park

• Mondays – we post a Tweet when audio/video of weekend services is posted.
• Tuesdays – we’ll Tweet about any events going on that week for people to connect with.
• Wednesdays – link to an online version of our weekly enewsletter.
• Thursdays – focus on the weekend and events people can connect with during the weekend.
• Fridays – FollowFriday! On Fridays we typically do the FollowFriday thing and recommend staff members or ministries that we support.
• Weekends – we Tweet quotes from weekend messages, repost Tweets of what people are saying, and respond to questions/comments people make about their experience at Park.

Remember the most important thing…

The keyword in social media that is often overlooked is the word social. It’s meant to be a conversation, not a lecture. Don’t turn social media into another broadcast point, use it as a place to engage with you audience, to listen to what they are saying, respond to their questions, and bring more humanity to your church/organization.

Create Lists for Your Staff

One of the things we did recently was create a Twitter list of all of our staff members who Tweet. It’s a simple way of connecting our audience with people who work behind-the-scenes and make Park what it is. Again, another way to “humanize” your church.

Does Park’s Pastor Twitter?

Yes. A number of them do. Our lead pastor is @JaxnC. I don’t think every pastor should Twitter… most should. I addressed that in a previous blog entry.

Is there a “Twolicy” for Park’s Staff?

No. We trust our staff. We view all social media, blogs, etc. as the personal responsibility of our staff members. It’s their outlet and their place to be free to express their views/opinions and not an area we need to manage or control. We do, however, remind them that they do represent Park and to be mindful of that as they tweet and blog. Thus far we haven’t had any incidents or issues arise for us to do anything more than tell them to remember who they represent!

Even If You Aren’t Going to Twitter, Secure Your Account

A friend of mine works at a VERY large church that jumped on the Twitter bandwagon awhile ago. Well, the church didn’t… someone else did. Someone started a Twitter account for the church and began tweeting for them, following people [myself included] and quickly accumulated many followers. The only challenge was they had no idea who was doing it. Long story short, it turned out someone who was attending the church had started the account… he graciously gave the login info to the church who now manages it, but the lesson here is simple: create an account for your church, even if there are no plans to use Twitter on the horizon. This is a great rule of thumb for any form of social media for that matter.

Closing Thought…

Twitter isn’t a end all, be all… but can certainly be a great way to connect with your audience. Just remember it’s not another broadcast channel, but another way to engage.

We’re still learning ways to use it and for now, this is what we’ve learned.

What about you? Are there lessons you and your organization/church have learned from using Twitter? Any successes? Any lessons learned? Share them!

Here goes…

From Jenni in Indiana:

Hey Tim!

Our pastor has started using Twiiter and we are very new to it. I wondered if you could give me some help with this. Here are my questions…

1. Is it better for the pastor to Twitter, or would it be beter for our church to Twitter?
2. Our pastor doesn’t know how to handle managing all of the responses he’s getting on Twitter. He feels bad about not being able to be in open dialogue with everyone but there’s no way he can personally respond to everyone. He is very compassionate and doesn’t want to offend anyone. IS there a way he can keep Tweeting but not offend people if he doesn’t respond to them?

Hey Jenni,

Depending on your pastor and how you think he can manage Twittering for himself, I think both your pastor and your church should Twitter.

One of the great things that Twitter can do for a pastor is make him more “human” to people; it’s a great way for people to get an inside look at his life, things he’s thinking, what he’s doing with his family, etc.

Many pastors who Twitter share a balance of info on their ministry and their personal life… and that’s a great thing.

Your pastor might not be able to respond to everyone, but that’s ok. You don’t have to respond to everyone who responds to you on Twitter. If, for instance, he posted something and many people replied to it, he could simply post a Tweet that says, “thanks everyone for your feedback on that…” I think that most people understand that it’s impossible to personally reply everyone.

I would say let your pastor’s Twitter be focused on him… his world, his life, things he’s thinking, leadership insights… and our pastor, who Twitters (@JaxnC) will often use it to ask questions/research for his messages to get people’s input or feedback.

Also, just like our church, he follows back everyone who follows him that lives in Chicago or appears to attend our church. Following people back creates a great tool for him to be able to see what people are talking about!

Before your pastor jumps on the Twitter bandwagon, I’d recommend you have him join, follow some of the different Twittering pastors that are out there, and let him get a feel for how other pastors use Twitter. If he thinks he’s up to the task, then open the floodgates. [Also, exercise your own discretion. You know your pastor best and know if he could manage a Twitter following!]

For our church Twitter account, we post information about events, news, and use it as a way to communicate to our church throughout the week.

Also, on Sundays we monitor it and as people mention us or reference us,  and we respond back to them or retweet things people say about their experience… it adds a great personal touch.

Leverage your church Twitter account as a way to extend your message and as a communication channel to reach people throughout the week.

Hope this helps!

Tim

I think the only person I talk to on the phone for longer than 10 minutes is my mom. And that’s only because she can’t text.

Beyond texting, mobile technology is altering the way we interact and engage with information. While for years, the computer screen has been the “first screen” people see, the mobile screen is now the first place people go to.

iPhones, Blackberries and SmartPhones are now a lifeline for most people… so, it would make sense, that in thinking through how to better communicate and engage with your audience that your church would consider using text messages.

When we were considering using texting at Park, we decided to start simple: using it as a way to notify people about important information [service time/location changes, daylight savings time, etc).

So, we put together this little video and encouraged people to sign up.

It worked.

In under two months, we had nearly 1,000 people signed up to receive text alerts from us.

That taught us a valuable lesson: this was something our people would engage with, therefore it would be a great communication channel for us to consider.

I think many people are quick to jump on the texting bandwagon because it’s hip and cool, and everyone else is, but the truth is, depending on who your audience is, it might be a hit or a total miss.

For us, and our young demographic at Park, it makes sense that we’d engage people with texting. However, that might not be the case if you have an older congregation.

When people have called and asked for advice about how to roll out texting in their churches, I always tell them to start small. Try it out for a weekend or find an inexpensive service and try it out. See how people respond.

The proof is in the numbers.

I was part of a conversation not too long ago where someone mentioned their church had introduced texitng but not many people were using it. They asked for advice on what to do to get more people engaged with it, and I said, “try something else.”

Not to be a downer, but that’s just the truth. That's not to say if you don't get a great initial response you should kill it. It takes people time to latch onto new ideas, so give them some time. But, if after a few tries, people aren't responding how you anticipated, it might be a good idea to think of a new idea.

However, if the adult population isn’t ready to text, your youth group most certainly is.

The avereage teenager sends over 1,700 text messages per month. And while I don’t think every church needs to use text messaging in their services, I completely believe every youth group needs to begin to implement texting into their services.

I’ve shared some different ways Park has used texting in an article "To Text or Not to Text" on  ChurchMarketingSucks.com and have notes from Dawn Nicole Baldwin’s session on Texting from ECHO, so I won’t get into HOW you can use texting, just read the notes!

But as for why… because it’s a way communication is changing. It’s another point of contact. It’s another way to get your message out there.

Some cautions… don’t rush into it. Introduce it gradually. And don’t SPAM people with messages. At Park, we send no more than 2 or 3 text alerts per month.

Who to go with… there’s a number of GREAT texting companies out there. At Park, we’ve partnered with Jarbyco, but there’s other great service providers out there including TextHub and EzTexting.com.

Some questions to consider as you think about tuning into texting…

1. What’s the average age of your church? If you tend to have a younger congregation (under 35), then texting might be a good thing to try out. If you tend to be a bit older, you may want to reconsider.
2. What do you want to do with texting? Do you want to use it to send out alerts? Do you want to use it in your services? Have a plan in how you want to implement texting.
3. What is your lead pastor’s relationship with texting? If it’s something they get, it will be an easier sell if you want to introduce it into your weekly services.
4. What’s your magic number? Based on the total number of weekly attendees at your church, before you launch into it, I’d set a goal [ maybe 25-35% of your total weekend attendance ] and say that if you hit that number that you will keep going.
5. Is your youth group texting yet? If not, I’d honestly put more priority in making sure you are connected to your youth group via texting. In any church,they will be the ones who will respond and engage with texting the most.

Final Thoughts…

Texting is just one of many new opportunities we have through mobile technology to advance the message of the Gospel and literally put it right in people’s hands. It’s changed the way we communicate and can potentially change the way you communicate and interact with your church.