Recently, our tech , I.T. and communications staff met with one of the members of our church to discuss social networking strategy. It was a good discussion ranging from Facebook, to Twitter, to blogs, to video sharing sites. Several of the ministries at our church are getting Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, but no-one is really keeping their eye on the larger picture of what we’re messaging, what kind of consistency we have, and whether we’re really maximizing our impact. A couple of highlights from the yesterday’s meeting:
1. Consistency is saying one voice saying the same thing across all avenues of communication, and it is also repetition.
2. You don’t need to look for additional work to start a social media strategy, just look for ways to share what you’re already doing. If you’re already capturing video, then it’s not that much more to go ahead and podcast or webcast it, for example. If you’re preparing a sermon, then why not blog about it to create buzz for the upcoming weekend. Why not give the weekend’s scripture in advance so your body will be more prepared to hear what God has given you to give them? In other words, it doesn’t need to be something ELSE to do, but rather AS I do, how can I share?
There are so many options out there for content delivery and for communicating your church’s message, it’s a good idea to get your staff, and also some internet users in your church to develop a strategy of how you position your church,what is said, and how it is said.
I’ll post more on this later as we develop our own strategy, but let me leave you with some links to good resources.
Greg Atkinson – Hosts Church 2.0 conferences all of the country. Please try to go one of these.
LifeChurch.tv – Innovators in applying web technologies to the mission of the church
Theater Church – As far as I know, these guys were some of the first to podcast a sermon. Led by Mark Batterson who says “If it’s worth preaching, it’s worth podcasting”.
