About Social Media

About Social Media

I’ve heard other clergy claim that they plan to “have nothing to do with” social media. I suspect what they mean is that they wish to not start a facebook or twitter account, and are hoping to avoid dealing with a personal online presence.

Here’s what I’m thinking: it’s too late. Whether or not we want to be present on the internet, we are already there. Pastors are present and findable via internet search because our names are associated with our church, our photos are posted whenever we conduct a wedding, and we are listed in obituaries whenever we conduct a funeral. These and other digital references are happening, whether or not we are aware of them, so the advantage of participating in social media at least a little bit is twofold – you have a better grasp of how you are being represented online, and you can add your own perspective and stories instead of relying solely on others.

In addition, social media can be an excellent communication tool. Like all communications, how social media is used determines how effective it is. I think it was in Junior High that I was taught the two components of effective communication: 1) message sent, and 2) message received. Social media provides opportunities to both send and receive information.

As one of the two main curators of our church’s official information channels, my job is to choose wisely so we reach our desired audience effectively. This includes planning ahead and utilizing several tools so we create neither a dry spell nor a flood of communications. 

I find in Church communications that when I rely exclusively on the print newsletter and bulletin and spoken announcements from the pulpit, our information stream can have significant gaps in it. Adding social media to our information stream helps fill in gaps, engage people in new ways, and gives some of our members tools to invite others to participate.

While there are number of places a person can go to learn about how to use social media in the Church, I really really appreciate UMCommunications. Here’s a link to some of their information about social media: http://www.umcom.org/learn/connect-with-social-media

Current articles at this site include Instagram, blogging, and text messaging.

Today's garden photo is from Baton Rouge, LA.The garden is across the street from First UMC - I love the garden name!!!! You might enjoy the church's website, www.firstmethodist.org

 

Twitter: I am not an expert

This post goes with a social media class I'm leading the Thursday after Labor Day for clergy in my District. I expect a wide range of thoughts and feelings about social media from this group, so I'm posting some short essays/commentaries on social media on this blog in case they are helpful to someone from the class. 

So: Twitter. 
Twitter utilizes short posts of 144 characters or less. Content can include links to articles and photos. If you see an @ before a word, that's a reference to a person/account on twitter. If you see a # before a word, that's a tag to help people sort through the piles of words moving through twitter. 
 
One good way to learn about twitter is to set up an account. Setting up an account is very easy and I think it feels less intrusive/personal than setting up a facebook account. Each twitter account you set up will be connected to a different email address, so if you plan to have an account for both your church and yourself, plan ahead which email address you will use for which account. I suggest never using a personal email address as the main contact for a work social media account. If you don't have a separate email address for your church, it's easy enough to set up a new google account that you use only for church social media accounts. Here's where you go to set up a twitter account: twitter.com

Once you have a twitter account you can follow accounts like @tweetsmarter, which has as its purpose the posting of tips and stories about how to improve your twitter skills. 

Twitter is a fast-moving information delivery system, but users determine how much information they would like to receive by selecting their information sources. This is called following. As a twitter account holder, you'll want to remember that unless you use a "private" setting, anyone can see what you are tweeting and who you are following. 

I am not a twitter expert. I tweet at @revstephanie and am the author/curator of the South Gate account at @southgateumc. When thinking about a twitter name, try to think of something fairly short, spellable, and descriptive. Few of my social media accounts include my last name because for most people it fails the spellable test. I don't write out United Methodist Church because that's a lot of characters I could be using for content. 

Here's an article from UMCom about twitter that answers 10 FAQs: twitter FAQs answered
 

Wormwood stem

Today's garden photo is from the front yard of my Omaha house. In the middle you'll see a silvery plant. It's wormwood. I think every pastor's garden should have wormwood in it so we can pluck off a stem to show kids what wormwood looks like when we sing the hymn with the lyrics "wormwood and the gall," which I think is used to rhyme with "this celestial ball."

My favorite hippie master gardener says that wormwood repels rabbits. My spouse reminds me of this each time we see a rabbit hanging out next to this plant.

Social Media Resources. Squash and Ironing Board.

In preparation for an upcoming presentation for a group of UMC clergy on the topic of Social Media for Churches I've been gathering a list of online resources that I think might be helpful.
Links and brief descriptions are below.

United Methodist Communications has a helpful website that includes a number of topics. umcom.org is an excellent source for current UMC news; resources on the topic of digital communications and social media; communications best practices; and more.. including how to order print and digital official UMC program calendars.

Great Plains UMC communications office has a resource page: GPUMC communications resources
This website page contains links to a variety of communications resources, including photo/video release forms and how-tos for setting up church websites.

I'll update this list as I continue remembering favorite websites. I decided to go ahead and post even though the entry is not finished because I'm working on actually posting and not just thinking one day I will. 

The garden theme continues this post with a photo I took in East Tennessee, somewhere between Dandridge and Bristol. The hardware store/flea market where we stopped was also home to a vegetable garden, which was home to this squash plant... growing on the frame of an ironing board.

Ironing board with squash