Just yesterday, Michael Buckingham said,
The Internet isn’t powerful because it connects you to information, but because it connects you to other people.
And that’s what social media aims to do. In theory, social media is the technology that is connecting the church–to one another, to the world, and even to God. But is it really working?
42% of you say social media has been a wash for your church. People haven’t been so zealous about replying you that they’ve crashed Twitter, but they also haven’t gone out of their way to publicly berate you on Facebook.
The next biggest chunk of you are the 25% who haven’t tried. I’d love to hear more about this. Are you folks simply not willing to try? Is it not where you want to spend your time? Do you believe computers are possessed?
The next 20% are connecting with people like never before. Social media has been a serious boon for you, and you’re loving the way God is using you. But only slightly less of you, 14%, have found it to be a total bust. (Cue sad trombone.)
If ever there were a time for you to step out and comment, this is it. What have you had success with? Why do you think it was successful? Where has your church crashed and burned with social media? If we really want to tap into the connective power of emerging technologies, we’ve got to share our ideas and stories with one another. To get things started, here’s how one church makes use of social media.
And in the mean time, participate in the Church Marketing Sucks battle: Which are you more likely to read: bulletin or e-mail newsletter?
Greg Shore
November 18, 2009
Last year, we did a Facebook campaign for New Wine USA. I would, with some reservations, say that it was successful. We are able to maximize our dollars and drive people to the New Wine website. We could see the increase in hits coming from Facebook. At the end of day, though, it did not translate into more attendance at the event but I do believe it make some impact in building our brand.
New Wine (NewWineUSA.org) is a conference for the church. It is not an evangelism thing so we were able to target the Facebook user with keywords and location.
Dan
November 18, 2009
Our church has just recently started getting involved in media, by way of website, blogs, twitter and facebook. We also use ccb which on the admin side has been a huge plus for us though socially its hard to say. A lot of the church members don’t seem to be all that interested at times. At first I thought it was because they didn’t know all that it had to offer but as time is passing I’m realising that our church is either a. Full of people who don’t have the internet b. Unable to remember a URL longer than it takes to drive home or c. Not ready for this digital social step to the future. As a communications director its my job to keep trying new things and hope that god directs us in the path which will bear the most fruit. It is a little discouraging though the trouble we have getting people connected. What I’m realising is that no matte how much you do or try to connect people to other people, its up to them in the end to reach out. All we can do in this case is supply as many mediums as possible.
Sim
November 18, 2009
We use Social Media to the level of Facebook and Twitter… we’ve noticed some decent growth in out Facebook ‘Fans’ and their interaction, but for the most part it exists because it can; I wouldn’t say much has come from it.
While it can feel kinda discouraging that nothing is happening, we are beginning to change our outlook at what we expect from it right now…
Social Media in it’s current Mass-Market state has not been around for very long, and the Church is notorious for ‘catching up later’. Perhaps our best use of Social Media right now is to establish our presence and technologies and then simply be there when our congregation catches up!?
PastorJohn
November 18, 2009
I’ve really only begun using electronic media in the last few months. We are still trying to train volunteers to build and maintain our webpages (I pastor two churches) I have established a Facebook presence in order to make myself available (and to be connected) to our youth with limited success. Since the vast majority of our congregations belong to an older generation, computers just aren’t their “thing.” The good news is that our ministry now has a global reach and I’m having conversations with people I would never otherwise talk to in our rural setting. As we move towards podcasts and a blog (just reading “the blogging church”) we *hope* that our presence (okay *my* presence) will eventually help to attract and retain a younger generation.
My weekly postings on email and Scribd.com have already allowed people to “test drive” our services before visiting us the first time.
Jesse
November 19, 2009
There was a kind of ‘grassroots’ discussion of church and social media on wondercafe.ca just last month: http://wondercafe.ca/discussion/church-life/church-age-social-media
scott aughtmon
November 20, 2009
I’ve used Facebook “events” to promote our church series and enable our church to easily invite others. (With just a click on “invite others” link on the event people can invite friends). I think it’s been a pretty effective tool.
I’ve also used Facebook’s pay-per-click ads. We’ve had a lot of clicks, but it’s only brought 1-2 people to visit. I still think it’s worth doing though.
I’ve tried Twitter, but I don’t think it’s been as effective yet. It could also be that fact that a lot of my followers are from out of state and following me not because I’m a pastor, but because of my internet marketing and business consulting. I’ll still keep experimenting with it and see.