Digital @ Leadership Network

How one churches uses Twitter

A while back, I recorded this video interview with Jason Powell of Granger Community Church. Rumor has it that if you didn't use Twitter or Facebook, you couldn't get hired there.

Watch the video to see (and hear) how Granger uses Twitter -- what kind of guidelines do they have in place, how they use it to make for effective communications, and staying open to learning from others. 

How does your church use Twitter? Add a comment below.

(tech note: for those of you who are curious and technically inclined, this video interview was recorded on a Windows-powered PC, via a Skype video chat, live streamed via Vidblaster to be recorded by Ustream.tv)

-- DJ CHUANG, Director at Leadership Network

What do you update more - Facebook status or Twitter?

Great post from Jeremy Liew analyzing volume of Facebook status updates versus Twitter tweets.

There are 30 million Facebook users that update their status on a daily basis.  Liew speculates this to be 45-60 million total status updates each day since each user presumably updates more than once.

Twitter has 18-24 million tweets per day, which is 2-3x less than Facebook.  Although Twitter will likely catch up, Liew notes that the Facebook feed has much more than just status updates.  So the Facebook stream will always appear more active.

So what do you update more often to communicate with your church?  (Of course the tech-savvy user updates both simultaneously through a 3rd party app)

I would argue the Facebook stream is much more attractive to a church since it supports multimedia posts.  And some would use that same argument to say Twitter is more powerful - the simplicity of text is what makes Unix "better" than Windows

- Joe Suh

Evolution of Social Networking

A (slightly dated) study from Forrester Research, summarized by Jeremiah Owyang, is breaking down the evolution of social networking into 5 eras:

With the following timeline of these 5 eras:

From the executive summary:

"Today's social experience is disjointed because consumers have separate identities in each social network they visit. A simple set of technologies that enable a portable identity will soon empower consumers to bring their identities with them"

Facebook Connect, in my opinion, is the definitive leader and pioneer in this move towards interoperability - the ability for web users to bring their social graphs, contexts, and content with them wherever they go.

If you run a church website, I think Facebook Connect could be very interesting to you.  Imagine your church members logging into your site, posting comments about the latest sermon podcast, and having those comments (and the podcast) appear in their Facebook streams for all their friends to see.

And now with the Facebook Connect wizard (announced here), there's very little programming knowledge required to implement it.  Are there any churches that have implemented FB Connect on their website?

- Joe Suh from MyChurch

Church Leader Twitter Strategy: Twitter Desktop Client Overview

If you are becoming more than a casual user of Twitter, then it's probably time to become familiar with the wide variety of Twitter clients.  These are applications that you download and run alongside your browser or in some cases, as an add-on to your browser.  There has been a lot of activity in this space during the last year or so and what is true today could radically change in a matter of weeks.

While it's true that the major browsers have tabs to allow you to view multiple webpages at a time, it's not always convenient to have to repeatedly switch tabs just to view the latest updates on your Twitter feed.  This is where a Twitter desktop client comes in, generally a small application that runs on your computer.

According to my small, informal Twitter poll, the major players are Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop for the PC crowd, TwitterFox for any platform (Windows, Mac or Linux) and Tweetie is the dominant Mac Twitter client. There are many others out there and you can see some detailed comparisons here and here.

Many of the Twitter clients provide additional functionality above and beyond the Twitter website.  Some of the additional features include multiple columns to show your main feed, replies, direct messages and even custom groups. 

Darrell Jordan (@dljordaneku) has used both Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop and while they both allow you to do groups, he feels that Seesmic is better at handling groups. On the other hand, he goes on to say that Tweetdeck sets groups up better. Groups are nice because you can create whatever kind of groups you want to such as when certain words are  mentioned or an organization is tweeted about.

One thing that both Tweetdeck and Seesmic offer is the ability to cross post your tweet to Facebook and some people really enjoy having that ability. Some do not, so it's up to you. Both apps are fairly responsive to feedback and you can tweet at both of them, @seesmic and @tweetdeck, with your feedback, questions or suggestions.

Darrell also mentioned that he has bounced back and forth between the 2 clients and that seems fairly typical of serious Twitter users.  It's kind of like the browser wars back in the late '90s between Microsoft and Netscape. Both companies were pushing hard to have the latest and greatest features and many of us would routinely bounce back and forth between the 2 browsers.  These days, it's that way with Tweetdeck and Seesmic, they are both constantly evolving and improving.

Both Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop offer grouping and multiple columns but in the end, it's going to come down to which application do you prefer.  

Twitter itself is becoming more aggressive on dealing with spammers and allowing the users to report s

pam tweets as well as block users and those 2 things can be done from within Tweetdeck, Seesmic and others.

I am not a Mac user so I don't have first hand experience in that arena but anytime I have been talking to a Mac user and Twitter comes up, they inevitably love Tweetie for it's clean look and it's ease of use. 

One of the other top contenders is Echofon, which used to be known as TwitterFox, which is a Firefox add-on and lives in the lower right corner of your Firefox window.  It is a no frills app that delivers your tweets, replies and DMs to you in a no-nonsense fashion and it gives you the ability to post your tweets as well.

I hope this gives you a good overview of the Twitter clients currently available.  Don't be afraid to try one or even try a couple. As I mentioned, it really does come down to personal preference.

There are many other features that Twitter desktop clients add, so the best thing to do is give it a try.

What Twitter desktop client do you use?

-----

Jim Walton with ChurchTechMatters and JimWalton.org and of course @JimWalton

More Sharing via Facebook than Email

24% on Facebook vs 11% on email.

A huge advantage of sharing on Facebook is that it gets posted to your stream for all friends to see.  As opposed to email where you have to think about who to share this link with and then remember their email addresses. 

Also, "when given the choice, people would rather post to a site like Facebook where their efforts can be seen by many more pairs of eyes and appreciated and affirmed by many more likes and comments."

Lesson for church websites - put a 'Share on Facebook' button for all your media (podcasts, videos, pictures etc).  It will get likes and comments on Facebook, and have the potential to spread virally.

For advanced church websites, you can take this one step further.  With some hacking, you can aggregate and all the likes and comments from Facebook, and bring them back onto the page on your own church site that hosts the video, podcast, or picture.

- Joe Suh from MyChurch

Church Leader Twitter Strategy: Setting Up Your Twitter Account

 

So now you want to twitter. The video below will take you step by step helping you set up your twitter account. You'll need a valid email account, your blog/website url, and a profile picture (avatar) file.

Feel free to follow me on twitter @mbstockdale (please let me know you found me on LN digital blog). I'd be happy to answer any questions on twitter or in the comment section below. Happy tweeting!

Church Leader Twitter Strategy: Four Ways To Twitter

There are a variety of ways to use Twitter in a ministry setting. There are probably as many distinct uses as there are people using the technology. For this post we'll focus on what I think are the four most common uses for Twitter: announcements, conversation, day in the life, and live tweets.

One of the major organizational use of Twitter is for it to serve as a channel for announcements. Members of your church, ministry, or other customers can follow your Twitter feed to receive an ongoing stream of information about what is happening. Updates about new opportunities, events, and regular activities help provide a way to maintain a steady connection. Followers are able to choose how they receive your updates, which means that some will get them via text message, in desktop applications or in the browser. Many groups are using Twittter as a cheap tool for text message updates to members.

Twitter can also help groups participate in open, ongoing discussion. Direct messages provide a hybrid between email and instant messaging for private communication between two people. Using @ replies allows a larger group to follow the flow of a conversation (@ replies are public). I've seen teams use Twitter as a tool to coordinate efforts and to share experiences. Twitter conversations also facilitate broader community development as people who share particular interests follow each other and have large group "conversations" about topics of interest. Two primary communities I've experienced are people in church communication and church IT that have built strong Twitter-based communities.

Many people who use Twitter use it as a microblogging tool to share what's happening in their daily lives. These tweets share what's on a personal agenda, lunch plans, struggles, successes and other random life events. For many people 140 character posts about daily life have replaced longer blog posts. Some people love the regular status updates of their friends, others question whether or not telling the world my dinner plans is a bit narcissistic. I've come down on the side that Twitter allows a level of transparency that can help foster a sense of "knowing" a person even if a significant personal relationship has yet to develop.

Live tweeting primarily happens in conference settings, but I've seen it used in church settings as well. The concept is that people post what is happening live at an event: a conference session, a mission project, a church service or any other live event. Oftentimes these tweets include a hashtag that helps to identify how these posts go together. At this year's Willow Creek Leadership Summit the hashtag was #tls09. Searching for a particular tag will reveal results from everybody posting from the event. Live tweets are a great way to communicate what is happening, and a great way to follow an event if you aren't able to attend. Some people do feel that live tweets can be annoying, especially if they are excessive. The thought is that if I cared what was happening at event X, I would have attended it. That's not to say you shouldn't live tweet an event, but be aware of the audience that follows you on Twitter.

Knowing your audience is the primary key for determining what type of tweets you should be posting. For individuals it might make sense to post a mixture of all types. Organizations may find it best to limit to just announcements. The more similar your followers are the easier it is to decide what's a good tweet and what isn't. The big concern, as has been mentioned, is do your tweets and value to your followers.

Matt Kerner

Church Leader Twitter Strategy: why you should

There are many good reasons to http://twitvid.com/785C4twitter. (There are bad reasons to twitter, too. We touched on that in the previous post.) As twitter has becoming mainstream, it's not just a way to text message what you're doing, it's become a way to share and discover what's happening in the world, a way to have conversations quickly with your tribe, among other things.

Here's 6 reasons pastors should twitter from Scott Williams:  

1. Relational Community With Other Pastors
2. Relational Community With Their Congregation
3. To Fulfill The Great Commission 
4. To Unleash The Power Of Prayer 
5. To Reach Those Who Are Lost
6. WWJD.

Read the entire blog post for how Scott masterfully explains the value of Twitter. And, this tweet alerted me to a raw video with Pastor Scott Wilson (The Oaks) and Pastor Rick Warren (Saddleback) about why they twitter:

RT @justinlathrop: Listen to @rickwarren and @scottwilson7 talk about the benefits of Twitter. #gencouncil http://twitvid.com/785C4 via tweet from chris_willard

[update] The full-length 16-minute video of this interview about why Rick Warren twitters is now online at MinistryDirect: http://agtv.ag.org/#Conversation-with-Rick-Warren.

As Pastor Rick describes twitter, it's a biblical tool for discipleship. What are other great reasons for how you've found twitter valuable? 

// DJ CHUANG, Director at Leadership Network

Church Leader Twitter Strategy: Adding Value...or Not!

As a ministry leader, you have so many demands on your time, sometimes close to 24/7.  Honestly, sometimes a distraction here or there can be welcome and the internet alone is often distraction enough.  A specific distraction on the internet is Twitter.  Twitter is a social networking site that allows you to say whatever you want to say in 140 characters or less.  You can even have a conversation with someone or you can blast your message out to just anyone or maybe to a specific group.  There are many different ways to tweet and most of these different ways do very little to add value to your life.

One thing I have learned, both from a ministry perspective and from an online perspective, is to ask myself the question

Am I adding value?

It's kind of an open ended question but that is intentional and it goes both ways. Is it adding value to me and is it adding value to my audience? Your audience could be readers of your blog, readers of your tweets, other ministry leaders, church members etc.  Twitter is something that can seriously add value, both to you and to others but that takes a lot of work. It is much easier to waste your time tweeting meaningless tweets and reading meaningless tweets.

If you are easily distracted, like so many of us are, I would be very careful about entering into this arena.  At the same time, I would challenge you to give it a try and ease into it slowly.

Hello, My name is @jimwalton and I am a twitterer. For the record, I was an early adopter and I started Twittering way back in 2007.  In that 2 1/2 year period, I have logged over 15,000 tweets, which I find hard to believe.  Sadly, many of those probably fall into the pointless babble category, but I think lately, I try to resist the urge to tweet just to tweet.  I know for a fact that buried within those 15,000+ tweets are many meaningful conversations, with true friends, some of whom I only know on Twitter.  A few of the best friendships I have ever known have developed as a result of Twitter and these are friends in real life (IRL) now. There are also so many fellow leaders in ministry that I have been able to connect with and learn from here on Twitter.  For me, Twitter is extremely valuable but I still need to be aware of the time I spend trying to keep up with it and I need to always ask myself if I am adding value.

Twitter can add tremendous value to your life and your ministry but it can easily simply be a distraction and a time-waster if you are not careful.

Consider yourself forewarned!

Jim Walton with ChurchTechMatters and JimWalton.org and of course @JimWalton

Church Leader Twitter Strategy: introduction

The school year starting also marks the end of summer vacation, and everything getting back into full swing in every other area of life too. Here at the Digital @ Leadership Network blog, our contributors will be collaborating on a new blog series to discuss the key issues to consider for a church leader deciding on which web apps to use and how to use them effectively.

This week we're starting with the new blog series, Church Leader Twitter Strategy. In this blog series, our contributors will cover topics like: why not, why, different ways to twitter, how much time will it take, how to sign up, to follow or not to follow, and twitter apps.

We recognize that there are many great twitter articles and e-books about twitter all over the internet. And I've encourage our contributors to link to the most helpful blog posts and articles. We hope to save you hours from surfing all over the web to read different opinions, and surface the essentials here.

Our aim is to provide a short 2-screen (or less) synthesized summary, that you can use for a meaningful discussion with your leadership team during a staff meeting, and arrive at a conclusion for how you and/or your church will (or will not) use twitter. And, we'll keep the comment thread open, so this Church Leader Twitter Strategy series can be a conversation for us to discuss the key issues together.

// DJ CHUANG, Director at Leadership Network