We Are Light | in darkness

Welcome to your first day of class – Social Media Basics for Christians!

As you know, we beginning our journey into the new age of information and social media.  We will learn about different components in social media and how to use each area in a church, ministry, business, or organization.  We will also gather facts and information to start a successful social media campaign as we advance.  In the end, you will know which tools work best for your specific endeavors.

Without further ado, let us begin by discussing social networks. Yep, social networks make up only one part or component of social media. They are areas online where people connect, usually by commonalities, to share life and information with each other. Some social networks include Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Bebo, hi5, MyLife, etc. For Christians, this gives us perfect ministry insight because we can now see how we connect with a person prior to engaging in any conversation.

Facebook is currently the most popular social network.  Thus, I encourage all church and ministry leaders, authors, and business owners to sign up for this social network.

Some ideas for using Facebook include the following:

1. Church and ministry leaders can connect with current and prospective members to answer questions about the Bible, a sermon, or recent lessons. Create a consistent schedule for when a leader or leaders will be online to answer questions and announce it to the church.  A great time to be on Facebook is immediately after church. Invite people to ask you any questions they may have about the sermon via the chat feature in Facebook or even through the private messaging.

2. Authors can connect with readers to share more about why they  wrote a particular publication. There are options to incorporate an external blog on a Facebook page and/or post and share notes; both of those features are good for creating ongoing dialogue.  If a book has characters, it is always a nice idea for an author to ask his/her audience what he/she would do in a particular character’s role.  This might even inspire a new book concept!

3. Business owners can discover what current and prospective customers really need and want. Polls, surveys, questions, answers, brainstorming, and more can all be performed.  For example, a new business owners may use Facebook to recruit members for a focus group.  There are features to run targeted ads at a very affordable price.  This will ensure that the right product or service is effectively marketed to the right audience at the right price and place.  In essence, you can learn to serve your customers versus just selling.

With 250,000 million active registered users, be assured that fan pages, groups, causes, petitions, games, and more all only enhance Facebook’s ability to leverage its position as the largest social network in the world. Yes, I said, “WORLD!” Thus, Christians should face the fact that God is up to something wonderful through this network.  Now, we all need to book our tickets to get on board with what God is doing.  It is time for Christians to move corporately with His wisdom throughout this social network.

Week 1 Action Assignment: Briefly glance over this article and these statistics and then pray about why you should join Facebook.  If you’re already on Facebook, you can connect with The Servant Media through its Facebook Fan Page.  If you’re not on Facebook, please take time to join this network today for the specific purpose God has given you.  Then, join individuals, groups, and others who are like-minded.

Questions? Remember, I’ll answer any questions posted in the comment section of this blog.  If you want to ask a question privately, I will freely answer one private question to all who have registered for this course.

It’s not too late to register….