What is it Good for Anyway?

What it is? ◦ Defined, categories, technologies

Why we might care about it? ◦ The universe of generic uses

What we are doing today? ◦ Website, facebook, twitter, email lists, doodle…

What else might we do w/ Social Media? ◦ Increasing our reach (breadth)

◦ Increasing our audiences’ awareness (depth)

◦ Increasing our interactivity

A brief focus on facebook & Twitter

Social media includes web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive dialogue

Categories/Types of social media: ◦ collaborative projects (e.g., Wikipedia) ◦ blogs and micro-blogs (e.g., Twitter) ◦ content communities (e.g., YouTube) ◦ social networking sites (e.g., Facebook) ◦ virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft) ◦ virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life)

Common technologies: ◦ blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging,

music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. ◦ Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network

aggregation platforms

Grace Church communications has set a goal of reaching out more interactively; branding us more publicly as a community resource and a “force for good” (my words)…

All Grace Church ministry areas can benefit from thinking differently how they share information and interact with interested people…

Social media represent a plethora of ways for us to communicate and interact differently:

◦ We receive, process, and respond to information in different ways

◦ Let’s use a blend of passive & active, infrequent & on-demand media to reach out to people in the ways they respond to information the best

What we are doing today? ◦ website, facebook, twitter, email lists, doodle…

Grace Church website visitors last month: ◦ about 60-70 per day; a little more than 50% are returning visitors

Grace facebook site: ◦ 196 members; only facebook users can join the Grace facebook group ◦ Vast majority are Grace community members (parishioners, etc.) ◦ A “few “super users” post über-frequently; great place to share news & pics

Grace “unofficial” twitter site: ◦ Following: 1,544 Followers: 343 Tweets: 183 ◦ Only a fraction of the followers are parishioners…

Focused group email lists and church email addresses

Characteristics of media (social vs. industrial): ◦ Reach

◦ Accessibility

◦ Usability

◦ Immediacy

◦ Permanence

What might we do w/ Social Media? ◦ Increasing our reach (breadth)

◦ Increasing our audiences’ awareness (depth)

◦ Increasing our interactivity (engagement)

What novices think it is: ◦ the facebook status panel (an Emphatic NO!, though some use it that way)

What it isn’t… ◦ A static place to leave information for people to grab it whenever…

What is a micro-blog? ◦ Tight and concise 140-character blurbs

◦ Entrée to enhanced content

Why do people and orgs use twitter?

Terminology ◦ Tweeting? Tweeps? Followers and following? Why do these matter?

We need to think about our collective preferences…but more from a purposes- than a styles- perspective..

We should think about twitter <particularly> as being more like an ongoing and casual conversation at a “cocktail party”; you can listen to some of the conversation some of the time, but you can’t be everywhere and it doesn’t persist much…

We also need to remember at this level, social media should not be considered as heavily (and deliberately) edited…

Who owns the content and what content liability do we share?

Lastly, we can think more creatively about with whom we want to be in dialogue…

Grace Church @GraceAlex3601 343 1,544

Lee Meeks @lmeeks54 515 2,001

Lane Cristin @LCP_photog 351 1,831

Avrio Technology @WLeeMeeks

MFAC @metrofinearts

Followers Following

Frequency

Del

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aten

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Grace Notes

(monthly) web site

(monthly?)

twitter (daily?)

Pastoral Letters

(irregularly)

email lists

(often?) facebook group (daily?)

church bulletin (weekly)

Mostly • Static content • Passive interaction

Mostly • Dynamic content • Active engagement