The document discusses using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to increase interaction and engagement with Grace Church. It analyzes Grace Church's current social media presence and provides examples of how different platforms vary in their frequency, deliberateness, and levels of interaction. The document suggests Grace Church could use social media more effectively to communicate information and connect with interested individuals in a variety of passive and active ways.

1. What is it Good for Anyway?

2.  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

3.  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

4.  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

5.  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

6.  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)

9.  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?

14.  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…

15. Followers Following
 Grace Church @GraceAlex3601 343 1,544
 Lee Meeks @lmeeks54 515 2,001
 Lane Cristin @LCP_photog 351 1,831
 Avrio Technology @WLeeMeeks
 MFAC @metrofinearts

16. Pastoral Mostly
Letters • Static content
(irregularly) • Passive interaction
Grace
Notes
(monthly)
web Mostly
site • Dynamic content
(monthly?) church • Active engagement
Deliberateness
bulletin
(weekly)
email
lists
(often?) facebook
group
twitter
(daily?)
(daily?)
Frequency