Just finished up this wonderful treat by Elizabeth Drescher. Don’t let the title deceive you, it’s about far more than just Twitter. Although she does reference both Twitter and Facebook in her book, Drescher offers useful information that is applicable in any communication avenue. She provides an overview of the history of communication developments and how they affected/interacted with the church. From there she goes into some deeply interesting topics about how we can effectively put social media to work with in our ministries.
Having done social media in a couple different businesses, it’s easy for me to see how many of today’s churches use social media in a similar formula as businesses do. They use it as a means of free advertising so to speak, a chance to put your message in other’s feeds in order that it’s in their face on a daily basis rather than just when they’re in attendance at church. Drescher addresses this and points out how little of social media’s potential is used with this model. She also notes that over the course of time, this kind of approach will likely drive people away from giving any attention to what you or your organization have to say.
“If we get annoyed when the Facebook advertising automatons don’t know us well enough, imagine how it feels when our priest or pastor keeps posting or tweeting stuff that betrays no understanding of who we are or who we hope to be.” – Drescher
Instead Drescher offers a variety of ways in which we can use social media to learn more about the people in our communities in order to serve them better and how we can use social networks to invite conversation on several important topics, rather than force feeding people our own opinions. She suggests it’s far more important for leaders to be looking at other peoples pages and learning and commenting on the things they’re interested in than it is for us to be endlessly posting our own insights into life. For me, it’s a totally new approach to social network, and one that’s far more inline with how I so often talk about what it means to be a Christian in community.
Does your church use social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook? If they do, do the posts invite conversation or is it advertising for the church?
oneswordsharpensanother 
I can’t escape the irony that before and after your post are “blog” posts from my denomination that are essentially pres release announcements: Bishop elected, Look at the work we’re doing. That said, if we eschew social media entirely for PR, do we miss opportunities to start conversations? Working on moving from making statements to asking questions may be the first step.
I think you’re so right! Getting to know people through their FB pages isn’t as powerful as talking face-to-face, but it totally shows people that we care. What if we made it a point to write on 10 perishioners walls every week, and then make it our goal to be sure we talk to them after church? They may not say so, but it will not only surprise them, but mean a lot. It’s one way we can show Christ to them.
At this point, no, my church does not use any social media. However, with that said part of the reason I took this class is to figure out if social media is something we want to use and if so how. As I have been blogging, researching other churches FB pages and websites, I have come to realize any sort of posting/pages I create will be to create interaction and not just a list of what we are doing. I’m currently considering using a FB group page to discuss the question I leave people with from my sermon that week. I would like to start seeing their thoughts and responses to my question of the week and maybe we can learn more about our community this way.