Social Networking and the Church Part 1

For some reason I have been speaking a lot lately about social networking and the church. God has given me some really good ideas about how to use social networking and I have tried some things that just have not panned out. So for the Friday series I thought I would give you guys an idea on the success DP has had with social media and the things that just did not work. Please remember that social media is about interacting and connecting with people not advertising. Social Media and the church should be a long term effort and not a short term fix. I fyou are expecting to out up a facebook group tell your member about it and expect them to run right to and tell all of their friends. It just does not work that way. So understand when I write about these things in social media that we have tried they are a ongoing experiment and my finding may not be the same as your findings.

Facebook Group
When you use social media you must have plan in mind going into it. Youy can't just throw something up there and expect it ot work. The purpose behind the Discover Point Facebook Group is to 1. Give people who are searching a place to connect with us before they come to church 2. Give our regulars a place where we could meet during the week and interact with each other. Please don't misunderstand me I don't want this groupto replace real face to face interaction but as busy as we all are it is nice to have a place you can talk to everyone at once (through the wall post or message board). We also use it as one of many mediums to send inforamtion to people of Discover Point (Through the group email). The most important reason it exsist though is so people have a place to meet us before they come to church. Millions of people are on Facebook. We all have 100's freinds on Facebook. Some of them are searching. If they are already comfortable using the facebook medium then it is a perfect place for our regulars to invite their freinds to come and meet us. They can look at video and pictures and get comfortable with us before they visit us. Now you nmight ask isn't that what a website is for? Sure but like I said they are already on Facebook . Why should we not give people as many outlets as we can to get to know us better. Those are my thoughts What are yours?