Using Facebook and Twitter to Enhance GroupLife

One of the most important cultural trends right now is the widespread use of social media.  And before you think it’s only for teens, a February 2009 report showed that the fastest growing segment on Facebook was women over 55.  A March 2009 report showed that the biggest growth by segment was users over 35 (which doubled).  What’s the message?  If you’re not using Facebook, you’re missing out on a way to connect and communicate with the adults in your congregation.

Now that we’ve settle that…how will you use Facebook?  There are at least a couple ways you should be considering.  First, it’s easy to set up your own Facebook account.  In addition, Facebook has made it pretty easy to create a page for your church or pages for your multisite church.

LifeChurch.tv has recently unveiled a Facebook page for each of their campuses, allowing the individual campus to provide better communication about campus specific events and activities.  For example, the Oklahoma City campus of LifeChurch.tv already had its own home page within the main website (here it is).  They also now have a Facebook page devoted to campus specific goings on (here it is).

Along with a post on their own Facebook journey, LifeChurch.tv has also released a series of training videos on how to post an event or activity on your Facebook page.  You’ll also find a step-by-step series by Nick Shoemaker at ChurchCrunch that will make it even easier for you to move to Facebook.

In addition to being able to post campus specific events and activities, Facebook offers a very important advantage.  Anytime you add an event it will send a message to everyone who is a fan.  Can your regular website do that?  If more and more of your adults are already online and connected, why not take advantage of that?

Twitter has a related benefit in that it allows you to tweet a short update (140 characters max) that is received by everyone who “follows” you.  It can be easily updated from a cell phone, making it a great way to send an intraday message to everyone who follows you…and you don’t have to be at a computer.  In addition, because the Twitter follower determines how they receive updates from you…they don’t necessarily have to be at a computer to get the update.  It can be set to come to their phone.

Like Facebook, you can have a separate personal and church account on Twitter.  It’s super easy to get started.  And it’s free.

You can follow me on Twitter right here and Facebook right here.  I hope you’ll come along.  More importantly, I hope you’ll take advantage of Facebook and Twitter to enhance group grouplife in your church!  Already using them?  Let me know in the comments and I’ll follow you!

If you missed my article on Using Technology to Enhance GroupLife, you can read it right here.