Get the pulse on what the community is saying about your church or youth ministry using some simple and free tools that monitor what gets posted to the web.
Use Twilert to get an email when someone uses Twitter that includes a keyword you set up, and use Google Alerts when someone updates a blog or a website in the same way. You could also bookmark a keyword Twitter search page or bookmark a Google blog search page that keeps a real-time eye on things, too.
When you see someone Twitter or about your church or ministry, here’s some ideas on how you could respond:
- someone Twitters about their first time visiting your church – ask if they enjoyed it or had any questions. Encourage them to come back and/or find a service style that might be better for them.
- if someone has a question about your church – find them the answer and shoot it back to them as soon as you can.
- If someone posts generally about your church in a blog post, at least leave them a comment to let them know you read their post.
- If there’s some information in an article or website that is in error, contact the website and give them the correct information.
I like what Guy said recently about responding on Twitter:
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People are pissed: help them out
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People are confused: help them out
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People who have questions: help them out
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People are happy: ask them to spread the word
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Lots of companies are doing this now (here’s a couple of studies on Hulu, Popeyes and Zappos) – I even got a Tweet from Motorola when I upgraded my Q9c. Do you have another idea on how to use these tools? Post it in the comments!
JG
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Josh Griffin has been in youth ministry for 15+ years and serves as the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church. [
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Geoff Stewart serves the Jr / Sr High School Pastor at Peace Portal Alliance Church in Surrey B.C.
Have tried http://www.monitter.com? It let’s you set up several key words in the website and watch when anyone is using those keywords in their tweets. It keeps updating as they come along. Pretty cool. Where I have found several apps and ideas for what’s going on in youth ministry and how Twitter is being used for youth ministry.
I like Facebook better because you can comment on virtually everything that people have. I have done so much comment ministry through my facebook friends and the list keeps on going.
I am becoming more and more intrigued with Twitter everyday. It helps me keep plugged in to what other ministry specialists are doing.
The uses you mentioned only underline my thought: that we, as the church, haven’t even scratched the surface of social media.
Great idea…I signed up for both. Here is a question: Are students (JH / HS) using twitter or Facebook? It seems like the college / adult leaders are using Facebook and the staff are using twitter but the students are still “stuck” in MySpace?
I am just speaking for our ministry…anybody else have any thoughts on it?
Doug Fields said the same thing at lunch today … Facebook is definitely becoming the new MySpace from my perspective though.
JG