I was reading over at Mashable a great article by Brian Solis the author Engage. He was giving 21 rules for Social Media Engagement. I spent sometime this morning reflecting on them. Me and my friend Huw Tyler over at ShareCreative have been considering and discussing Social Media and the pros and cons of it for a while now. Mainly because we feel the church has a massive opportunity to engage creatively in a medium that is spreading content like wild fire throughout the world (remind you of anything).
Social Media has become seen by organizations as a rich channel for them to connect with their markets. As I ready this article ’21 Rules for Social Media Engagement’ by Brian Solis I was struck by a few things.
1. Social media engagement is the ‘in’ thing to do be doing at the moment. Churches and Christian organizations are flocking to Twitter and Facebook in there droves, to engage better with there people.
2. Brian points a few key things that Church could consider before it engages with this medium. Firstly he says its ‘the intentions that motivate engagement’, if we motivated to engage just because everyone else is then social media becomes pointless and we won’t grasp the rich value that this engagement can have. Secondly he says ‘It’s a simple investment in visibility or presence’, this has been the issue in the church for way too long. We have not invested in getting out there and being involved in the great life that takes place in our communities. Social media doesn’t give complete this part of our calling it
only enbables to have a platform to being a deeper engagment with the culture and communities we all seek to bring the good news too.
more thoughts to come…