Future Implications

Relevant. It’s the title of a Christian magazine, and a concept that drives the social media strategy of many churches and non-profits.  How can we be relevant while maintaining a sense of mission and purpose? How do we engage the world without getting swept away by it? The implications of the growing connectedness of the world through technology are huge. Christian leaders in the marketplace must not only be aware of the changes, but have strategies in place to face them.

Social media strategy is NOT:

• A one-and-done strategy
• A church mandate
• A replacement for communication strategy

Social media strategy IS:

• Organic
• A God-given tool to be relevant
• An integral part of communication strategy

New social applications may develop and current social applications may change. The role of the digital communicator is all the more important in churches today. I am not saying that every church needs to go out and hire a social media manager. I am saying that people in leadership at every church ought to have an awareness of and a strategy for social media engagement. Check out Sarah Folmar’s blog post on How to Get Your Church Staff Involved in Social Media Engagement, for starters. She mentions visibility, sharing, and posting as integral parts to a social strategy.

If anyone doubts the relevance of a social strategy, share some of these statistics:

• There are more people in the world that own a mobile device than there are those who own a toothbrush
• Grandparents are the fastest growing “demographic” on Twitter
• 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations

Check out more stats on the following video, “Social Media Revolution 2015:”

Social media is becoming the very medium by which our society communicates. It is a tool to aid the church in fulfilling the Great Commission and reaching the maximum number of souls on earth. So how does a church marketer go about addressing this groundswell of technology and ideas? I think that Bernhoff and Li phrase it well in the book Groundswell:

1. Remember that the groundswell is about the person
2. Be a good listener
3. Be patient
4. Be opportunistic
5. Be flexible
6. Be collaborative
7. Be humble

If we seek to do the above, we can be all the more effective in our time here below. Don’t get caught up in the complexities or niceties of the technologies; let’s keep things simple and use what we’ve been given to reach as many people as we can.