Podcast: Download (Duration: 27:50 — 12.7MB)

Why should churches and pastors use social media? It’s a question I still hear from more pastors than not, even though the impact of social media can be as great as being a factor for overturning the government of Egypt, and shaping the political conversations of this election year, to name a few. DJ Chuang, host of Social Media Church podcast, starts on a conversation on these 5 things and invites your thoughts:

1. What is the value of social media for churches?
2. perspective on survey, “How churches use social media”
3. social engagement on Facebook
4. Onlinechurch.com
5. thinking about this podcast

Show Notes ::

Social Media Church episode 5 with Vince Marotte

Josh Burns: Measuring Success for Social Media in Your Church

Buzzplant survey “How churches use social media” published at Mashable.com

Justin Wise: “websites with a blog get 55% more traffic than those sites that don’t“, citing a 2009 HubSpot survey

social media milestone on October 4th, 2012: One Billion People on Facebook

Facebook Tells Brands the Percentage of Fans Who See Their Posts = 16% (mashable.com, May 2012)

Facebook Pages Only Reach 17% Of Fans (allfacebook.com)

Facebook EdgeRank 101 #infographic

6 Tips to Increase Your Facebook EdgeRank and Exposure (socialmediaexaminer.com)

Nils Smith’s iMinistry 2012 notes

onlinechurch.com

Social Media Church episode 2 with Nils Smith

PageData’s list of top Facebook pages “Most Talked About” in the Church/Religion category

Facebook page of Smoky Mountain Christian Village

And a postscript (that I wanted to say on this episode but forgot in the moment): what’s been (pleasantly) surprising is how much variety there is for how churches are using social media. This shows me that social media really are communication tools that can be used in so many creative ways. And the first step is to start. You’ll learn so much as you go, and like a treadmill, once you start, you’ll have to keep up and keep on learning.