March 18, 2009 - 9:17am
Go with Facebook strengths.
I find the same things happen to our ministry. Facebook has many features, but people do not look at the features, or they are not interested in the features. I think if you focus on the wall, photos, events, and even short emails your church Facebook page will be more active. For some reason, forums do not work in Facebook.
Tim
March 18, 2009 - 9:30am
I feel ya on this one. I
I feel ya on this one. I think online communities are just a hard thing for some people to grasp. We have a older congregation and I think some of them only get online maybe once a week to check emails and thats pretty much the extent of their online activities. Might be able to get some to read articles or listen to a sermon online but to engage in conversation through a group or forum.....yeah....ain't happening at least with the peeps at my church.
Not to discourage you from trying, but sometimes online communities don't work for every group.
March 18, 2009 - 4:30pm
March 18, 2009 - 6:11pm
Thank you all for your
Thank you all for your comments.
Tim, I think you're right about people not wanting to use the features. I think alot of people use facebook as a toy or a way to catch up with old friends from school. I see a lot of reunion initiatives right now. It's alot of small talk, and not alot of serious stuff. You're probably right about focusing on things like the wall, pictures, events and short messages - it's easier for people.
About events. Does your church make an event of everything that's going on in your church on week basis, or just the special events? I'm not sure what's best...
One of my friends, a pastor in another church, creates alot of events in his church-group on FB, but no one joins them. He's thinking of it as a reminder for people, kind of a calendar. Maybe he has a point, but is it worth spending time adding all these events, when you can put a link to the calendar on the church website?
On the other hand: If people joins these events on FB it has potential. It's a great way to show other people that our faith is important, that we spend time going to church and could make an opportunity to talk to them about it.
My congregation is a mix of all ages. On Facebook we have people between age 13 and 67. There's a bit difference in how the different age-groups uses FB and it really suprises me that no one wants to do anything with the church group.
Now that I come to think of it, alot of christian forums in Denmark have a hard time. There's a few that has quite some activity, but also serveral that has very little. Maybe it's a cultural issue? Maybe I'm the weird guy that wants to use online communications ;)
Anthony, your comment is interesting. I've never thought about linking "real-world" communication and online communications together, but it makes alot of sense to me. Thank you for sharing that - I'll definately take that with me.
March 30, 2009 - 11:40am
March 30, 2009 - 1:02pm
Hi!
I'm Anders from Denmark. I'm 24 years old, I'm a geek and I'm studying Communications at Copenhagen Institute of Technology. I've been a listener for some time now, and I really appreciate what you do. It's very inspiring for me.
I listened to the last episode yesterday and you talked about doing a Facebook episode. I've recently created a group for my church on FB. I contacted the leaders of my church and they gave me permission to create an "unofficial" group. "Unofficial" in as they didn't want to use ressources to run it. I was hoping the group could be some kind of forum where church-goers could interact, discuss ideas, get to know each-other in another way - maybe even start new relations between people who never would talk to each other in the church. I was also thinking that this was a great way of showing our facebook friends that our belief means something to us. It would make it all more visible, and I want to stand up for my faith and be visible, even on FB.
I've tried making forum-posts in the churchgroup asking people to think of ways to make good use of the group, but I didn't get a single reaction. I'm wondering if it's because I use FB and the web in another way than most people at my church. Maybe online community just doesn't work for this group of people?
Should I keep encouraging people to take part in this project or just let it go? Do you have any suggestions on how to get this kind of thing working? :)
You've been talking church community websites in several episodes, and I wonder if you guys have any ideas on how to get people to use theese kinds of things? I'm starting to think that it might not work for all churches. I don't know - maybe you could talk a bit about this?
I hope you can use some of these thoughts :)
God bless you.
- Anders