Social Media and Ministry
Bethel University & Converge 2012 Biennial
Peggy Kendall, Bethel University
& Mark Kraakevik, The EDGE Church, Colorado
Session Overview
• Survey results
• Creating a social media fit
• New ideas to try out
Survey Results
• Survey Purpose
• Online survey January,
2012
• 103 churches
(56 Converge churches)
Church Size
# of churches that fit each category
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0-250
250-500
500-1,000
1000-5000
Over 5000
Church Place
% of Churches
in Each Place
Urban
20%
Rural & Small
Town
30%
Suburban
50%
Primary Type of Attenders
Children & Youth
6%
Young Adults
9%
Seniors
29%
Middle Age
56%
# of Churches Identifying Their Primary Age Group
Use of Social Media
% of Churches That Use Regularly
100
80
60
40
20
0
Sr. Pastor Church
Facebook Facebook
Twitter
Blog
E-Mail
Blast
Private
SM
Platform
Perceived Effectiveness of
Social Media
5-pt Likert Type Scale:
5
4
3
2
1
0
Sr. Pastor Facebook
Church FacebookTwitter
Blog
E-Mail Blasts
Private Platform
Facebook Pages
• Person or
Organization?
• Large Organization or
Smaller Ministries?
• Relationship Building
or Marketing?
Sr Pastor Facebook
• Relevance
• Accessible
• “Having our Senior Pastor have a Facebook page, he is
able to share not only sermon topics, scripture verses and
visions for our church, but he is able to be a "regular" guy
by sharing his heart about his wife, his children, sporting
events, travels.”
• Uses
• “He only uses it to wish people ‘happy birthday.’“
• Boundaries
• “This is her social page. Not any church related stuff there”
Church Facebook Page
About how many times per month does a staff person or
volunteer post something on the church's Faceb...
20
0
0 to 4
(01/week)
5 to 12
(23/week)
13-20
(45/week)
21-30
(almost
every day)
31-100
Church Facebook Page
• Traffic Success: “All generations in our church tend to benefit …that
it doesn't work as a singular method of communication.”
• Traffic Failure: “We have had some response to questions asked or
people responding to events we have posted but traffic is not as
high as we would like.”
• Management Problems: “Poor management, do not have a person
who has taken on responsibility for this as a passion”
• Uses: “We post about large events as reminders, and add some
photos from events.”
• Uses: “80% of those who "like" our churches facebook page are
former attenders who have moved away but would love to stay in
touch with our church.”
Twitter
• Average use: 1 time a day
• Least effective of surveyed tools
• Management: “Twitter is a quick, concise way to say much.
We have some of our pastors who pre-select tweets and
then schedule those tweets to be posted through the day or
week.”
• Audience: “95% of our twitter followers are other ministry
professionals, non-profits, or twitter bots. Very few of our
congregation members have twitter, use twitter, etc.”
• Uses: “Not much interaction.”
• Uses: “Twitter is used primarily as a push to our blogs or
website.”
Blogs
• Average 1 new blog per week (some churches 1
per month and a few 30-40 times per month)
• Uses: “Encouragement and for further input on
sermons. Not a whole lot of response on the
blog”
• Uses: “We post blog posts on certain seasons in
the church calendar (i.e advent, lent).”
• Management: “The lead individual provides the
most posts and then others with blogs share as
well”
Mass E-Mails
• Usually once per week
• Perceived as most effective social media tool
• Reach: “Only about 3 families do not have an email account, so it is
a great form of communication for our church.”
• Uses: “We send out a weekly Friday email with announcements.
Special events, or registrations also are sent out in their own email.
The pastor sends out emails to the congregation related to prayer
or special events about twice a month.”
• Problems: “They're effective for quickly getting out a mass
message, but email also greatly contributes to the noise, and when
too many different people/ministry areas use it, can muddy the
message and clarity of our communications.”
Specialized Social Media Platforms
• “The Table Project” or
“The City”
• Provides a private area
for congregational
prayer and service
requests
Marketing Preferences
If your church was going to promote an event, which
would be the primary social media tool used?
Website
Text-Messaging
E-Mail Blast
Church Facebook Page
Sr Pastor Facebook Page
0
10
20
30
40
Other Social Media
•
•
•
•
•
•
YELP!, Four Square
Text-messaging
Text-polling
QR codes
YouTube
E-Mail PrayerNET
Interesting Findings
1. Blogs:
the more children in the congregation, the less effective
the blogs are perceived to be; the older the congregation,
the more effective
2. Church Facebook:
the more young adults, the greater the likelihood that the
church will have a church Facebook page
3. “Social” media:
the more young adults, the more the church uses social
media in a 2-way fashion; the more middle aged adults,
the more 1-way messages are used
4. No effect based on size or location of church
What Works?
– Announcements
– Prayer Requests
– Sermon follow-up
– Stories
– Build capital campaign momentum
– Videos of worship songs, sermons & marketing
campaigns
– Volunteer opportunities
– Event follow-up with pictures
– Follow-up connections w/ non-Christians (as a
result of questions or comments)
What are Problems With Social
Media?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Can’t use just one
Misunderstandings can happen easily
Some people are more private than others
Technical problems & mismatch with adoption levels
Inactivity and lack of monitoring
Inappropriate comments
Inappropriate self-disclosure (especially prayer
requests)
• Time
Advice
• Target your audience and speak to each audience
differently
• Consistency & branding
• You need a champion
• Don’t be discouraged by silence
• Proofread
• Keep it short
• Use the tools to build relationships
• “Just Try it!”
TENSIONS
Tensions
• Marketing vs.
Relationship building
• F2F vs. Virtual
• Authority vs
Collaboration
• Church vs. Everywhere
• Pastor vs Friend
Tensions: What is your goal?
Marketing vs.
Relationship Building
• Media
• “Social” Media
• Web 1.0 or 2.0?
–1-Way or 2-Way
–Static or Fluid
–Text-based or Visual
Tensions: How do we connect?
F2F vs. Virtual
Conversations
• What do we lose?
• What do we gain?
– Accessibility
– Control
– Momentum
• Ministry
– Information gathering
– Reverent affirmation
– Conversations
Tensions: Who is in charge?
Authority vs
Collaboration
• Changing View of Authority
• 2-way communication=loss
of control
• Problems
– Many voices
– Loud voices
• Opportunities
– Buy-in
– Meeting needs
Tensions: Where is ministry?
Church vs. Everywhere
• Changing Role of Place
– Community
– Here & now
– Mobile technology
• Problems for everywhere
– Less committed
– Community building
– Boundaries of work and home
• Opportunities
– People see in
– Integrates life
Tensions: Who am I?
Pastor vs
Facebook Friend
• The great equalizing
effect
• Opportunities
– Humanize
– Starting point
• Problems
– Boundaries
– Respect
Strategy
•
•
•
•
Who is your audience?
What media are they using?
What is your goal?
How virtual do you want to
get?
• How much control do you
want to give up?
• Where is your ministry
located?
• How much do you want to
share?
Basic Social Media Tools
Resources
Social Media Ministry:
– Click to Save; Tweet if you Love Jesus (both by
Elizabeth Drescher)
Social Media Marketing:
– Church Marketing Sucks.com
– Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies
Get People Talking by Andy Sernovitz
– Groundswell by Li & Bernoff
Misc. Good Books:
– Reboot: Refreshing Your Faith by Peggy Kendall 