Once again I am going away this weekend. This time on an SUEU weekend away with the faculty that I lead. That is the amazing social work and education faculty. There are a few of us on the weekend that will be tweeting away, so check all of these tweets out in the nifty little box below.
This weekend we’re going to be learning about Justice, and these talks will be brought to us by Jeremy Smith, check out his blog here.
Hope you enjoy the Tweeting action!
Also, below the jump is a video I made telling people why they should come on the weekend. (o, and get ready for a stack of new videos here, I have a few more made that I need to upload.) Continue reading
This weekend is the final weekend of KYCK, and I’m going with a bunch of youth to Katoomba for the weekend to hear some talks on Ecclesiastes. I’m really looking forward to the weekend, it’ll be sweet!
I’m going to be Tweeting throughout the weekend and might even put up a blog post from my phone, but we’ll see how we go. If you want to follow my Tweets then you can here. Also, if you want to see all of the Tweets from KYCK, then go to this post by Dave Miers to see a list of all Tweets coming from KYCK.
Below is the advertising video for KYCK this year, and below that is a video I made reviewing KYCK from our youth group a few years ago.
KYCK is always a great weekend when thousands of young people are challenged by the gospel, the Christian message. Please join us in prayer, and if you haven’t been challenged yet, then read this.
Social media is worth putting effort into, WITB has had a lot of interaction based on social media.
Twitter, Facebook and blogs are all worthwhile (for Australia, Facebook appears to be the most effective)
The key to social media is perseverance. This is not a new lesson. WITB continued to persevere despite the fact that they still have less than 1000 Twitter followers.
If you have a great product, people will like it. The WITB DVDs are incredibly well made, if something isn’t well made then people wont want to share it.
Professional videos are great in introducing a product. A quick professional DVD (like this one) will start social media well, and videos are so easy to share these days.
Social media is effective in sharing information, and effective campaigns like this one can glorify God. I hope that Christians can learn from each other and effectively use technology to serve God.
What other lessons can we learn from the WITB social media campaign?
I have never seen a Christian social media campaign like the recent “What’s In The Bible?” campaign. (You can read about “What’s In The Bible?” here.)
For those who don’t know, social media refers to using the social aspects of the internet, where communication is two way. Social media includes Twitter, Facebook and blogs to name a few.
The “What’s In The Bible?” (WITB) campaign managed to effectively use social media, and here’s how they did it.
The Beginning
The campaign started with a blog, run by WITB. This blog was part of the website. You can view the blog here. This website and blog was the starting point of the WITB campaign, and from here they launched everything. Including a very helpful introduction video which explains the product. This video is very professional, you can view it below.
The Middle
From the beginnings of the blog came a launch of the 1000 challenge. This ws a challenge set by WITB to get 1000 sign ups to the email list, 1000 Facebook fans and 1000 Twitter followers.
This was the launch of their social networking, where they could communicate with people. Although WITB has not yet reached all of these goals (Currently have 4065 Facebook fans and 692 Twitter followers), I have been following the activity and have found the updates very helpful and informative. They have used these methods of communication very well.
More of the Middle
The next big push in the WITB social media campaign came with an effort to have many blogs review their material. This was called a blog tour (run by Tyndale House Publishers), this involved up to 100 blogs applying to review the first 2 DVDs in the series. Each successful applicant received a preview copy of the DVD, as well as 2 certificates to give away as part of the competition, each certificate for a DVD (photo). This led to many people reviewing and getting very excited by the DVDs.
Sounds good, eh?
It sounds good indeed. If only more Christian organisations/churches could learn from their use of WITB.
I often Tweet Bible verses that I have read and liked or Tweet about things that I learn from the Bible.
Recently in my quiet times I finished reading the book of Acts.
As I read back through what I have Tweeted it is encouraging to see Paul’s continued courage throughout his life. When God asked something of him he would always do it, and Paul spoke about Jesus relentlessly. He is a great example for us to follow in our own ministry!
Below are some Tweets about what I read.
“(One day) the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?”" Acts 19:15 http://bit.ly/bL4oyD
A man died as Paul went on and on. He fell asleep and fell out a window. In God’s mercy he was brought back to life! Acts 20
Paul didn’t hesitate to preach anything that would be helpful. He was bold, let’s follow his example. Acts 20
When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.” Acts 21:14 http://bit.ly/9thHp7
Twitter has a newish feature called lists. Twitter lists are best described as groups of people who are on Twitter.
Through Twitter lists, groups of people can find people together, and their tweets can all be seen on one timeline.
In Twitter you have the option to follow lists, now this doesn’t mean that you will see all of these tweets in your main timeline, but you will be able to see the timeline of the list that you are following easily.
If none of that makes sense, Mashable has a great “how to” about Twitter Lists here.
As a trial of Twitter lists, I have created an SUEU (Sydney Uni Evangelical Union) list. I have added all the people from the SUEU who I know are using Twitter. You can view it (and follow it) here. If you would like to be added to this list, or know somebody who should be added to the list, then please contact me or let me know in the comments.
I just experienced my first conference where a Twitter hashtag was used.
Hashtags are used on Twitter to group content together and make it easily searchable. This allows a group of people to use a hashtag to identify content together, and publicly share.
The hashtag used for the conference I was on was #runway2010. Follow the link to see all the tweets from the conference.
There were about 9 people using the hashtag, but I can see this taking off on future conferences, possibly with the integration of the hashtag in the conference via a tool such as TwitterCamp.
It’s great to have this ability as people can share what they have been learning from the talks, or share pictures that they have taken. And anybody can find and view and communicate with each other. I look forward to #ancon2010!
Below are some of the Tweets from the conference.
whartonag Another amazing, life changing day on#Runway2010. God is at work in my heart, my life, in my friends, in the ed faculty and on campus!
While searching through the interwebs, I found this cool stat counter for social media.
These stats further show how much churches and other Christian organisations need to get social media right! This means using Facebook, websites, Twitter (See 15 Ways for Churches to use Twitter), blogs and everything else, and using them well. For an example of a good social media campaign, check out what the guys at “What’s In The Bible?” are doing.
Once again I am going away this weekend. This time on an SUEU weekend away with the faculty that I lead. That is the amazing social work and education faculty. There are a few of us on the weekend that will be tweeting away, so check all of these tweets out in the nifty little box below.
