Jamie Schneider Domm Digital Strategist for the North American Division. The proper care and feeding of followers. Global social media usage is on the rise, and this year, 33% of the world’s population will be on social media (TrackMaven). Depending on how we respond to this reality, social media presents either a huge opportunity or a huge challenge for the gospel. Social media is a valuable tool for listening to the needs of your audience and building relationships. Simply having a social media presence is not enough anymore. Your audience expects a response when they engage with you online—often within a few hours. Your goal in using social media for ministry should be to ultimately understand and fulfill a need, making a tangible impact in the real world. This means listening and taking action on a daily basis. How your online followers perceive your ministry influences their perception of not only the Adventist Church corporately, but God. Your digital voice may be the only opportunity your followers have to see Christ’s love demonstrated in their life. Strong digital brands create connection and take a comprehensive approach to the member experience. Treat your members online as if you’re talking with them face-to-face. Their online interactions with you should make them want to experience your faith/mission in person. Then, when they to come for that onsite experience, it should be a continuation of the positive relationship you’ve built with them online. There should not be a disconnect between how a person is nurtured in the pews and how they are treated online, or vice-versa. Every opportunity to connect is an opportunity to advance the kingdom of God. Do not waste your digital influence. Social media provides a unique opportunity for long-term member care that can enhance and strengthen the relationships you cultivate with the members, as well as the community, your ministry serves. People search online for answers to their problems–what better place for the church to engage them?Your content may answer some of their needs or questions, but not all. Be the voice that answers back and engages with them in a meaningful way. According to the Q2 2016 Sprout Social Index, 90 percent of surveyed consumers have used social media in some way to communicate with a brand. What’s more, over a third (34.5 percent) said they preferred social media to traditional channels like phone and email. Member care includes addressing the negative. By being actively engaged online, you have the opportunity to turn negatives into positives by addressing issues and resolving problems promptly. This is especially relevant to younger generations who naturally turn to social media first to share their thoughts and feelings. Through a culture of online customer service and digital discipleship, you can build a reputation as an organization that truly cares about its members and the community it serves. Nearly half (46 percent) of people have used social media to “call out” or complain about a business. That number jumps even higher when you slice the data by generation. Unsurprisingly, millennials are quick to take their frustration to the keyboard—56 percent of them have complained or called out brands on social media. That means that millennials are 43 percent more likely to call out a brand on social media than other generations (sproutsocial). Do not underestimate the power of engagement. There’s no ROI (return on investment) without it!Invest the time; build a committee of digital disciples who are available to respond to comments and messages online promptly, while being human. That means engaging with a personal tone that conveys Christlike care. It will pay dividends for your mission. By living out our mission online and exemplifying the character of Christ, we can create social media ambassadors for the gospel, who eagerly share your content and messages. Social media interactions should be treated like a real-life conversation. Respond to your audience, share their content, and like their comments. Follow the conversation and actively participate. Seek to understand their needs, and respond in a meaningful way. Building relationships can impact brand awareness, trust, financial support, and more. Your goal should be to break down the perceived barrier between the individual and your corporate brand. Strive to be authentic and as transparent as possible. This is how you build trust. I believe that the next great awakening will be a digital one. We have the ability to preach and live-out the gospel in view of millions of people, so let’s do it. We need every single one of us to commit to being a digital disciple, using social media as a vehicle to reach out and care for God’s children. Some tips to get you started:
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Rachel Lemons Aitken Communications Executive of the Greater Sydney Conference and Founder of the Digital Discipleship Ministry of the Greater Sydney Conference In the wake of his father’s suicide, Gavin Larkin grappled with the realities of death. He wondered, “If this could happen to my father, am I susceptible to it as well?” He was not okay He looked back fondly at memories with his father and mentally replayed conversations. As a successful businessman, Barry Larkin had given no indication that he had been contemplating suicide. But the reality remained. Barry Larkin was not okay. After documenting the impact of this experience in a documentary in collaboration with Janina Nearn, the pair realized the documentary served to tell the story but wasn’t sufficient to build a movement. Building a movement “In 2009, Gavin Larkin chose to champion just one question to honor his father and to try and protect other families form the pain he endured.” “Are you ok?” This single question, in all of its simplicity, is powerful because of the intentionality behind it. It challenges a nation to ask a question that now shapes the way Australia views suicide prevention with the hope that it will “genuinely change behavior Australia-wide” R U OK Karen Mudge, author of a Bible Society article published in 2012 said that R U OK Day “fits naturally with our calling as Christians to care for each other and those around us.” Taking it one step further, R U OK day — its principles and intentionality — are especially pertinent to the Digital Discipleship movement: engaging with people online can be seen as a spiritual discipline. Engaging online as a spiritual discipline As Christians, we are familiar with the spiritual disciplines – if not as a collective than at least individually.
In order for these online encounters to happen, we must reach out. We must meet people where they are in the digital space. Much of life is lived online. While some see the online space as a public photo album, displaying pictures of kittens, vacations, clothes and food, others find the online experience cathartic. They find strength in speaking online that they wouldn’t have in person. They type away their sorrows, are often overly honest and send out digital distress signals. Sometimes, even their silence online can be a loud cry for help. The question is, is anybody listening? The R U OK Process R U OK Day prompts us to ask this simple but important question and gives us tools for how to ask it. As Digital Disciples, we are encouraged to be content creators, distributors and engagers. And as important as the creators and distributors are to the Digital Discipleship process, the engagers give humanity to a world of pixels, bits, bytes and code. Step 1 – Ask
First make sure you’re in a good headspace to ask. Start with something simple like “How are you going”. If something has caused you to be concerned, mention it specifically. If you receive a bit of pushback, just follow-up with a question to make sure things are really okay. Step 2 – Listen Listen genuinely to their answers. Don’t rush them and hold back any judgment you may feel. Follow-up with questions like, how did that make you feel? Step 3 – Encourage Action Ask them how you can support them in their situation. Prompt them to tell you how they’ve dealt with a similar situation in the past. Share how you’ve dealt with similar situations. (Sometimes the situation may be too big for you to deal with alone. In this case, bring along an expert to help. Check out this link for resources for expert help). Step 4 – Check in Putting a reminder in your diary will prompt you to follow-up. Keep in touch and continue to show genuine care and concern. (For the full guidelines to How to Check-in, visit the R U OK resource page.) A Lifestyle For much of the nation, today’s focus on the health and well-being of their co-worker, cousin or online friend will soon fade. It will be lost when the celebrities stop appearing frequently in yellow, when the pamphlets have been distributed and the commercials have run their cycle. For Digital Disciples, engaging in genuine conversations online with our friends, family and strangers is a lifestyle modeled after Jesus’ life. It gives us permission and intentionality in our questions and it gives us purpose behind why we’re asking them. So as you reach out today to ask R U OK, ask yourself how you can exercise the spiritual discipline of engaging online with your community with intentionality and purpose in order to grow God’s kingdom not just today, but every day. Who will you reach out to to ask R U OK, and how can you build relationship with them and meet the needs they may have? Re-posted with permission from digitaldisciples.info. Jamie Schneider Digital Strategist for the North American Division. You find a blog, video, or social media post about your organization. How should you respond?
We've created this guide to help social media managers navigate the sometimes complicated waters of digital engagement and member care. Feel free to download and share with your team! |
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