Yesterday we tried a social media experiment. We've been using our Facebook fan page and Twitter account mainly for distributing information. For Sunday worship, we tried to create a backchannel for discussing the sermon, both live and after the worship event. This is how we did it:
1. I sent out a message on Facebook to church members, asking them to access our Fan Page after worship and leave a comment, question, or insight about our worship.
2. On Twitter, I asked our tweeting church members to live-tweet the sermon, and to use a church-centered hashtag (#hrcc) at the end of their tweets. This means that as they had an insight, question, or response to the sermon, they posted it to their Twitter account as the sermon was being preached.
3. In connection with this, I sent out two introductory tweets from the church account. The first was a summary sentence for the sermon and a link to my sermon outline online. The second tweet was a link to the study notes I provided online.
4. During the sermon, one church member tweeted the main points of my sermon along with a link to the online outline and the church's hashtag (#hrcc).
5. After the sermon, I went back to Twitter, searched the #hrcc hashtag, and responded to the tweets so we could continue our dialogue. (You can read these tweets for yourself by going to Twitter Search and entering #hrcc.)
6. On Facebook, I read some replies that came through the messaging system as well as the comments that were placed on our Fan Page. I responded to these, again in an effort to keep the dialogue going.
We don't have a high percentage of members on Facebook, and even less are on Twitter. I'm still happy with our experiment and I plan to keep it up. I think it helped people engage the material better and it will facilitate community outside the weekly worship as we create a backchannel through which we can continue talking and tweeting with each other about God's word and its impact in our lives.
For those who were involved, what was your opinion? What feedback do you have? If you're just reading this, what questions do you have?
1. I sent out a message on Facebook to church members, asking them to access our Fan Page after worship and leave a comment, question, or insight about our worship.
2. On Twitter, I asked our tweeting church members to live-tweet the sermon, and to use a church-centered hashtag (#hrcc) at the end of their tweets. This means that as they had an insight, question, or response to the sermon, they posted it to their Twitter account as the sermon was being preached.
3. In connection with this, I sent out two introductory tweets from the church account. The first was a summary sentence for the sermon and a link to my sermon outline online. The second tweet was a link to the study notes I provided online.
4. During the sermon, one church member tweeted the main points of my sermon along with a link to the online outline and the church's hashtag (#hrcc).
5. After the sermon, I went back to Twitter, searched the #hrcc hashtag, and responded to the tweets so we could continue our dialogue. (You can read these tweets for yourself by going to Twitter Search and entering #hrcc.)
6. On Facebook, I read some replies that came through the messaging system as well as the comments that were placed on our Fan Page. I responded to these, again in an effort to keep the dialogue going.
We don't have a high percentage of members on Facebook, and even less are on Twitter. I'm still happy with our experiment and I plan to keep it up. I think it helped people engage the material better and it will facilitate community outside the weekly worship as we create a backchannel through which we can continue talking and tweeting with each other about God's word and its impact in our lives.
For those who were involved, what was your opinion? What feedback do you have? If you're just reading this, what questions do you have?
