For 50-64 year olds, use of social networking sites has increased by 88 percent since last year. And for those older than 65, it has doubled. (Pew Internet)

From the same report, one in five online adults ages 50-64 use social networking sites to update statuses on a typical day. This is up 10% from last year.

Twitter use has also increased. In 2009 only  5% of internet users ages 50-64 updated their status on Twitter. Currently  11% of the same age group use Twitter as part of their daily routine.

What does this mean for churches with older congregation members? It means that older generations are adapting to newer ways of communicating. A year ago, we talked about reaching your congregation through multiple forms of communication. With older generations now using social networks to communicate on a daily routine, it is more acceptable to use these forms to communicate with your congregation. Did your life just get easier? I don’t know…but it is converging and will hopefully continue to do so.  It opens the door to more conversations throughout the week to engage your congregation. Experiment with it and see what happens…you might be surprised!

Of course, a good old phone call or hand written letter never hurts once in awhile.

Photo By: webtreats

Kids are back in school…the weather is cooling off (well, not in Austin), leaves are changing, fall programs are kicking off and the fall/winter routine is settling in.

Here are some of our favorite blog posts from August…in case you missed them.

We hope you enjoy and would love to hear feedback from you on things you would like to see on the blog.

• Communication Tools to Make or Break you
• What if We Let Our Churches Fail
• Blog Review: 40 Ways You Can Invite People to Church
• What You Need to Know About Facebook’s New “Places” Feature
• The Tremendous Power of Social Media
• Simplicity
• Confessions of a News Junkie
• Made to Be You
• Real Faces of Facebook

Photo By: peasap

When thinking about what works for your audience, what all do you take into consideration?  Do you consider where they spend their time and energy…or wonder what works better for you?  It’s always easy to do what is easy and natural for us, but we must always think about how our audience is receiving the message. Many argue the medium versus message point…the thought that the medium is just as important as the message itself.

How we say things is just as important as what we are saying.  If our only method of ministry is printed on paper that goes in the trash, how effective is it? Or, if our ministry only lives online and doesn’t have the application of people loving each other face-to-face, we’re missing it.

There are more and more ways to communicate with our community, visitors and members.  It’s just a matter of being intentional and communicating in languages they are already speaking.

See Steve’s top 5 of 13 listed below:

Twitter

Facebook

Youtube

Vimeo

Wufoo forms

Do any of these fall into your top communication tools?  If not, what are the top applications in your list?  We’d love to have a list to share with other pastors and ministry leaders!

Photo By: Ivan Walsh

But…one thing I learned right from the start was that you could wear whatever “face” you wanted on Facebook. You could create who you wanted to be…call it your “virtual self,” if you will.

Over the last few years the idea of building a personal brand and even a commercial brand has been a huge discussion. We ask ourselves, “How do we want others to perceive us?”  Once we answer that question, we make adjustments to our “virtual selves” hoping that people will perceive us the way we want….whether or not that’s really who we are.

I recently watched the movie, Inception, with Leonardo DiCaprio, and I won’t spoil the movie for you because I think it was fantastic and it kept my attention the entire 2 hours and 45 minutes….which is really maybe a record for me. I have a very short attention span when it comes to movies. Not the point…The whole movie is based on perceptions and trying to get people to think/dream what you want them to.

This started my thinking process on reality vs. virtual…who we really are vs. how we want people to perceive us. Hopefully you’re still following me.

As a church, it’s easy to put on our “face” of who we should be so that visitors perceive us how we want to be perceived…but often it’s not really who we are.  In regards to a church’s online presence, be vulnerable and let people see the real “you.”  Vulnerability builds trust. If the church is the body of Christ (you/me) then the church’s online presence is represented by each one of us.

Let your church’s Facebook page/ Twitter feed/ website represent the real church. Don’t put on a mask…be real.

Photo By: Ethan Bloch

Other applications comparable to this feature include Gowalla and Foursquare.

The feature also allows users to tag their friends in their location and allows users to see which of their friends are nearby.

Here’s what Facebook says about the new application.

There are several privacy settings you can choose for this application. Under your privacy settings in your Facebook account, you can choose:

1. Who you want to allow to see the places you’ve checked into- if anyone.
2. If you want to allow others to tag you in places they have checked into.

The places feature works with the newest version of the iPhone Facebook application or if your smartphone supports HTML 5 and geolocation.

If you’re been using this feature, what do you think about it?

If you haven’t been using this feature, why not?

What are your overall thoughts/concerns about this feature?

Photo By: Spencer E Holtaway

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1. Five Ways to Ruin Your Website- Well, self explanatory, really.
2. Ways Social Media has been used for the Good of Others- a positive look into some different ways social media has had a positive effect.
3. First Impressions- Site that needs graphic work receives a B- a rating of one church’s website and some tips on what works and what doesn’t.
4. Lessons from the Apple iPhone 4- Asking the question of “Why do we focus on the minute details of things and allow it to ruin the entire experience?”
5. Fall Events- Some tips on planning fall events for your church
6. Blog Review: Green Stop Signs in Church Marketing- a review from a post from Church Marketing Sucks and some points on keeping your marketing material content clean and correct.
7. 10 Tips for Leaving Comments on Blog Posts- A few things we think everyone should know when leaving comments.
8. Nothing New Under the Sun- Nothing is new- but how can we take the old and think about it in a new way?
9. Blog Review: The Gathered and Scattered Church Online – Some points to help “scatter” your church online.
10. My 100th Blog Post- Laura shares her favorite posts since she started writing for MediaOutreach.

Photo By: Beverly & Pack

Photo By: rachaelvoorhees

1. Laziness – sitting back and watching the digital world pass by is no way to cast your vision.  Glean your pages for old content.  A monthly audit is the least you can do. You don’t even have to leave your recliner to update the website.  If you’re not updating the site more than at least once a month, chances are the site is not a tool for your ministry or outreach.  Remember, the quality of the website is a direct reflection of the quality of your ministry.
2. Tight Purse Strings – refuse to redesign.  While budget is always a consideration, the industry standards for a redesign are every year and a half.  So, if your budget is not one that allows for a redesign every 18 months, go ahead and alter it to plan accordingly.  The average redesign is between $895 and $2000 depending on features, design, etc.  If you split it up into monthly savings, it’s only $50 to $111 a month.  If you don’t value your web presence, no one else will.
3. Do it Because You Can – not all flash or graphics will accomplish your goals and meet your vision.   Have you ever been to someone’s house that saved every magazine, newspaper, book, trinket, souvenir, t-shirt and toy they ever got and displayed them?  It’s overwhelming.  You feel cluttered and uneasy.  Your website should be no different.  Just because you found a website with free flash downloads, or you know someone that makes flash for you cheaply, doesn’t mean you need to place it online.  Oh, and if your website has flying doves, crosses or any other java creature fluttering on the screen, it’s time to lay them to rest….in peace.
4. Give Reigns Over to Every Volunteer – while it is beneficial to have ministry leaders control the content area, it is vital to maintain continuity from page to page.  Setting up a table structure, or typing up general guidelines to remind people of the website vision will keep the website looking professional.  Having a chosen font, text color, image size and general layout will help your volunteer as well.  I know your time is precious as a leader, so I’m not asking that you take the website over…just drop those vision and formatting reminders every few months.
5. Assume Traffic Will Flood to Your Site – just because you told all your friends and organization members about your site over email one time, your website will not maintain traffic without significant intentionality.  At this day in age, social networking and blogging aren’t just “nice ways to connect with people.” They are vital tools that can boost traffic to your site, while reaching people that would never just stumble upon your website.  Don’t assume that signing up on a social network alone will do the trick. It will take strategy and a little time each week. But that time will more than pay off.  Check out these articles to help with your social media and blogging strategy.

It’s a good thing faithHighway has a team of over a dozen consultants waiting to help you with a new website or keeping up your current one. Give them a call. It could make all the difference in the world…

New to fH?  Call 877.703.2484 and press 1.
Current client? Call 877.703.2484 and dial your consultant’s extension.

Photo By: Zevotron

I’m going to be a little bit of a narcissist today and share with you a few of my favorite blogs posts. If you haven’t read them, you might enjoy going back and reading some of them.

• Divergence- a look at examples in society and how the Church can use this idea to further the ministry.
• Learning about Twitter- some tips on writing tweets and using Twitter
• #CatWest- Tweeting Twitters- I completed an experiment using Twitter and this is what happened.
• Twitter and the Church- an interview with Bill Reichart and Jason Gordon on how they are using Social Media in their churches.
• 6 ways my church is using the web and social media- some ideas on ways your church can incorporate social media into some everyday activities.
• Mobile Websites- does your church have one?- Some interesting stats on how Americans are connecting and viewing websites. Has your church thought about this?
• Top Terms used in Facebook Statuses in 2009- This had some very interesting stats on what people were talking about.
• Q&A with Hopewell Baptist Church about their Facebook Page- One church shared their experience with us on how their facebook pages has been used to help the ministry.
• Ways Social Media has been used for the Good of Others-  It’s not always pessimistic. There are some great things happening

Thanks to everyone for your comments, emails and Twitter replies.  I love hearing your thoughts and look forward to more!

Photo By: Smabs Sputzer