Tag: social media

Social media hacks for your website

Getting on a little bit of a technology bent lately…

There are tons of plugins you can get for your website or blog that allow your readers to share your posts on a number of social network sites. But my experience has been that often those plugins can cause havoc on your servers for one reason or another – or bog your site down in general.

But there are alternatives to using plugins — and these will work for WordPress site, or anywhere on any site that utilizes PHP.
Continue reading Social media hacks for your website

Social media’s impact and the Church

Saw this video over on Jonathan Brink’s site…

Social media continues to have a HUGE impact on the world around us — but I’m not sure it’s having the same impact on the Church. It seems that most people are still reluctant to share their online lives with their church body. There may be some folks within our faith communities with whom we’ll share things with — but overall I haven’t seen folks sharing their lives with everyone within the community.

In other words, folks may be willing to share their thoughts, pictures etc with me (which is great) but they don’t seem willing to do the same with pages that are more public and available to the community as a whole.

I wonder if our community is simply asking the wrong questions, not educating our peeps, or if people are just scared to share their lives and experiences with their church community in general.

When folks are open and sharing — I’ve seen relationships improve and grow tremendously. But when we remain behind walls (online or offline) its hard to imagine any relationship growing as it should.

No matter what, I don’t think any community should be solely dependent upon online sharing. The online must go offline as well. But I think the online world can truly expand and improve the offline.

But what are you seeing? Are you seeing your faith community really growing online? Are your peeps taking part in Twitter, Facebook pages, Flickr etc.?

Share some insight.

Five things I did during the Great Crash of 2009

So when I suggested earlier this week that perhaps we should all have a dark day from time to time I didn’t mean for Twitter to take it personally – especially not during the work week.

Could have done without their servers (and Facebook and Friendfeed) crashing yesterday — but looks like we survived.

  • Found out about new blog posts via old fashioned RSS — instead of everyone’s Twitter updates
  • Forwarded emails with “RT @username” in the subject line
  • Posted a status update directly on Facebook for a change
  • Pasted a picture of the Fail Whale on my computer monitor hoping to cover up the dreaded 404 error messages
  • Sent txt messages to all my friends telling them “I’m eating quesadillas for #lunch”

What did you do during the social media crash of 2009?

Here’s what the folks over at Woot.com did… (and there list is far better than mine)

Kingdom (social) media done well

Wanted to highlight a few folks/groups that have really impressed me as of late in putting social media to great use for The Kingdom.

The first is Trinity Wall Street.

While their site itself is not full of social media tools – @headphonaught passed along a great way they’re telling the story of Jesus the Messiah today.

From noon to 3 p.m. today they twittered the entire passion story of Jesus’ last hours on the cross via GroupTweet.

friend

via @tc226: This man befriends prostitutes, washes the feet of the poor – surely he is not a King but a blasphemer.

and the part of the story I’ve been meditating on today…

curtain

via @ServingGirl: Darkness and earthquake. I heard the curtain in the temple was torn in two. I wonder…

If you missed the story/play visit their twitter stream and scroll back to follow the story from the beginning.

Next, Church in the Cliff, which is just north of me in Oak Cliff has launched their new site built around lots of great social media tools.

citc

The site itself is limited in wordy information. Other than the blog on the site, there’s only one other page on the site itself, a brief about us page.

The front page highlights their Flickr group, a tab/link to their Facebook group and one to their Twitter feed as well. They’re also using YouTube and a weekly Lifestream.

As a side note, Church in the Cliff has also come up with a great creative, transformative way to share God’s story this Resurrection season as well. They’ve put together an entire Stations of the Cross, using DART rail stations in Dallas. There’s a meditation guide on their site for folks and they’ll have their folks stationed at different areas to help add in the process. (although at the moment I can’t seem to find the PDF for downloading 🙁) .

Finally, I’d be amiss if I didn’t mention Mark Horvath (aka @hardlynormal and @invisiblepeople). We had Mark on our show a few weeks back. He’s putting social media to use in big ways, telling the stories of “invisible people” and the homeless and the media. Just look at his list of accounts:

So there are a few folks who are doing Kingdom (social) media well. Follow them, get inspiration and then find your own unique ways to tell God’s story.

Who else have you seen that’s putting social media to great use?

Students protest

Students from Irving, Dallas, Plano and Mesquite ISD protested at City Hall for a 2nd day today.

The students were protesting new measures discussed by the House to make helping illegal immigrants a crime.

Many Hispanic leaders are asking the students to remain in school now, after two days of walk-outs and protest on Saturdays and Sundays.

After thousands of North Texas students left classes for a second day in response to proposed legislation that would make it a felony to enter the country illegally or to help illegal immigrants, community leaders issued a plea Tuesday afternoon for the students to take more “constructive” action.
In a quickly-arranged news conference in City Hall’s Flag Room, the leaders talked about the need for students to end the walkouts, and gave several students the opportunity to speak about their feelings.
“The walkouts have been very effective, but it’s time for everyone to go back to school and start writing letters and making phone calls to your senator or congressman,” said Domingo Garcia, a Dallas lawyer and current National Civil Rights Chairman for LULAC.
Garcia said a civil rights march will be held in Dallas on April 9, and encouraged students and others who felt strongly about the issue to plan on taking part in that event rather than missing additional classes.

I wonder how much of the protest was heard about in Washington. And sadly I wonder if it has made any difference.

An interesting sidebar: KTVT had video of several students saying they were organized by using Myspace.com. Makes you realize how powerful a tool it can be if used properly. Several thousand students organized the rally on Dallas City Hall with Myspace. It’s a powerful tool for sure.