If there is any place that social media, and especially services like twitter, are just mis-understood it is within church culture. That isn’t a knock in any direction, but just the reality a lot of us find ourselves in. So, as I get asked the question, “Why do you twitter? don’t you have anything better to do?” or “Those things are fun but they wouldn’t help in a day to day situation,” I nod and smile and affirm them that nobody ever has to use technology that they are uncomfortable with or don’t see the value in.
Then I think about the true value of services and communities like twitter and facebook and try to process where does the church fit into all of that in a way that brings about value, and not just relevance (the typical argument for their use - which usually doesn’t go anywhere).
So, I have my answers, but it is always great to find examples and case studies of smaller businesses making things like twitter work, that doesn’t take a ton of time, but does bring about a lot of value. That is what the quote, and article (after the jump) talks about. I’d love to hear your thoughts after you read the article on how this backberry website started using twitter - and how that could translate in to a process and model for a mid-sized local church to think about putting into action.
Rae’s case study is about a a BlackBerry related website called BBGeeks . BBGeeks has had a Twitter account for around eight months now and has grown from zero to over 500 followers in that time. For a web site targeting a very niche market, this is pretty impressive.
