Thanks to those who came to the Accelerate breakout about Social Media and how to use it well with the students you work with. As we said at the end of the session, this post will list some of the resources we talked about and also have our slides and video.

Here are our great slides that Matt Parks made.

And here’s the video we used by Eric Qualman.

After the sessions I had a few people ask about some good tools for Twitter and Blogging. Here are some great beginner apps for Twitter to get started:

• Twitter
• Echofon

The big challenge I hope that we remember is that we have the opportunity to teach our students a lot about integrity and authenticity through using social media. Because of that, sometimes we might see things in our students that aren’t healthy, it gives us that opportunity or window into their soul and allows us to speak to that through grace & humility.

If you have anymore practical questions let me know either by contacting me or leaving a comment below. Thanks again for the way you are building into your students lives!

This past week I had the opportunity to vacation with my wife’s family and get away for a while. It was one of the most refreshing times away I’ve had in a long time, and it was much needed. But, you know how it is going on vacation. You always have to work twice as hard the week before or the week after to make up for the “lost” time.

This year was the first time I vacationed while being in charge of multiple social platforms for the organization I work for. Obviously you just can’t let a Facebook page or Twitter account go unattended for a week and hope to pick up the pieces when you get back. I thought I’d share some of the tools I used while I was gone so that the social media properties I oversee kept going strong. Hopefully, if you are a part of a non-profit or church some of these tools can be useful for you too! Possibly even in your daily workflow.

1) Team – The first thing that helped me get away was to have a team setup. The past two months I’ve been working on putting a team together to help manage our Facebook Page and eventually help with Twitter too. What is great is that there are so many staff members already engaged on these platforms that there were some logical picks on who to ask when helping with this. Starting small is key. Here’s what important about a good team. Invest in them. Give them examples in how the “organization” responds to things online. Just because someone is on Facebook doesn’t make them a pro. Help them understand how to use these social tools well!

2) Hootsuite - We just recently started using Hootsuite. It’s really the best in its price range. I really prefer CoTweet over Hootsuite but CoTweet is just way to expensive to be using at a non-profit right now. If you are looking for a solid, team based, social platform tool check Hootsuite out. Here’s what’s great about it. You can link all of you accounts together then share them with a team. Essentially this allows you to hand the keys over to team members to respond on behalf of the organization without giving them the admin keys to the page. The other major thing I was able to do with Hootsuite was schedule posts for the week. This was key. The week before vacation I was able to plan ahead and schedule multiple posts to go out throughout the week while I was gone. BOOM! This was nice for my team then who didn’t have to worry about creating content and were just able to focus on people’s questions, concerns, or comments.

3) Hyper Alerts - Hyper alerts will send you notifications when you get comments or new posts on your Facebook page(s). What’s cool about it is that you can get alerts for any page, not just your own. I always have these alerts set up for myself, but I was able to get my team to set them up while I was gone. That way the team members didn’t have to always be checking the page but could be alerted when someone posted something. It helps save some time while they are focusing on their main job responsibilities. What’s nice then, is I can come back and go through my email and catch up on what happened during the time I was gone.

These are just three tools that were extremely helpful for me to get away last week. I know there are so many more out there too! How about you? Have you ever used any tools like this? How have they helped? How about for every day workflow stuff?

(Image by: Chewy Hooey)

Growing up my Dad has always worked for the same company. He’s worked in the Ag business doing sales for around 30 years. That’s a long time! When we were younger sometimes my brothers and I would get to go on calls with him where he’d go meet with farmers about what they were doing and look at options for feed and other products. As we got older that obviously didn’t happen as much but we still had conversations about his job and the types of interactions he had. Today, I believe a lot of what I learned and understand about social web interaction I learned from my dad. I thought sharing these three things would be great reminders on how to engage people well online but also a great way to say happy Father’s Day to my Dad. (even though it’s the day after)

1. Relationships – One of the first things I noticed about my Dad’s job is the relationships he has to build. He often has to drive down a farmer’s lane and try to get him to buy some feed. Now, you just don’t do that the first time you meet someone. You have to build a relationship with them. Also, you aren’t just building a relationship to make money, but to help someone out. I feel like the relationships my Dad has with his customers aren’t just built on business. I would venture to say that some of them look at my Dad as a friend or someone to go to for advice. No one likes the sales guy that is using the relationship to make a sale. Most people like the person that builds a relationship with you, interacts with you, cares about what you’re interested in, and wants to help you out.
2. Listening – When it comes to sales (and social media stuff) listening is key. If you never listen to what your customer/client is saying, you’ll never know what they need. Plain and simple. You can’t have the previous point (relationship) without listening. Who wants to buy something from someone that all they talk about is the product they are trying to sell and never take the time to hear what you actually need as a customer. My Dad does this exceptionally well. He knows what his customers need. Sometimes he even knows what they need even if the customer don’t actually know. That happens because he listens to what they are dealing with and knows how to help them out.
3. Clear Communication – If you don’t have clear communication you might as well just stop where you are at. My dad is usually a middle man between the customers and feed mills that supply the feed to the customers. Because of this he has to communicate clearly the expectations from customer to those providing the service. He also has to clearly communicate what his product is capable of and how it can help their output. If you don’t do this well customers will think you aren’t living up to your word. Or they may think you were just trying to get a sale and you just said what they wanted to hear to get that sale. We need to be clear in our communication so that those we are working with understand what to expect and what they are getting.

These are just three simple things I picked up from my Dad. These three simple things are essentials when it comes to engaging people in online social environments. If you are a church or a non-profit you need to listen, build relationships, and have clear communication. It may seem like a very simple thing but I’ve seen one to many not follow them and subsequently get “un-followed” because of it.

Thanks Dad for leading well and teaching me a few things that have helped me along the way!

A few weeks ago I was poking around on Justin Wise’s blog and reading a post about a survey he’s doing with Monk Development. The survey is about what is effective in social media and ministry. A great question(s) to ask.

I went through and took the survey (which I encourage you to do) and was very challenged by some of the questions that were asked. Also, in the same post Justin referenced an older study called Best Practices in Internet Ministry. I downloaded that puppy and read through it.

The study was released in 2008 which is right before the explosion of Facebook/Twitter and other newer social media outlets. The findings though, right on. It was interesting to read some of their findings from 2008 and see how true their statements are in 2011.

The best part about the survey were the questions they had asked. I’ve come to learn that sometimes it’s not about the knowledge you know but the questions you ask. A well timed and well placed question, I feel, has the potential to be more of a change agent then having the right thing to say.

I thought it would be great to share some of the questions that really stood out to me and are some questions that I’m dealing with at this very moment. Maybe you’ll find them helpful too.

• Who is ultimately responsible for the web site? (You can read this as web presence or social media)
• Is it in their job description?
• Who sets the direction for the web site? Is there a group of people who do this?
• Are volunteers involved?
• Do you have any written goals or a mission statement?
• Who is your target user?
• Is there any web training? (I ask, do you offer social media training for your staff or coworkers?)

Those are just some of the questions. The findings to these questions provide some great insight. You can read them here.

Are you involved in any form of Social Media for your organization, non-profit, church? If so, what questions have you asked? What challenges have you faced?