22 Ways to Use Twitter Fast Follow

Twitter’s introduction of the Fast Follow feature is a brilliant strategy for expanding the reach of Twitter to non-users. Fast Follow is a great tool for churches, ministries and businesses to add to their social media tool belt.

Here are 22 ways that I see these organizations adding Fast Follow to their social media strategy.

Church social media uses

Sending time-sensitive messages Sending service time or event reminders Notifying people of inclement weather service cancellations Promoting ministry-specific events Communicating prayer requests or member needs Sending daily devotionals Providing supplemental information (such as additional Bible verses to read) during services Communicating...

All Your Data Are Belong To Us

Concerned about Facebook’s use of your private data? Consider this – while a lot of attention has been given in the past year to Facebook’s aggressive push to capture more and more data about users, Google has (more or less) managed to fly under the radar as it embedded itself into the entire fabric of the entire Internet.

Google is watching you right now

The amount of information that Google collects from your web browsing session is staggering. Yet we don’t hear as much backlash against Google, largely in part because the data collection happens behind the scenes with most users unaware of how frequently they’re sending data to Google.

The guys at Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab have developed a clever browser plug-in that demonstrates this by sounding an alarm every time data is sent to Google from a web site....

Facebook, location-based services, and opportunities for local churches

During an interview at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that Facebook is working on adding location-based services to the popular social network. Soon users will be able to add a location to their status updates, communicating not only what they are doing but where they are doing it.

This is just another move in Facebook’s strategy to become the information currency system of the web – aggregating all the  information about you by connecting to your Facebook profile and then selling access to that information to marketers.

In addition to the demographic, social, opinion, and digital behavior data that Facebook gathers, adding information about a user’s...

Information Currency Systems and the Future of the Internet

In my post about the impact of Facebook’s Community Pages on churches, I referred to Facebook’s desire to be the information currency system of the entire web. Let me explain that a bit.

The next phase in the evolution of the Internet will be the “Semantic Web” where machines not only exchange data and information but are able to derive “meaning” from the information that is being shared. Because meaning is subjective and influenced by situational factors, information on the Web will need to be interpreted within the context of the people who are...

Online Ministries – Internet Evangelism Day

Today (April 25th) is Internet Evangelism Day.

Internet Evangelism Day is a single day designated every year to bring focus on the efforts of global evangelism using digital media. The effort is centralized at InternetEvangelismDay.com and is lead by Tony Whittaker. Tony is a leading thinker in online ministry and we were fortunate to be able to interview him as part of our research of Excellence in Online Ministry.

Internet Evangelism Day

I recommend that you take time to visit the Internet Evangelism Day website and...

Church Social Media Strategy – Researching Your Audience

When churches begin thinking about how they can use social media and the internet to do ministry online, it can be hard to know where to turn for valuable advice.

There are plenty of resources that talk about the ins and out of social media, how to use tools like Twitter and Facebook. I honestly think that more people go hungry in this country than those who go without hearing about social media. But it’s hard to know if you can trust the advice you’re getting from so-called social media experts.

And even if it comes from a reputable source, it’s hard to know how to...

Ministry Opportunities For 59 Year Olds

What a great way to start this day…

*Well, it’s not really the “start” of my day. The start of my day was (per usual) wrangling two small children, bundling them in layers and layers of winter clothes, and driving them up to daycare (while singing our ABC’s at the top of our voices).

But once that was all sorted, I settled in in front of my laptop, opened my web stats site (I use GetClicky.com because it shows real time stats) and saw that I someone found Kingdom Strategist by searching Google for:

“ministry opportunities for 59 year olds”

Let it sink in for a...

Book Review | Thy Kingdom Connected by Dwight Friesen

“God’s networked kingdom finds expression as people cluster together, centered in Christ, living in the way of Jesus.” –Dwight Friesen

Thy Kingdom Connected by Dwight Friesen

[<Disclosure> I received this book to review through my participation in The Ooze's Viral Blogger program. I have not been compensated financially in any way for reading or reviewing this book. </Disclosure>]

Thy Kingdom Connected is...

Kingdom Strategist looks back at 2009

I haven’t fully gotten into the blogging groove yet. I’ve been at it for just over a year now but I’m only recently starting to feel like I’m picking up momentum. But I enjoy blogging and I’m especially enjoying all the new people I’ve met and interacted with this year. I know that my blog doesn’t have much to do with these relationships forming but it’s part of it none the less. Well someone forgot to send me the memo letting me know that bloggers have to do two things at the end of the year.

Write a really awesome retrospective post. Write a post highlighting your top content from the past year.

Check and check.