Lately, I’ve been trying to learn the culture of Facebook. I took it up a while back and, to be honest, I wondered if it would ever hit critical mass. Guess what — it did. Some say there are over 100 million subscribers now. Yikes. If those all lived in the USA (and they don’t), that would be 1/3 of the nation! I can tell you, anecdotally, not *everyone* is on Facebook (yet). For example, my mother is 81. I don’t *think* she has an account.(Come to think of it, she doesn’t even have a computer.) Let’s see… uhmmm … I can’t think of anyone else. (OK… I’m kidding. It’s not quite that bad — yet!) But the truth is, it does seem that practically everyone (from every country) is logging on these days. Those little one-line status messages (“Doug is happy today — because his dog is now potty-trained” … or similar one-liners) are now a way of life for an entire community of communities. The earth has shifted — people are knitted together in a way they never were before. Old friends united, current friends closer.
But I’m also noticing — Facebookers don’t seem to appreciate being spammed. Frankly, they just won’t tolerate it. There’s a special menu item, “Show me fewer messages from this friend.” It’s quite powerful. And what I’m noticing is — people flock to Facebook to be *personal*, not to be spammed. In fact, some users say blatantly, “Email is broken. For Pete’s sake, you can’t even be sure who sent it. Facebook is cool. And it works.”
So my question is — what do we *do* with Facebook? About the only thing I can think of, so far, is be just what it was designed for you to be – a friend! Listen to people, their sicknesses, their problems, pray for them … and don’t feel bad if you create a subset of friends that come primarily from your group or agency. “Filter” your “live feed” and pay attention to the personal needs of your flock. I wonder if churches are noticing this tool. I’m certain other mission agencies must be noticing it too. How do *you* use it? Please clue us in. We don’t want to be a nameless face in Facebook any longer.
Facebook is VERY versatile. Of the social networking tools, it offers great functionality, including http://m.facebook.com from your mobile phone (and yes, your 81-year-old relative may have a mobile phone).
Seriously, though, these mini-blogs are becoming more popular because more young folks are using cellular phone technology.
Other social networking sites are springing up. One of my personal favorites is Twitter (http://www.twitter.com). From a telephone text message, I can update my Twitter page on the fly.
This application has caught the attention of some of us in Emergency Services. For example, http://www.dailywireless.org/2008/10/23/public-safety-20/ details the use of a number of social networking sites by the Los Angeles Fire Department.
http://www.twitter.com/lafd and http://lafd.blogspot.com are two of their sites. Look at how they are engaging the public with useful information.
Application number one: They don’t spam.
Application number two: They put news you can use on the post.
In the “it slices; it dices” department, http://www.hellotxt.com and http://www.ping.fm both offer ways to update these sights with ONE email.
http://hellotxt.com/user/kc5fm lets me update by SMS (text message), email, or GoogleTalk to my LinkedIn, Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook accounts simultaneously.
At Ping.fm, I can update those four PLUS Blogger, WordPress, and Yahoo360.
Why can’t I update more? Because I have a life and little time to add just one more blog.
However, the ministry application of this is your supporter may not like Myspace because of the implications it has had over time. Nevertheless, there ARE ministries using Myspace. Let your SUPPORTER determine where they will follow you. Use HelloTXT or Ping to be on them all.
http://twitter.com/kc5fm
http://linkedin.com/in/colston
http://www.myspace.com/kc5fm
http://www.profile.to/kc5fm
http://altusem.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/altusem
Just a few of the sites that we update and, in the case of blogspot, some of those updates are automated, ex. the weather and news.
Hope you find this helpful.
Lloyd Colston
Altus, OK
I have been using facebook for over a half a year. I did not have a group to join but I joined knowing others do. I had to be particular about the “friends” I invited. Many missionary kids are on it, their cool but their mothers also sign up. I want guy friends so I pick the kids and leave the moms. I don’t read all the ins and outs of people who I am friends with but there are notices I get through email when people post to me. I log in weekly and tell them what I am doing. I got a few birthday greetings.
I have spent 20 years on email and still do business word on it. It is not perfect, neither is facebook. Facebook is like going to the playground where all your friends are. Email is like going to starbucks. Different.
I hope to get to know many younger people on facebook while on home assignment next year. I realize they conduct themselves online differently.
One problem we have seen is people posting official mission business on facebook. It is easy to do without thinking. There are others looking over your shoulder.
There was an article, I believe in Christianity Today, about how he is encouraging people to use it.
doug: I wanna add you as a friend on facebook. which doug lucas are you???
I live and work/teach in Saudi Arabia. Facebook is a way to connect with my students when other options are not possible.
How about posting an interactive tract on facebook? See for details:
http://www.chick.com/cartoons/embed.asp
Blessings to you,
Adrian
I’ve used Facebook for almost 2 years now. I’m in youth ministry in the Bahamas. I think Facebook is more like being on a huge playground with a still photographer and a stenographer recording all the conversations and happenings of my youth, college students away and friends. This allows me to read catch up with whomever I want to when I have time. I don’t have to be right there like MSN. But like MSN it allows me to pick who I want to keep up with instead of the wide open MySpace world and the spam flood of email and the text only realm of list servers.
We have about 30 young adults away to college and I know that there is a major decline in church involvement in the 20’s. So I try to keep up with our young adults lives even if they are not talking to me directly.
It also allows my supporters to keep up with what we do. Facebook is no longer just a college and young adults social network. People in there 50’s and 60’s on my support team and within my sending church are on!
Those tools kc5fm look really good. I need to check them out!
I’m an old, mossback missy nearing retirement, and had no interest in Facebook. However, my daughter joined it and said that we could view our grandkids pics there. We were hooked!
On the other side, the national police here in Venezuela has shown how kidnappers have used Facebook to pick their victims. So, a word to the wise, use the security funtions in Facebook so only your friends view your info, etc.
Richard Beal
Caracas, Venezuela
I started a group on Facebook for our supporters and called it “Lambert/Thailand Mission Groupies” which is my last name and my mission field. I sent a message to my friends and whoever was interested opted in. I can now send updates and emails in a flash to them for free. These are people who want to receive things from us. I only add friends on my account and people who are friends of friends that I know are genuinely interested in our ministry. I twitter my mini blog on it, have an automatic feed from my wordpress blog to it, upload pics to it often, and tell my supporters Happy Birthday when Facebook shows the reminder. It is a new missionaries dream as long as they don’t get addicted and stop doing legitimate work because of it!
One use of Facebook that I didn’t mention in the Brigada “BackPage” editorial is promoting prayer and vision for the unreached peoples of the world. For example, there is a Facebook application of a daily rotating unreached people group that anyone can add to their profile. See:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=10917827670
Doug
At first, I joined facebook as a way to promote the missions training that I was running, but it wasn’t set up well for that, because of how personally relational the thing is. Anyway, I searched for groups that were focused on “missions”. There were hundreds and I invested a lot of time joining each one and posting a basic blurb about myself. Most of the groups listed as missions-focused were populated by young people who’d only ever done summer missions trips. So in my blurb, I mentioned that I’d been full-time at it for x years and was willing to answer any questions that anyone had about missions. I got quite a few hits from young people with responses like: “I’ve been thinking about doing what you’re doing. How do you raise support?” Or “I want to go full-time like you, but how do I convince my parents?” I changed my focus from promoting my missions training program to helping answer their questions and encourage them to go wherever the Lord was leading them and communicate this well with family and friends. One 15 y.o. girl felt stymied by her intense desire to pursue a missions career but her single mom family was too poor to help her go and wanted her to pursue more stable employment. After a lot of messages back and forth, she finally spoke with her mom and her mom agreed to let her go for 6 months. Success! All on facebook. It’s about being there for young people already atuned to missions.