Gav has asked a question here that I too have been thinking about, since before I became the active twitterer I now consider myself to be. I noticed the explosion of entrenched media (TV, Newspapers, etc) talking about their “twitter pageâ€. Now while there is , in fact, an actual web page and URL that one can visit, this is only a flattened view of the “twitter presence†of that entity. The claim to be “on Twitter†is not synonymous, IMHO, with “having a page†and doing tweets. As Gavin (via McLuhan) points out , many entities make the typical move to start shoveling their content that is designed for the old media into the new.
The important thing that people who are participants in the community streams which constitute Twitter, is the listening. That takes a building of trust. Chris Brogan has written a book, Trust Agents, that lifts this basic to the fore. Far too many churches and denominations and various church bodies are narcissistic in their entries into the world of Social Media. And when they arrive talking about how they’re “on Twitterâ€, people who are truly “on†look at them and shake their collective heads, and rightfully so. We’ve seen this “shovelware†before.
I’ve got tons more to say on this, but I’m going to put this out there so this ball that Gavin rolled out there keeps rolling (at least as it regards a response from me; this IS indeed a conversation which the church HAS to have and see as a challenge.
churches doing twitter wrong : churches can do twitter well
