I met Don last night at Buffalo Wild Wings in the Indianapolis area. Don specializes in social media and rides a motorcycle; pretty cool indeed.
When we discussed how to change Campus Crusade's organizational culture, he exhorted me to measure the impact of social media the way those who are not convinced of its impact measure success. Otherwise we are talking apples and oranges.
I included some of our key statistics that Campus Crusade measures and briefly included ways social media adds significant value to each of them. Let me know if you agree/disagree/see other areas:
- Personal Evangelism: What if we asked every staff member to share their faith online once a week? Some examples would be a Twitter search on a keyword such as 'Jesus' or 'hate' or 'sad' or a million others, or listening in through a google alert and seek to engage those people spiritually? It would not only increase the amount of evangelism happening on a campus dramatically but also refine a staff member's ability to communicate the Gospel in a different context.
- Media Exposures: If a campus could produce more Gospel related/engaging web content and publish it through main secular channels such as YouTube or Facebook we would see an exponential rise in quality media exposures.
- Holy Spirit Presentations: CCC could produce Holy Spirit content that had viral action and facilitate students sharing how to walk in the Spirit with their Christian friends. It would enable us to mobilize a group that is extremely hard to mobilize in the physical world--unaligned and carnal Christians.
- Group Evangelism: A campus website or facebook page could become a portal into the local body of Christian students. This would allow non-Christians to virtually 'see' the body of Christ in action on their terms, as well as softening the soil for future interactions.
Have you seen social media significantly multiply and add value to the efforts you are making in ministry? Or have you been able to demonstrate its value to those who do not get it?
