Networking Online
I’ve been asked several times what social networking tools I use.
I have actually set up accounts with nearly every social networking site. I like to evaluate whether the church should consider having a presence. However, I’m currently actively using only two: Facebook and LinkedIn:
Facebook is very popular and easy to use, and it’s been great for reconnecting with old friends from high school and college. I also love how extensible it is—people have developed a lot of apps for it.
LinkedIn is more of a professional (business) networking tool… It sort of plays off of the “six degrees of separation” concept. I have over 6600 “friends of my friends” (2 degrees of separation), and nearly 1 million people that I am connected to within just 3 degrees of separation.
If you’re a Facebook user, you can view my profile here. If you’re not yet, you should sign up, search for my name and add me as a friend… You really should get to understand what all the hype is about.
You can also view my LinkedIn profile. I’d love to connect with you and introduce you to people in my network. Once you sign up, you can request to add me to your network by using my email address (bobby@lifechurch.tv). One side note: You don’t need to have a paid account to use the service.
Visit 
Virb.com is really great place to be as well. Super clean and highly customizable… Here’s what I’ve done with my profile: http://virb.com/whatisclarity - I’ve seen a few fellow lifechurchers around, and would love to see more…
I know a lot of people who use Virb. It is pretty cool.
I have a Virb site as well, but haven’t really used it at all. I’ve just begun to use LinkedIn…seems pretty cool. I sent you an invite, Bobby. Thanks for making people aware of these things.
I’ve been think a lot about the question of ‘how’ a church can effectively use these social networking sites. For example, friends can see that I’m part of the ‘LifeChurch.tv’ group and that I have some friends that also are in that group. Although there is some value to that I was really trying to think bigger than that. How can I use MySpace/Facebook/etc as a powerful evangelism tool.
I have placed the ‘message’ code on my Myspace page so that anybody can watch a message on my page, but its effectiveness can only go so far because I don’t expect many people to through what they would see as a 25 minute ’sermon’. Social network surfing doesn’t really facilitate that.
Here’s one idea that I wouldn’t hesitate applying to my Myspace profile… The short video clips that we occasionally use during the messages would be a great fit. For example, the video of Craig carrying the cross and discussing the 2 men that were crucified along with Jesus… THAT is an effective, short video clip that I would put on my page. I know I can go extract those clips myself, but if people had an easy way to find those clips and copy and paste the code that would be awesome.
Alright… enough rambling. :)
I use facebook as well - clean, and a great way of connecting with friends. I heard about LinkedIn from the book “Finding your parachute”. Expect me to send you an invite soon Bobby, though I don’t know you much :P
Great site Jacob.
Adrian, You can use facebook events to advertise evangelical outreaches in a sense :P - maybe set up an event every weekend for lifechurch online!
I think personal works best among friends - as in a personal message/email over a group message/email.
God Bless ‘_^
Just discovered something on TechCrunch about YouTube’s new customizable player. The ability to group videos on the right side of the player is a great way to give a viewer a quick snapshot of other videos you want then to check out. Something I’m definitely going to use with some LC videos.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/20/youtube-launches-custom-player-feature/