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      A tag is a word or very short phrase that describes people or content of interest to online users. It helps to make information online searchable by people with similar interests.

      Individual blog posts will tend to have set of tags—keywords—that describe the contents of the post. For example, the tags church, ministry, social media, Facebook, Keith Anderson might mark a post about a workshop Keith’s done on digital ministry.

      In addition to helping others to find content and understand its main themes, tagging can be an expression of identity—a sort of digital tattoo— that names what’s important to a particular social media participant.

      On Twitter, tags are marked with the # symbol, so you will find people who end each tweet with a denominational tag like #ELCA (for Lutherans) or #TEC (the Episcopal church) to signal the spiritual identity of the tweeter regardless of content. This is called a hashtag. posting on your organization’s Facebook wall.

      Social media represents a profound shift in this model. Today, almost anyone can publish a blog, have a YouTube channel, and host their own internet radio station. Anyone can comment on, extend, qualify, discuss, and share your sermons. As we will discuss in the next chapter, now even small congregations can have a robust media platform.

      Rather than waiting for your monthly newsletter, now people can and want to follow you on Twitter. They can “like” your organization’s Facebook page and follow your church ministries in real time. They can “friend” and “follow” other members. They can chat, message, mention, and “tag” you. They can help generate content and conversation by posting on your organization’s Facebook wall.

      These dramatic changes necessarily shape our message, presence, voice, and practice of ministry. However, because this broadcast model has been so pervasive, most people first approach social media as simply another form of broadcast media—as one more way to blast our message out there and get people to join our church or organization. This approach to social media is bound to fail. First, because the emphasis is on the needs of the institution rather than the needs of the individual. It’s about our message. Second, because people want and expect to engage with you personally. They don’t just want information. They want and expect to have a relationship.

      “FOLLOWING”

      “Following” is how people connect on Twitter. Unlike on Facebook, where you must request access to another user’s profile by “friending,” on Twitter you can access almost any user’s tweets by clicking the “follow” button on a user’s profile:

      Only if a user follows you back can you use Twitter features like private messaging, but, as you’ll see in Chapter 3, there are lots of other ways to connect on Twitter.

      IT’S CARING, NOT SELLING

      In his book The Thank You Economy, Gary Vaynerchuk describes this shift from broadcast to social media by drawing upon an important distinction between caring and selling.

      Vaynerchuk tells the story of how he helped grow his traditional family-owned wine shop, Wine Library, through an active digital social media presence. The story begins with Twitter.

      Vaynerchuk began by following conversations on Twitter about wine, specifically chardonnay, and answering questions and giving recommendations. But he made a point never to link to his own website. He wanted to make a human connection, not just a sale. He writes:

      To find conversations on particular topics on Twitter, enter a term at twitter. com/search and the latest tweets with that keyword will appear:

      For example, you can look for your denomination or more general terms like “spirituality,” “prayer,” “Christianity,” and so on.

      Eventually, people started to see my comments and think, “Oh, hey, it’s that Vaynerchuk guy; he knows Chardonnay. Oh cool, he does a wine show—let’s take a look. Hey, he’s funny. I like him; I trust him. And check it out: he sells wine, too. Free shipping? Let’s try a bottle of that. . . .” That’s what caring first, not selling first, looks like, and that’s how I built my brand.

      Now, at the end the day, Vayner chuk does want to sell something. He wants people to order some wine. And he knows that engaged and happy customers make for good revenue streams and, thus, profits. In some respects, it is not about relationships themselves, but about monetizing relationships. In business, relationships are typically a means to an end. This is certainly not necessarily evil. People need and want lots of things, and it is more pleasant to go about obtaining these things from people who are able to connect with you on a personal level, who are attending to something of your authentic self. For digital ministers, however, the meaningful relationships we create and nurture should be ends in themselves, not the means to increasing our membership or giving levels.

      Occasionally review your list of friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter as a reminder of who you are speaking to when you post.

      This is a subtle but quite powerful distinction that often makes much of the very good advice on using social media for business marketing not particularly adaptable to church settings. We are ministers, not marketers, so our presence in digital spaces must be very clearly defined in terms of authentic ministry—an authentic connection with others that focuses on the sharing of love, wisdom, and gifts rather than monetary or other transactional exchanges.

      That said, Vaynerchuk is right about this: people need to know that you care—and they need to care about you before they will ever care about your institution. They must be invested in your mission and ministry before they will be invested in the success of your congregation or organization in achieving that mission. Being human, authentic, and caring is the entry point for engagement with you and your congregation.

      So, don’t just share information about your church. Don’t sell your church or yourself. Move beyond “creating buzz” by promoting others, making connections, making introductions, encouraging others, and sharing your story, experiences, and life of faith. Perhaps most importantly, telling your church’s story should always be preceded

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