Your Twitter Identity
How do you present yourself, your church, on Twitter?
The best advice is to be yourself. But individuals tweet, not organizations. How does your congregation represent itself as a community?
When you sign up for Twitter, you will be asked to upload an Avatar — a photo or image that represents you. Avatars are more important in Twitter than anywhere. They help you scan the long list of tweets you will receive to help you sort out the ones that most interest you.
Experts advise us to use a photo of a person. People relate to people not logos, they tell us.
Churches include many people and focusing on one is a recipe for cult-building.
The most likely candidate for a one-person Twitter persona is a pastor. There are plusses and minuses to this.
The plusses
- The pastor knows the congregation’s mission.
- We assume he or she is working all week on profound interpretations of scripture that will make good tweets.
- You can use a photo of the pastor as an Avatar.
- We assume he or she knows the community and can relate church life to what is happening community-wide.
- We assume a similar knowledge of individual church members, so messages that resonate with members should be easy.
The minuses
- Pastors are often resistant to social media and would need to be brought “on board.” This could stall your entry into social media for years.
- Pastors are leaders but they are not the church. You must make sure that a tweeting pastor is doing so on behalf of the congregation and not building a personal “tribe.”
- Pastors come and go. If people follow your congregation’s Twitter presence centered on a pastor, you will lose followers and have to start over when that pastor moves on, which statistically is something like every three to seven years.
- Analysis of social media efforts when focused on the efforts of one person, could be devisive and spill into other aspects of a congregation’s relationship with a pastor.
We are all new at this so we are looking for solutions along with everyone else. Perhaps two Twitter entities are needed. The pastor can have one which can follow him or her wherever they plan to go. Equal attention should be given to the Twitter voice of the people.
Talk it out in your congregation. Perhaps you can have a team of tweeters, voicing for the congregation. A worship voice once a day. A social ministry voice. An education voice. A fellowship voice. And a pastor’s evangelical voice. Maybe there is a way to indicate via your Avatar that your Twitter account is a team effort. A tight team photo?
This is one of many things to think through. It is worth the effort. Please, let us know how you solve this problem.