Teens Using Social Media - Changed your Ministry?

Teens Using Social Media Connie Bensen: My Conversations

As I was reading this article I starting wondering what youth pastors out “in the field” where noticing in how teenagers use social media. Is email nearly as effective as sms or using a social network like facebook or myspace?

How has social media changed the way you communicate to your teens and what trends do you see appearing over the next 2-3 years?

December 30, 2007 | Filed Under Web Tools, Youth Pastor 

Comments

2 Responses to “Teens Using Social Media - Changed your Ministry?”

  1. Connie Bensen on December 31st, 2007 8:10 pm

    Thank you for linking to my post. It is a good idea to go where your community is at & interact with them. Get involved & join them.

  2. Luke on January 2nd, 2008 10:30 pm

    We’re a church plant and “social media” has created a kind of online youth room for lack of a physical one We have a facebook group, a MySpace page, etc. The trouble is that some of my kids are MySpace kids while others are Facebook kids while others aren’t allowed to be on Social Networks at all, so it’s not nearly as universal as e-mail.
    However for those kids who use them, they are often the best means of communication. Plus, unlike e-mail or phone calls, comments and posts are often public, which means that my students’ friends now see that our youth leaders actively care about the kids. More than once we’ve had visitors who asked to join a student to youth group because they saw a message from the youth staff on a profile and thought we seemed cool.
    For us it is more likely to need a students URL than phone number. Youth workers will need to be trained and well versed in how to engage online in the coming years, and learn how to take that online conversation and connect it to the offline life. We’ll also need to get more savvy at web promotion. Viral videos are more effective than flyers, online sign ups get kids who aren’t there on Sundays, etc.

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