The WORST church social media presence
balaam
Shipmate
I wish to discuss what makes a good or a bad church presence on social media, what is good, what is bad and what can be done to improve things.
On top of this, examples of bad and good practice would be appreciated.
I'll kick this off with the worst Facebook handle I have ever come across, unless you know differently, which is @christianityinthemethodistchurchesllandudno. Nice snappy title don't you think?
On top of this, examples of bad and good practice would be appreciated.
I'll kick this off with the worst Facebook handle I have ever come across, unless you know differently, which is @christianityinthemethodistchurchesllandudno. Nice snappy title don't you think?
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IJ
I don't do Book Of Face, so I'll get me coat.
IJ
Not everyone in the whole Multiverse uses social media, and it's not hard these days to set up a simple, easily updated website for one's church. Why, the C of E's 'A Church Near You' facility is a free facility, though only available in England itself at the moment AFAIK.
As balaam remarks, not a snappy title in the OP at all, at all!
IJ (aka The Luddite)
The North Wales holiday resort of Llandudno may give you a clue.
No, I can access it here in the USA. It's an invaluable resource for editing MW reports.
Mrs A extended (forgive the term) that one to Lost /Llandudno Jewel Of The North Wales Coast...
Some of the Welsh diocese seem to want all their churches to have Facebook pages. I'm fairly sure you can see them without being on Facebook. You just can't post on them. Though I agree that I think each church having a proper website of its own is a much better idea.
Apart from the very valid point in the OP that the example doesn't seem to tell you where either church is, I've seen worse, and they were proper websites. There's one for a Scottish denominations that observes the Sabbath by shutting down completely ever Sunday. If you're stuck in a strange town on the Lord's Day and want to find a church, hard luck.
The worst thing is that, whilst the poor Methodists in the OP may have been simply been foolish in allowing an elderly Methodist layperson (is there any other kind?) to design their social media, the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham presumably paid someone for their monstrosity.
Croeso i Landudno, mwynheuwch eich dydd*?
*welcome to Llandudno, enjoy your day.
This. Whilst I appreciate not everyone does FB, the fact remains it's much easier to keep an FB page up to date than a regular Web page. We all love "forthcoming events" sections telling us when the 2003 Christingle was.
Yes, that's what I meant.
As regards FB, I would add that the PCC would quite like to start a new group/page/whatever you call it at Our Place, but so far no willing volunteers(s) has/have appeared...
IJ
Ceisio meddwl beth fyddai't tatw sy'n crynhoi hwn (trying to thing what'd be the tattoo that abbreviates that...)
On the other hand some cathedrals can't even publish their service schedules before the services take place.
WTF?! And I thought the folk-mass was an awkward attempt at appealing to contemporary sensibilities.
I'm glad I'm not the only person to notice and cringe at this most cringeworthy handle. What on earth were they thinking of?
No - don't answer that...
IJ
Ah, I think I'll answer.
They were thinking that anyone square enough to be offended by the innuendo wouldn't understand it, and anyone hip enough to understand it wouldn't be offended.
But it would be really uncomfortable if you ended up having to discuss the group with a "worst of both world's" audience, ie. they get the joke, but don't approve.
Hey, I like porn-flavoured innuendo as much as the next guy, even meandering into the hardcore territory, as that slogan definitely does.
But, you know, time and place. If a male corporate manager were to say to a new female hiree during orientation "Our marketing strategy right now is to go wider, younger, and deeper, heh heh heh, get it?", well, I think that would probably end up with a complaint lodged to Human Resources. If not a lawsuit.
That said, if it works for you guys, and no one's complaining, and you don't squirm when having to recite the name in front of the blue-rinse brigade, knock yourselves out.
Another diocese (can't recall which) uses the phrase 'Going Deeper Into God', or words to that effect, which makes God sound rather like a quagmire or a jungle. OTOH, maybe that's not so far off the truth...
IJ
Or it was written by somebody so stupid/inocent they didn't even realise the innuendo
And, at our Holiday Bible Club last week, we sang "Wide and long and high and deep (is the love of Jesus)" every day and not even the teenage helpers nudged or winked. When I couple of us discussed it we took it as a reference to Ephesians 3:18.
That would be a PRETTY big coincidence. Like Metallica not realizing that their album title "Cunning Stunts" can allude to something other than clever tricks.
And from Captain Chrism himself, we hear that it was designed as "an aid to foucsing our missional activities", which, in this case, are to youth. Given the affinity of post-internet youth for porn-inflected humour(is there anyone younger than 50 who hasn't heard some barstool comedian doing the "boom chicka wa wa" music?), I think I would just put two and two together on this one.
(my italics) Who, or what, wrote that? I would have got "F - see me" at the age of 12 for writing anything as clumsy and discordant as that.
I know many like to get away from formal prayer as it is too ritualised and formulaic, but that is no excuse for replacing it with modern business management speak. We''ll be leveraging our spiritual assets next.
Well, I guess everyone's mind works a little differently. To test whether or not my interpretation was inordinately influenced by Columba's prior post describing the name as "quasi-pornographic", I just did a duckduckgo search on the words "wider younger deeper".
When I clicked on Images, in addition to the logo of the church group, and some other, fairly neutral stuff, there were also a number of photos that I would describe as NSFW, a few of them VERY MUCH SO.
Captain Chrism, I'm wondering if you guys have done a search on your group's name since adopting the term. Not that I think your target demographic is going to be much harmed by the images("kids today, etc etc"), though the aforementioned blue-rinse brigade might be in for a bit of a shock should they enter those words.
I followed stetson's example, and duckduckgo does indeed come up with some NSFW images, Google rather less so.
With all due respect to the churches/dioceses concerned, these attempts at producing snappy handles (or whatever) seem just a bit, well, amateurish...
...and no, I'm afraid I'm not professional enough to come up with anything better, so I'll get me coat.
FWIW, we describe Our Place sometimes, rather wryly, as St. Faithful-in-the-Backstreets, which at least is factually true!
IJ
And much better than St. Vibrant the Cool. (I'm showing my age, aren't i?)
Mind you, however we cut it anything we say about churchy things online or in print is going to sound somewhat strange these days.
I was struck by a comment on our local paper about the induction of a part-time curate at a village church after a 12 month interregnum.
A parishioner was reported as saying that it was 'quite a formal service but conducted in a pleasant way.'
As opposed an unpleasant one?
How would that run?
'I hereby induct you as curate-in-charge at St Swithering-in-the-Mire ... Better mind you do it properly, you miserable git!'
Or
'Oi! Pillock. I'm talking to you ...'
Well, the fact that we have the word "unpleasant" indicates that things are NOT always conducted in a pleasant way, so perhaps the parishoner thought it noteworthy to mention that this particular event was.
I think it's ridiculous to use words like pleasant in imperative statements, eg. a boss telling his receptionist "You need to be pleasant in dealing with customers", because the mere fact that he wants her to do something should indicate that he wants it done in a pleasant fashion.
However, if someone later asks a customer "What was the receptionist at that office like?", it makes sense for him to say "She was quite pleasant", since there is always the possibility that she would have failed to live up to that particular requirment, so the customer wants you to know that she didn't.
Back to the induction, a lot of people today might assume that a formal event would be stiff, boring etc so perhaps the parishoner thought he should clarify that it wasn't?
(And for more innuendo than you ever need to hear, sample their albums (or even just their titles). Pye Hastings confessed long afterwards that they were basically just trolling the censors of the day. But I love the music).
I have been to many induction services that were very long dry boring and unleasant
Vibrant, Deep, Earth-moving....
Yes, of course I could imagine what the parishioner was getting at - it was formal but not stuffy.
I was just amused at the turn of phrase.
@Zacchaeus, if you've been to boring, dry and unpleasant inductions, have you ever been to a 'vibrant' one?
Damn, I knew I should have gone with one of the classics for my example.
Believe it or not, this is possible. My sainted mother (who probably qualifies as an honorary member of the blue-rinse brigade), will leave the room if I'm watching a stand-up comic on TV who's making use of 'curse words' - but she adores Graham Norton - watches him every week, without fail. I have sat beside her, on the couch, on multiple occasions, as the most cringeworthy innuendo is batted around from guest to guest, thinking, 'Is this actually just passing you by?' - and have concluded, yes - yes it is...
Trouble is, the ownership of the account was left to someone who, to put it mildly, is not all that tech-savvy. For example, on that person's own account, they will tweet something and them immediately retweet it themselves.
Yes, I've come across this. What I don't understand though is the appeal - Norton is only funny because of the double entendres. If you're genuinely missing those what's there actually left?
IJ
My mother gets very offended at outright portrayals of sex, and curse words. But she also taught me a drinking-game tongue twister that goes "I'm not a fig-plucker nor a fig plucker's son, but I'll pluck figs 'till the fig plucker comes." When I dared her to explain what was being implied, she feigned innocence. (Though she almost certainly knew.)
But I'm sure that if I were to tell her a joke directly about the activity implied by the tongue-twister, she'd be extremely disgusted. I think for a lot of people, roughly those who came of age before the 1960s, innuendo is okay, but explicit portrayal crosses the line.