Would You Use A Student / Youth Ministry Hashtag? #StuMin
Feb 23, 2009 Social Media, Twitter
I woke up this morning to find @3amjosh asking this question on Twitter:
Little did I know that there’s been a kid’s ministry hashtag (#kidmin) in use since February 3rd – and it’s been fairly widely adopted. So why haven’t us student ministry people been using one? Well, for one, it might be because of the method that we choose to update from. With so many people using SMS to update their status these days, it becomes a chore to A) remember to use the hashtag and B) fit it in with the other content of our tweets. Also, at one point should we use it and and what point should we not? Just because we in one way or another work in student ministry doesn’t mean that all of our tweets should be labeled that way, does it? Don’t get me wrong – I think it’d be great to aggregate all student ministry tweets. The best possible would be just like Zappos does it, having people in student ministry submit their usernames to be included in the stream. I don’t have the programming skills or time to set something like this up, but it would be great if someone out there did.
Until what I’ve just described happens, Josh, I, and several others have agreed on #StuMin, which keeps in line with #kidmin. Spread the word in tweets worldwide! Copy and paste the tweet below! You’ll be able to track the use of this Twitter hashtag here or here.
RT @StudentMinistry: The people have spoken. Use #StuMin in your tweets about student ministry! Please RT! http://cli.gs/NvZa1P
Link Tracking for Ministry / Short URLs
Dec 29, 2008 Internet
In the past, we’ve run on the assumption that some people will click links that we share in newsletters, on Facebook, in emails, and so on, while we also assume that others will ignore them. But what if we could determine how many people are actually clicking them? Many short url providers make this task extermely simple.
For those of you familiar with Twitter, this will probably be no surprise. The purpose of short urls is to take a long url (such as http://www.threeparts.com/2008/12/26/friday-video-a-christmas-greeting/) and make it more managable…err…pretty (such as http://bit.ly/17oA0). Both of these thinks will take you to the same location on the web. The first one is the original URL, while the second is a shortened version of the first, assigned when I signed up for an account with Bit.ly and created it.
The most common use for short urls is to make long urls more friendly to microblogging services. Lately, however, I’ve been using these free services to not only shorten urls, but to track the number of times certain links of been clicked - regardless of where I place them. The click-tracking feature of many short url providers is one that is greatly overlooked. This information can be extremely valuable for you as a youth worker. For instance – if you send a link to a medical release form via your youth ministry newsletter which 25 people receive, and the link only gets one click – you should probably head down to the copier before the next pre-trip meeting so you can have some copies available for parents. Click tracking can also let you know your ‘return on investment’ when providing resources. If you spend two hours a day scouring the web for things to share with your students and parents, and only a small fraction of the people you are sending the information to click the link, you may need to invest your time doing other things.
While many premium email services already provide click-through information, it’s safe to say most of you are not using those pricey services. Therefore, I highly recommend using these in emails, on your blog (though a plugin or addon for stats would be better), on Twitter or other microblogging services, and so on. There is no reason not to track your links, given the process is incredibly simple.
Simply copy a url you would like to share, sign up at one of the sites below, create a short url, and copy and paste the new link where you intended to share the original. It’s truly that easy.
Be aware, there are some very popular short url providers that do not give you click stats (such as TinyURL), though somehow they continue to be incredibly popular. I prefer Bit.ly for tracking my links. Not only does it track the link where I place it, but it tells me where else the link has been placed by other people. It also lets me know how many people on Twitter are talking about it. However, there are several providers. Here are a few:
There are far too many for me to A) have used and B) to cover here. Comments are encouraged and welcome!
Online Youth Ministry for Beginners
Dec 12, 2008 LifeWay
After speaking at the National Youth Worker’s Conference that LifeWay holds annually, I realized I was making some assumptions about youth workers that were inaccurate. They were that A) youth workers know the importance of using the internet in ministry, and B) they know how to do this. On both points – I confess – I was wrong. This led to my article on LifeWay.com, “Online Youth Ministry 101″. Below is an excerpt.
Never forget that your content is up against literally everything else on the internet. What does this mean for you? You must update your accounts frequently. Set aside a time (or two or three) each week to upload to videos and pictures. If you’re using social networks, update your status a few times a day so people will know that you are active.
