I was in DC recently at Grace Covenant Church and got to chit-chat with one of our missionaries. It doesn’t take much to get me on a soapbox and start talking about the power of communications and self-marketing.
Grace came over to “confess” that she needed to get better at social and that she was trying to figure out the best strategy to go about creating a plan that wouldn’t seem like she was promoting herself.
It’s all I needed. The door was opened so I walked right in.
Last year I was asked to do a social networking seminar for the pastors and staff of Bethel World Outreach Church. My presentation was at the tail end of a particularly long staff meeting so when it was my turn to speak, more than half the room left. Whether that was because of disinterest in the topic, the speaker, or just plain hunger, is a mystery. I’m going with “just plain hunger” for the sake of my ego.
My first ever social media seminar for pastors and staff!
I started off this series of Monday posts on social management tools and whatnots with my quick review on Buffer App. I’ve been taking Timely for a test-drive this week and I must confess, I’ve switched over my personal profiles to Timely because it fully takes the scheduling out of my hands.
Timely is another social network management tool that makes posting updates more thoughtful and less spammy. I notice that people tend to spend blocks of time on their social profiles and post as many updates as they can in one sitting. Whether they’re articles and other interesting content, or just personal updates, people tend to share posts one after the other, without really giving much thought to the possibility that they could be crowding out a person’s timeline with their updates, i.e. spamming people.
While I’ve been a longtime user of HootSuite—it does have a myriad of benefits—what attracted me most to Buffer and now Timely, is that the burden of scheduling is out of my hands, more so with Timely than with Buffer App.
Christmas Day 2009, originally uploaded by thelmabowlen.
We had no agenda other than to stop by Bethel World Outreach Center to take pictures for Festival of the Nations for their hosting of a Christmas service for the Burmese community of Nashville. Kyera took photos; I took images for Bethel’s social media sites.
Since we had no plans for ourselves for the day other than watching Sherlock Holmes, we settled on a cinema in an area we hardly ever visit, Cool Springs. We didn’t get to Fandango our tickets so when we got there, all screenings until 7PM were sold out.
Happy to leave and drive around, we went on a search for an open Starbucks in nearby Downtown Franklin.
Everything was closed which was a perfect opportunity to take pictures.
With work that is. Not that I wasn’t to begin with. But nowadays, it all just feels so. . . effortless. My real life personal passion for social media has spilled over to work and taken a life of its own.
As a former broadcaster, I’m an information junkie, so posting updates and disseminating broadcasts is organic to me, only now, I don’t have a microphone or an FM frequency. I have corporate social media accounts as my channels.
I felt like such a grown up yesterday morning last week. I went to a Chamber of Commerce breakfast to catch Southwest Airlines’ Manager of Emerging Media, Paula Berg, talk about. . . emerging media, and how Southwest has successfully been flying through cyberspace.
At the Hilton Garden Inn Vanderbilt
“You got another blog?!” my daughter exclaimed, “I can’t believe you mom!”
I look across the table at my seventeen-year old with shock and disbelief in my eyes as I stare at her and begin my taunt. “YOU are shocked at me for getting blog number THREE, Miss I-have-FIVE-blogs-floating-around-in-cyberspace!” I can’t stop myself. “You’re the one with all the “copyrights” on your pet du nom!” I tease, “Miss I am ‘——–.whatever.com’ username you!” Ha ha ha.
She rolls her eyes, “What’s it called?”
“thelmabowlen.wordpress.com”, I reply. “Everywhere and Here… again.”
“Wow, mom. How original.”
“Look who’s talking!” I laugh.
