Friday, October 19, 2012 I gave a presentation on taking your Social Media to the next level to a room full of people that were familiar with using Social Media for ministry. During this presentation I made a statement that I had never made before, and it was “Focus less on the numbers and more on the relationships, I have yet to hear a church say, we have 10,000 facebook fans and we because of that we have saved 1000 souls”. This statement came to me while I was speaking because normally when I speak about Social Media in Ministry, people only want to know what did I do to help T.D. Jakes Ministries Facebook Fan Page get over 1.1 million fans, or how did I help his Twitter grow to over 650,000 followers. Now don’t get me wrong, I have strategies, analytics and techniques that can help a ministry make the most of social media and church technology in general, but I realize that in addition to teaching the technical aspects of social media, I want to teach the social aspects of it and how it can literally change someone’s life from whatever device they are on. The goal of social media in ministry is a conversation which begets a relationship that can produce results. However, focusing on the results does not produce relationships and change lives.

While at T.D. Jakes Ministries these last three years I have seen, in real-time, people’s lives changes and souls saved. Whether it be via a live chat during a conference, a facebook comment from an inspirational post or a timely motivational tweet that changed the course of someone’s day, I have seen the power of social media taking ministry to the people.

Therefore, as you develop your social media strategy, make sure that you provide three things:

1. Inspiration - Help lift people up and encourage them to be their best. 2. Information - Relevant information on how your ministry can transform their lives 3. Communication - make sure you respond to the people via social media and let them know the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And add one more category to your analytics when it comes to measuring your social media efforts, and that’s relationships established and souls saved.