Mickey Mellen, a freelance web developer who works with small businesses, churches and individuals to help them further their reach on the Internet, recently wrote about a Twitter experiment he conducted. The article, “Churches Aren’t Paying Attention on Twitter“, appears on churchmarketingsucks.com and should be considered a “must read” for any church already on Twitter and those considering expanding their social media strategy to include Twitter.
The Experiment
Reach out to 25 churches that seemingly want to engage via Twitter (determined by having a link to their Twitter account on their home page) on Tuesday morning with the following tweet:
@ChurchName What is the sermon going to be about this week?
and wait for responses
The Results
Only 3 churches (12%) replied
So What?
Interestingly, Mellen conducted a similar experiment a few weeks earlier in which he reached out to 11 churches that met the same criteria and received only 1 response (9%).
Evaluate Your Church
- Does your church have a Twitter account? If so, is it featured on your home page?
- Who oversees the account? Does this person or team watch for mentions and reply to them in a timely manner?
- Could having a Twitter account and using it only to pass along information (never interacting) be worse for your church’s overall image than having no account at all?