Christian Social Media and Social Networking

Christian and Church Related Social Networking Communities : Your Definitive Guide to Church Social Media

Why social networking?Christians along with the unchurched are going online in mass and slowly abandoning mass media. Social networking, blogs, and interactive social media are creating a revolution in how people interact and connect online. Its also fundamentally transforming Christian and church marketing practices, but these changes typically are slow with some maven churches on the leading edge of social media marketing.

Why should your church or christian organization be involved with social media? Its about sharing your story online. Its about connecting to the people in your organization. Its about being found in Google. And its about being missional.

God Tube-Christian version of YouTube

My Church-Christian version of MySpace

Shout Life-Another Christian version of MySpace.

Christian Leaders on Twitter-Just a Facebook group for Christian leaders. There are several other groups for Christian leaders. Check out this free Facebook for Pastors e-book

Belief Net Community-in addition to a blog community, Belief Net which is owned by Ruport Murdoch a per his acquisition about a year ago.

Ning-Ning allows you to create your own social network in 60 seconds. There are several Christian communities on Ning

God Blogs-Christian-esque social news community (I believe this community no longer exists)

Linked In and Christian Social Networking–
• Christian Professionals
• Business as Mission Network
• Christian Ministry and Church Leadership
• CBMW

Other Non-Christian Relateded Social Networking Communities to Check Out:
Shelfari and Good Reads are book social networks for books. I would probably just pick one.

Flickr-a photo sharing site. A great way to share your story, especially if you or someone in your family or your church enjoys taking pictures. Also, if you have artistic or visual content that isn’t video, but instread two-dimensional flickr is a fantastic option for putting that content online and giving it a home.

Yelp is social networking for restaurants and local business reviews.

Facebook-this is the mack daddy of social networks. Churches like Lifechurch have applications here to drive online engagement and community. Leveraging groups in facebook is a great way to connect with fellow church goers for activities.

Twitter-people tend to like twitter. Lots of church leaders and Christian authors are on here. A great place to connect with those folks and others.

Vimeo-Great place in addition You Tube and God Tube to post videos.

Viddler-Another fantastic video sharing community.

UStream is a great way to live stream church services, church events, or classes. There are several other players in this space that are worth looking at.

WordPress is a great blogging platform and arguably the best blogging platform.

Second Life I don’t recommend Second Life (SL) for everybody, but a very small number of churches (around 100 or so according to recent article by Christianity Today) are creating online communities on the social network Second Life.

Upcoming is social networking for events. Although in the short term, Facebook events is probably the best place to coordinate this rather than Upcoming, because not a lot of people are on upcoming except in major cities like Washington DC, San Fransisco, and New York.

More Christian and Religious Social Media Marketing Resources

For more about church social media and social networking check out our other posts or Aaron Marshall church social media. You can see his video on Vimeo called Social Media 101, which he delivered at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Christianity on Alltop-aggregation of some of the best blogs on Christianity and Christian related subjects

Religion on Alltop-aggregation of some fo the top blogs in the area of religion

Have any Christian social networking suggestions or tips? Do you have any questions about religious social media for me or others? Where do you digital missions and e-ministry moving towards?