Social Media meeting May 9. The following Communications Team members met to discuss social media: Lis Small, Jean Lenke, Joan Karasick, Erwin van Zanten, Peter Bretz, Mary Clinton

#1 Social media venues:

Facebook, Twitter, You Tube , Shelfari and Flickr are linked to the website and they all have a photo of the church. Some have the first line of the Mission Covenant statement.  Facebook and Twitter are linked together. Twitter takes the first sentence of the Facebook post and abbreviates the rest to a link.

YouTube library – the moderator would decide if something good should be included.  At present these are shown on YouTube:  Peter’s Church of the Larger Fellowship sermons and two videos about UUism

Are they any other social media sites we should consider?

            Pinterest, Four Square,  Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Yelp, Vimeo, Timbir

Jean and Lis agreed to look into Pinterest, Pete, Four Square.

#2.  Moderators: do we want to have individual moderators for each? – the Moderater can copy/paste anything from the website for Facebook for any of the social media so original writing is not required. Joan uses the blurbs that are sent to her. Facebook moderate would decide what should be kept at the top. (No decision on Moderator issue).

#3.  Social Media Policy:

We decided to have a separate Social Media policy with a reference to the existing policy on electronic resources (UUCDC Policy on Acceptable Use of Electronic Resources which already exists).

             For Social Media, we’ll use elements of the Emerson UU church policy, as presented in (DRAFT) Policies Governing Content Presented on UUCDC’s Social Media (handed out at meeting and sent to all committee members).

            Jean will post the DRAFT on Google Docs so we can all comment.  

Point person

I wanted to let everyone know that I am planning to take the initiative in letting the SMGs know that I as a repressive of the committee can and will help them publicize events. In addition I will watch the church calendar to see what events are coming up and work on ways to publicize them. The most immediate event to it seems to me is Friendship Sunday. Do people agree?

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Thoughts on Social Media….

At our recent meetings we named “using social media” as a goal for our committee. Most of the members attending our last meeting do not use social media.  After meeting with Dan Alamia, here are some of my questions:

Who are we trying to reach with social media – members of the church or people outside of the church? According to the recent communications survey, very few of our members use the Facebook page to get their information UUCDC. Do any of you use social media in any meaningful or useful way?

How will we monitor a Facebook page? The way Facebook works, anyone can get to our page and “like” it – they then can post their comments about anything they want. There is currently a conversation between Craig Harris and a woman who is planning to visit. It’s a positive dialog. What do we do when something negative is published on our page, either by a member or a disgruntled visitor?  Will we end up resolving our conflicts out in cyberspace for the larger community to observe?

Please inform me if my assumptions above are wrong. I invite your comments.

Thanks Mary

While I will not be able to attend meetings on a regular basis, I hope you will call on me to provide resources, ideas, and suggestions as you continue this important work. Mark

Maybe a UUCDC blog?

Mary has a good post above on social media, please read and respond if you haven't.

But in addition, here's some blog links to get you started thinking about this way to connect our church within and without our walls.  Would love to find a blog lover out there to take this on for us!

At the last meeting, I volunteered to look for UU churches that have blogs.  I found a variety of approaches - some as part of websites, some by ministers, and some by individuals (I didn't list those - just Google search if you have a free afternoon!)  The ones I like are up-to-date, pleasing visually, and have thought-provoking posts with comments/discussion in response.  Information only blogs, seem like website calendars to me, but I know many think that's the way to go. 

Good place to start, is info on the UUA website for developing a blog (and other social media) for any of our group who might pursue this idea for us.  They have their own UUA blogs and links to others.

http://newmedia.blogs.uua.org/category/new-media-tools/blogs/

http://www.uua.org/communications/blogs/144974.shtml

Some UU ministers blogs:

http://www.firstunitarian.net/index.php/component/k2/item/116-developing-leaders

http://piedmontpreacher.blogspot.com/

Some UU church and UU connected blogs:

http://www.beverlyunitarian.org/blog

http://nsuu.org/

http://www.uulosalamos.org/about-our-church/blog/

http://greensanctuary.blogs.uua.org/

http://www.discoveruu.com/

http://www.uucava.org/profiles/blog/list

There are many others to add to this list.  Please post any good ones you find for us to see.

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