The Social Media Cycle: A Religious Experience?

When having a conversation about social media, it's almost impossible to do so without touching upon the concept of community. It's no secret that the internet has forced us to re-evaluate and even, in some ways, redefine how we view community, adjust for the extent to which digital gatherings are becoming the norm.

This topic came up yesterday in a conversation with some Methodist ministers who were looking for ways to use social media for the growth and enrichment of their communities. The overwhelming concern I was hearing from them was that social media would cause people to forgo having, as one minister called it, "skin in the game." In other words, many of them were reluctant to use social media because they felt it would actually break down their communities and lead to isolation.

Aside from the fact that it is my personal belief humans have a natural, innate need for physical contact, and that social media will relieve us of that need no more than the telegraph or telephone have over the last couple of centuries (did AT&T connect or disconnect us when they told us to "Reach Out and Touch Someone?"), there are some uses of social media that are more conducive to this than others.

If your community likes to chat online, the first thing you have to do is recognize that as a good thing, not a bad thing. When they're on your Facebook page, message boards, twitter feed, etc., it means they're engaged with your message and they want to share their thoughts, feelings, and questions with others.

To bring those conversations from the message board to the meeting place, a savvy community leader can listen to what their community is saying and build physical events, such as focused study groups, classes, and outings, around those topics of interest. So if your online communities are buzzing this week about, say, Paul's Letters, how do you turn that topic into an opportunity for a face-to-face conversation? If you're a minister, plan a sermon to address your community's questions. Looking for a less formal option? Suggest a meet-up or Bible study (perhaps at a restaurant, coffee shop, or other inviting location) specifically to talk about this topic. Perhaps after studying Paul's letters, your community expresses an interest in finding ways to serve. If so, organize a volunteer day where they can combine their strengths for the greater good.

Then, once you've found the topics that engage your community using social media, you can promote these events using social media. Get on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, message boards, Eventbrite, Meetup.com -- the list continues. The more channels you use, the broader your reach will be.

You can even take things one step further and document your meetings to share online. Whether you choose to share your content via video (YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Metacafe), audio (podcasts, MySpace), or blog post (Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad), you can start to build a conversation archive for the future. Then, next time someone has an interest in one of your past topics and does a web search, they'll find your community and, it follows, a place to talk about it. And from here, the social cycle continues.

For those companies and organizations who still doubt social media's ability to bring people together meaningfully, just remember: the more you listen to your communities online, the more opportunities you'll find to get creative and engage their interests in constructive ways. People gravitate toward social media because they perceive the technology's ability to bring them closer together. It simply takes a leader to sort through the clutter and find the channels that will lead to deep and meaningful social engagement.