5 Reasons Your Ministry Should Be On Twitter

Twitter is a social networking service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Followers can visit the author's Twitter page or use one of many tools to follow feeds, or their computer or phone.

So what does this have to do with your ministry? Twitter can be used as a tool to connect with your users, to promote the content on your website, and possibly gain more interest in what your ministry is doing. Here are five reasons why your ministry should consider joining Twitter.

1. Audience

Twitter has over 100 million active users. Many are young (between 18-48) and come from all over the country and the world. Like Facebook and YouTube, Twitter is a tool that allows you to expand your ministry's reach. In addition to your followers, your tweets can also be found by adding topic tags and by retweeting posts from other Twitter accounts.

2. Links, links, links

One of the biggest benefits of Twitter is as an avenue for posting links back to your website. By using hyperlink abbreviating programs, you can create convert your long links into shorter ones. Twitter is all about driving traffic to your main Web presence, your ministry website.

3. Networking

"It's not what you know, it's who you know." We've all heard this saying and found it to be overwhelmingly true. By gaining followers and by following others yourself, you can develop a list of diverse contacts who share your beliefs, have a common mission, and may work in different areas of ministry. If you are interested in collaborating with other ministries, Twitter is a good place to develop relationships.

4. It's easy, interactive, and viral

Twitter is like a blog in that it initiates dialogue between you and your readers. Your followers can retweet your posts, or post your tweets from their profiles, they can respond to your tweets, and they can comment on the pictures you post. And its much less complicated than blogs. Users can read a tweet in 20 seconds and pass it on to others with an extra 5 seconds. They can follow much more people at once from mobile applications, desktop programs, and other utilities.

5. It's Free Advertising

Having a Twitter profile and posting tweets costs you nothing. Nothing except time and a tweeting strategy.

That being said, Twitter is not for everyone. Above are just reasons why your church should consider it. Concentrate on the content of your ministry first, your ministry's website second, and advertising last.

Reasons why you may not need Twitter

• You don't know what a "blog" is, nevermind a "micro-blog"
• You don't have enough content to link to on your ministry website
• You can't devote any time to tweet, or you'd rather spend your time doing ministry work
• You aren't interested in learning how to maximize its potential

MORE RESOURCES FOR TWITTER

The Reason Your Church Must NOT Twitter - ChurchCrunch.com
Twitter for Ministry and Church – A Business Perspective - ChurchCrunch.com
Why I Love Twitter - Tim O'Reilly