Evaluating new social media

Summary

Present

This section talks about evaluating new social media websites and services so you can ascertain risks and rewards.

Activity: How to evaluate a social media service

Present

During social hour, a member of your congregation comes up to you and says, “I just heard about this new system and I was wondering why we’re not using it.”

You think to yourself, “I’ve never heard of that system.”

How do you respond? This is probably a policy issue.

How do you evaluate this new website or service? This is probably a process issue.

Work out a policy for responding to someone who has just mentioned a new social media system you’ve never heard of.

Work out a process for evaluating a social media system keeping in mind the things we’ve talked about during this workshop:

1. purpose – how does it help you? if it’s not solving a problem, then you can probably stop here.
2. accessibility – is it usable by people who would need to use it?
3. privacy – does the website or service have a privacy statement? what does the terms of service say?
4. changes – how new is this service? look for a blog related to this service and gauge how fast they’re changing.
5. dependency – does this service allow you to export your data so that you can take it with you if you decide to stop using it or if they change in a way you can no longer use it?
6. ethics – how does this service fit in with your church’s privacy statement, safe child policy, and other ethics-related policies?
7. effort – how much effort will it take to integrate this tool and maintain it?

Creating a social media position

Present

There’s no way a single person can keep up to speed with social media changes, new services, services that have gone away, and new kinds of things we can do with social media unless you’re in the thick of it.

If you plan to use social media extensively, it’s a good idea to create a social media related position on your RE council. This person would be in charge of evaluating new social media, keeping an ear to the ground for new systems and changes, and help your team work through changes.

This is a great position for a high schooler or a college student because they’re often in the thick of it.

Resources and articles