Your church definitely has a website, probably a Facebook group or Fan Page, and maybe a Twitter account. But a LinkedIn group?
LinkedIn can be seen and treated as the ugly step-child of social media sites. Unless you seriously need a job or seriously hate your current one I doubt your logging hours on it.
However establishing a presence on LinkedIn can be strategic for your church or ministry.
Here’s why:
- I’ve seen a steady increase of current and recent college graduates (future church members) add me as a connection in the last few months (I work with lots of college students as a Campus Crusade for Christ staff member).
- They continue to upgrade their site and mobile apps (the UI on the iPhone app is overwhelming, but at least they are working on it).
- It provides a unique opportunity to connect with young professionals–an often challenging group to connect to each other and the rest of the church.
Check their growth chart from ComScore, it seems more than just college students are using it:
LinkedIn can serve as an effective outpost for professionals in your church or ministry. Here are some optimization suggestions:
- Set up a group that focuses on a subset of your ministry – “Young Professionals at New Life Church” instead of a broad group such as “New Life Church”
- Aggregate as much relevant content as possible from existing sources to the group (you can add an RSS feed or a website under “News/Manage News Feed”).
- Beware of posting or using the group for urgent communications–my experience is that I discover content rather than seek it out from the site.
- If you are a staff member set aside time to add those whom you lead as connections–this can add some texture to your relationship and build trust.
- If you are leading a church or ministry hold your young adults and our college pastor to being active on the site.
- When I met the new pastor of my church in person for the first time, it was encouraging that he added me on LinkedIn right after our meeting.
Is your church using LinkedIn? Is it effective? Convinced?
PaulSteinbrueck says
Brian, interesting idea. Can you point to any examples of churches that are using LinkedIn effectively?
I can see the value of individuals (pastors & other church staff) being on LinkedIn and connecting with people in their church or ministry there, but I haven’t seen many organizations doing much on LinkedIn, Most groups seem to lack a critical pass of participants and content to make them worthwhile.
Brian Barela says
hey paul great thoughts.
we (ccc) have been a larger group of “members” (college grads) using LinkedIn than the church at large, so i see how the strategy still might not match the needs of many churches.
i actually have not seen examples of a church using it.
in my former church in LA, we had a large group of young professionals that were not able to frequently attend bible studies, services, etc because of their tremendous work loads.
i could see a LinkedIn group helping keep this group connected and informed so that when they do make it to something they do not feel so out of touch, and lessen the awkwardness they feel from being out of the loop.
the other side of it would be connecting young professionals who recently move into a city from somewhere else. i think joining a linked group would be a great “first step” in terms of getting involved in a church, and might signal to them that there are actually other people like them at the church before they even attend.
PhillipGibb says
it is certainly a great tool for managing a professional profile. But at the moment it seems to just be another place to publish my feed on and share links on. I think that it certainly needs to be used more strategically than that.
Brian Barela says
hey phillip hope to meet you at sxsw!
agreed on the strategic part. hoping we can take the lead on figuring that out!
SamMahlstadt says
I agree with the feeling you get when someone adds you on LinkedIn. It may be because not everyone and their mother uses it, so exclusivity seems a bit higher…
This could be big for young adult ministries and college focused groups – helping network is huge for those in the job hunt – could be a great avenue to serve those in your congregation.
Brian Barela says
hey sam good thoughts.
the other thing i notice when someone adds me is that i usually spend 2-5 minutes looking around the site after i accept the invitation.
those 2-5 min is the perfect window for us to place relevant and interesting content related to our ministry for those young professionals to consume.
i’m definitely going to share these thoughts with some colleagues. this has been helpful!
Nick Shoemaker says
I think you’re right on about the ugly step-child part.
I didn’t get on LinkedIn until recently- very recently (like two weeks ago). But I’ll be honest- I don’t get it. (And I GET social media.) And I’ll be even more honest in saying it pretty much drives me nuts trying to figure it out. It’s ugly- literally- and has a difficult at best UI. If ease of adaption is key for establishing an online community- LinkedIn doesn’t get it.
BUT- if this is where young professionals are then it may make sense to explore the option further.
What about Park Community in Chicago? It’s a church comprised largely of this demographic. I wonder if they’re utilizing it?
Good thoughts Brian. 🙂
Brian Barela says
thanks nick.
from my experience it seems not many “get it”–i heard a seminar at the inbound marketing summit last year from a guy who was building a legitimate community and growing his audience through a linkedin group. that’s the only “success” story i’ve heard so far.
this might be one of the few places where the church can actually be out in front (or at least at the front of the pack) in innovating and exploring how to build community and integrate this platform in meaningful ways.
let me know if you come up w anything!
Scott Magdalein says
Totally spot-on insight. Great post, especially the part about the focused and unique audience.
Stuart says
I don’t see linkedin as the ‘ugly step child’.
It was created for and is a very different approach to the world of social media. It is very different in apporach than FB, Twitter, MySpace, etc and in fact the ability to link in your feeds is a bad step IMO.
I’ve only ever used it as a business site – so my profile is serious, my “friends” are business colleagues (or ex ones) or potential sources for future employment or sources of knowledge to do with business. My usage of FB is only for family and close friends and twitter / myspace is reserved for everything else. So your statement “need a job” is an accurate assumption of its usage as far as I am aware and was also the reason behind setting it up.
Their own login page has this to say:
– Stay informed about your contacts and industry
– Find the people & knowledge you need to achieve your goals
– Control your professional identity online
Which fits with a professional network site and not a usurper of farmville, etc …
So, should we spend time and effort developing a ‘ministry outpost’ for it? In short no. Should we have connections into it and be monitoring groups, etc, then yes. Paul said it higher up the comments – it lacks critical mass to warrant a dedicated ministry or sub-ministry at this time.
Brian Barela says
hey stuart appreciate your different take on LinkedIn.
here’s my proposition: regardless of the form of LinkedIn young adults (30-under) are going to treat the site like facebook, myspace etc at least for the first few months.
a recent college grad that’s been on facebook 24/7 is going to navigate LinkedIn the same way.
i agree that there overall the critical mass is low but i would say that in certain pockets it would be valuable to establish a presence with regular, curated content and some sort of social facilitator/connector.
what do you think?
stuart says
OK – agreed that under 30’s will likely treat it like FB but that being the case how long until they get bored with it and move along?
I guess what you are asking is if we (the church) should be expending time & effort on it? As I belong to a church that doesn’t have any social media policies (story for another time) I’m not sure I have any insight – but while critical mass is or remains low then as I said above we shouldn’t commit too many resources to it.
brett barner says
Anyone else think that this increase could be due to the rise in Facebook popularity with the *ahem, older generations? I’m always surprised at the activity done in LinkedIn, and only because I hardly use it. I took the Ronco Rotisserie approach and just “Set it and forget it”. Maybe it’s time to log in. 🙂 Good thoughts, Brian! 🙂
Leslie says
Greetings. A friend sent me a link to your article in an effort to help me grow my marriage ministry. I am interested in your opinion on the potential for using Linked In as a marketing tool. My ministry is focused seminars for women of all ages to help them understand men better and grow fabulous marriages. I am ready and able to travel to present at retreats and workshops, but am somewhat stuck when it comes to deciding what modern marketing tools will be most effective. Two things seem to be major road blocks. Women perceive themselves as too busy to attend retreats/workshops (no wonder marriages fail when no one invests in them), and speakers are perceived as too expensive to engage. I believe so strongly in my message that I will work with any church or women’s group that would like me to speak, and I trust that God will make it possible if it is in His will. I appreciate your feedback and any suggestions you might offer. God bless you and your work for His kingdom.