[Editor’s Note: This is the fourth quadrant in the Social Media Engagement Matrix]
Of the four different social media engagement matrix quadrants, nearly everyone discusses how to do the other three well, but no one is making attempts at this specific type of engagement. It makes sense because businesses want to do marketing well and the return on investment from relational social media posts is not guaranteed nor quick. Further, it feeds the ego when someone retweets or reshares and comments on your posts, but extroverted content is less about you and more about the viewer so no ego is fed. What this leaves is a significant deficit on how to do extroverted social media engagement posts well.
Characteristics
Extroverted posts are simply active relational posts that look to engage with as many different people as possible and are not content with simply waiting for the visitors to come to them, but instead start the conversation themselves. The beauty of this is that you value people as people instead of worrying about the type of message you are sending, the return on investment, or only worrying about those that have the best potential for leading and serving. If you value conversation and have less worry about likes and traffic to your website, this model is perfect for you.
Pros and Cons
In looking at this model, I want to give you a true view of what it means to have the Come See Us mentality of posts.
Benefits
This quadrant of the social media engagement matrix has a lot to offer that can be extremely enticing.
- People Are People Here As a social media manager with this model, you do not have deadlines, quotas for traditional results on social media, or such a strong emphasis on data and content that you can truly tailor your content to engagement. Beyond that, this model resonates with your audience more than anything else because you stop trying to sell something and instead begin to relate to them.
- You Will Grow Rapidly As with the Let Me Show You model that is active minded, the possibility for growth is strong. Unlike the marketing model though, you are not looking for the audience to share your message (though this will happen and often), but instead to connect specifically with people intentionally. This will create a very loyal group of people to your cause that will have a strong long-term effect on your social media engagement.
- High Engagement Numbers Most social media “specialists” will say that you need to be measuring your analytics for likes, click-throughs to your website, and comments. An extroverted post cares about none of those. To be successful here, we are measuring the number of conversations being had (lots of comments does not equate to dialogue), the quality of the conversation, and long-term loyalty with members.
- No One Is Missed Many times an introverted post will miss many possible opportunities for relationships because they wait for people to come to them. Extroverted posts does not care about this, but hopes to talk to everyone about any kind of conversation including how fun youth group was or something more substantial like the opportunity for baptism. The power of this is that people may not want to leave a comment but could be the next Billy Graham someday if they are invested in as this model of social media engagement allows.
Drawbacks
Unfortunately, this model fails in many different ways that may outweigh the benefits.
- This Fails In The Short Term If you need to show off results in the next six months, you are not going to want to use this model. We are looking at establishing relationships one person at a time and so the short term return on investment for this is going to be significantly low. It is only when we look at long-term results do we see this model shine brightly.
- It May Never Result In Anything But A Conversation The extroverted model is all about relationships with everyone. Many of these conversations may make the other party a better person but they never will attend your youth group, serve on your board of trustees, or come to a marriage retreat at your church. With tight budgets, limited energy, and minimum amount of time, most ministries I know can never give this model the full effort and energy it deserves. It takes a special church that is person focused to thrive and succeed here.
- You Need To Have The Bandwidth A social media engagement model that wants to be actively relational will need to be able to reply to comments in a timely manner, give quality responses, craft specific posts that purposely promote dialogue, and maybe go find out what others are talking about elsewhere that have engaged with you. This takes time and effort far beyond a typical post that a volunteer or someone that does this on the side outside of their job description may not have the time to do.
How Churches Use This Model Wrong
Because this is a fairly undiscovered model of engaging on social media to this point, there are not many examples of how to do this well. You will need to be creative in how you decipher what is active and relational in your social media strategy. It sounds very Christian for you to want to focus on the person that may be viewing your church’s model and a lot of good natured pastors ask someone to take that on their plate. But because of the lack of creative posts to promote good dialogue and the lack of determination to stick with the long-term vision almost always finds social media accounts abandoned or deleted in quick failure. The team needs to continuously be long-term focused and have a strong strategy for success that is intentional and thorough.
Best Practices
I have two ideas for you to mimic and then make your own as a great extraverted blog post. The first looks at different church events where a lot of great stuff is happening but may not find too many conversations happening. This can include service projects and Christian concerts where the focus is on the activity and not necessary dialogue. Take tons of pictures at these events of a variety of different people and then post them all on your Facebook page. Tag EVERY single picture with as many different faces as you can as well as a unique caption for every photo. Comments, reshares, and likes will flow and then all you have to do is continue the dialogue further. Another option is to create an effective hashtag that is versatile and yet simple for your church. Something like #UMCChicago could be the starting point to tons of dialogue. Then in your next church service, have your pastor come up with a great challenge, put up a slide at the end of the sermon with the hashtag when the challenge is delivered, and ask the congregation to share on social media. A simple question of what it means to be a Christian could provide you with hundreds of results before people even leave the church building.
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