Politics, Tech, and Ministry

With the election right around the corner and the fate of the world (as some would see it) resting in the political hands of one of the presidential candidates, “politics” are on the forefront of nearly everyone’s mind (and certainly on many people’s blogs and twitter).

Inevitably (as in pretty much every election) the church and religion play an important role, and choosing sides often means finding those in the evangelical elite that we most align with and following their lead.  Unfortunately, many elevate politics to the level of biblical standards and are more vehement and vocal about their political views than their more important faith.

And unlike any election in the history of mankind, technology is playing an uncompromising role unlike anything we’ve ever seen before: We have presidential candidates blogging, twittering, establishing platform-thematic digital-memes and using grassroots viral marketing and social networking platforms and mediums as a valuable tool of not only information-sending, but information-gathering, proclamation, and sometimes exploitation and your typical political mudslinging.

So if technology is playing such a vital role, are we taking the necessary steps (and perhaps precautionary measures) to make sure we’re doing the very best to represent the ministries that we work at and represent?

Are politics damaging your ministry brand?

Is it possible that the way that you’re using your blog, your twitter, your facebook, and the things that you say online, are affecting your professional and ministerial credibility?

It’s a tough question, but it’s one that’s worth asking.

One example where politics, social media, and branding collide is Jason Goldberg, the founder and CEO of SocialMedian.

He obviously owns the twitter account for @socialmedian and so represents the business with that account, but it only takes a few seconds to realize his personal opinions about the general election, the candidates, and more are posted on the same twitter account.

What’s up with that?

This can, to a certain degree, discredit the business since he is a representative of the business and suggest to a casual observer that SocialMedian, as a business, favors this particular presidential candidate.  If this is the case, then this could turn off many users, participants, and partner businesses.

Kyle Lacy also caught onto this a little while back and asked pretty much the big one:

Should personal politics be brought into the company communication medium? When you are trying to set an image of a company into a market is it best to keep neutral and just share information with your followers?

So let’s move toward your ministry then:

What are your thoughts in regards to using your online mediums as channels of official marketing/branding as well as personal opinion in regards to politics?  Are we doing our ministries a disservice?  Should leaders of ministries not include their political opinions amongst their “updates” on such social services?

John Saddington

I am the CEO of 8BIT and a Full Time Entrepreneur/a>. I like what I do.