Evangelism in the digital age

Posted on by Web Admin

On Monday, the House of Deputies adopted resolution B009, related to digital evangelism; now it goes to the House of Bishops. This topic seemed to energize several deputies and other Episcopalians using Twitter, to the point that their internet friends who are not Episcopalian started tweeting to ask about it.

Despite his wariness of technology, the Rt. Rev. Scott Mayer decided to try Twitter. This decision was met by a chorus of support from Episcopalians and his fellow bishops on Twitter, and he had coaching from the most qualified member of the Fort Worth deputation, @GodWelcomesAll, the Rev. Jordan Haynie Ware.

Writing About the 2015 Episcopal General Convention

Posted on by Susan Kleinwechter

Who, me? Write? I’m not a Reporter!

by Susan Kleinwechter, social media coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth

It might have gone down like this: the bishop said, “You folks are all going to write during General Convention, and we are going to publish it. We’re not waiting until we get home.” Blank stares around the room, curt, affirmative nods, except from the excited communications director, who worked late into the night to get a small team very busy on the how. (There will be more on that). Did something like that happen with your convention possee?

For the next few weeks, deputies and alternates from all over the country are asked to become content creators and to publish things digitally. So here are some basic instructions for folks who are writing and publishing:

  1. You must contribute.
  2. Write about what is going on.
  3. Write about the context surrounding what is going on.
  4. Write what you think about what is going on.
  5. Write about how you feel about what is going on.
  6. Write about your spiritual experiences, connections and revelations.

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Who, me? You say I should “be social” at General Convention?

Posted on by Susan Kleinwechter

The Strategy of Using Social Media at the Episcopal General Convention

by Susan Kleinwechter, social media coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth

The 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church brings the opportunity for participants to share so much of their experiences in the governance of TEC and the shaping of the future of the church. And it is vital to do so, in ways perhaps unfamiliar to many. It’s insufficient in 2015 to simply go home and write a 2-page reflection and publish it along with the rest of your July news and email or snail-mail it to your normal recipients in your newsletter. Yes, by all means, do that, but do more, and do it during General Convention.

The “more” is important. It is vital to the life of our church in a time that we so clearly need to grow and reach further, especially to younger audiences, ones that will become the leadership of our church. It is vital to help “folks at home” understand the topics and discussions and decisions that shape our church. It is important that we do this in a social context, because that’s where our reach is both strategic and effective.

It is heartening that so many dioceses have launched their convention publishing initiatives and sites, realizing why social media coverage is so important now:

  • Social networking has twice the click-throughs as email, reaching more of your audience.
  • Conversation about a subject engages more people than reporting about a subject.
  • Pictures and videos elicit more engagement than other forms of digital publication.
  • Social networking is a powerhouse for encouraging online engagement, improving and driving how people connect to your information.
  • When people feel more connected, they participate more and give more.

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Handy WordPress Tutorials for 2015 General Convention

Posted on by Susan Kleinwechter

Good stuff to get you started being a General Convention blogger

by Susan Kleinwechter, social media coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth

Not everyone on our deputation is familiar with our website platform WordPress, so we’ve found some information for our self-starting deputies to equip themselves with the details of posting in our General Convention blog.

We’ve found the handiest bunch of video tutorials: WordPress101Tutorials 

Capturing Video to Tell Your Episcopal General Convention Story

Posted on by Susan Kleinwechter

Tips for Flips and Smartphones

by Susan Kleinwecher, Social Media Coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth

Publishing video to explain and show your event is a great way to cKeep it steady! Pan slowly!onnect to your audience. Using your smartphone, tablet, or Flip video camera is an easy way to capture your video. Planning for success includes understanding the capabilities and limitations of these recording devices and how to overcome them.

Smartphones and Tablets: Most mobile device users take decent HD video. Most mobile devices capture poor sound, because the internal microphone is not powerful. Having said that, we always use what we have, because the worst camera ever is the one you don’t have with you. The major challenges while shooting are stability and lighting. This article offers easy-to-read, common-sense tips for lighting and stability, as well as overcoming the limitations of your camera’s sensors:

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Using Facebook for 2015 Episcopal General Convention

Posted on by Susan Kleinwechter

by Susan Kleinwechter, social media coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth

What Facebook is: Facebookit’s the largest social network in existence, used more than any other on the planet.

Not on Facebook? GetStarted! Go to facebook.com and create an account. Set up your account, upload your image/avatar. Find some friends! You’ll find people you know on Facebook, along with organizations you care about. Need help? Facebook has help here; you bet they want you to understand and succeed using their services. One good tutorial if you’re not familiar with Facebook is Facebook 101 from the Goodwill Community Foundation; they walk you through various privacy settings in your account and help you master posting.

Connect with the Diocese: Go to facebook.com/DioFW and “Like” the diocese page. This will allow you to receive updates to the page and post to the page.

Post to our Diocesan Facebook Page: Our page allows posts by fans. Go for it! Post your resources, information, and links to blogs on our page; post to your personal profile as well. Page admins may re-post your information to extend its reach.

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Using Pinterest for 2015 Episcopal General Convention

Posted on by Susan Kleinwechter

You mean I can Pin about GC78? Sweet!

by Susan Kleinwechter, social media coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth

What Pinterest is: CNET says, “If Tumblr and StumbleUpon had a baby, they would likely give birth to Pinterest. Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board with pins; users grab things from around the internet and pin them to boards. Boards, owned by a user, possibly with other contributors, are the organization tool, organized loosely around a topic or interest. The shareable content is called a pin; it is usually an image of some kind, with a description, links, and descriptive tags. In Pinterest the focus is on on quality images. It’s about (1)content (2)sharing and (3)sharing & commenting. Got that? Sharing is real big on pinterest.

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Tweeting about the 2015 Episcopal General Convention

Posted on by Susan Kleinwechter

A short primer on Twitter, suitable for any deputation, but written for @diofw tweeps

by Susan Kleinwechter, social media coordinator for the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth

Convention deputies and anyone tweeting about convention will use a personal accounts, not our diocesan twitter account @diofw. We want a lot of voices tweeting!

@DioFW on Twitter!

Getting Started: At twitter.com, create an account, select a username, and in your profile, upload a photo that looks like you.  In your account settings, do NOT protect your tweets (you may change that in a month).

Tutorial: Twitter Tutorial from gcflearnfree.org

Connect with the diocese: search for and follow @diofw. @Diofw will add all tweeters in our deputation to a public, subscribable twitter list: @diofw/GC78. The list aggregates our General Convention deputation Twitter voices. Other people can subscribe to it – learn how to subscribe to/follow other people’s lists or create and manage your own at Twitter’s help article Using Twitter lists.

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