Tweeting a Youth Ministry Event

The focus of this blog is on how to use Twitter (and Facebook) for an annual youth ministry event. Using social media is a great way to build enthusiasm for youth ministry events, keep students & parents abreast of what is happening in relatively “live” time, and offer follow-up resources after the event.  These suggestions are based upon the experiences of the social media team for the annual Steubenville St. Louis Mid-America Conference, which has both a Facebook community page and a Twitter account. Though our focus will be on Twitter, we would highly recommend that you create a Facebook page for your event - as we have done - and post all content to both social media outlets in order to reach the broadest possible audience. Since there are currently 800 million active Facebook users & 175 million active Twitter accounts, the potential ministry outreach is huge. Pope Benedict XVI has asked the Church to ‘evangelize the Digital Continent,’ and using social media is one of the easiest and most effective ways to do that.

Well in advance of any event, we recommend that you promote your Twitter account and Facebook group using every means possible. Bulletin announcements, mailings, emailing, texts, fliers, web pages, meetings, and every other form of communication should mention your social media efforts.  People will tend to “like” or “follow” well in advance of the event, which will help you to reach a large base number of people.  During the event, regularly remind your event’s participants and current followers to tell their family and friends about your social media efforts in order to expand your audience.

As previously mentioned, we recommend that you create a unique Twitter account and Facebook page for any annual event.  Whenever possible, a hashtag (such as #steubystl in our case) should be included in every Twitter post.  Other attendees at your event should be encouraged to use the same hashtag on any of their posts, since hashtags are searchable and will allow users to not only follow your posts but those of other attendees.  Keep in mind, though that using hashtags in Facebook posts is kind of lame – and we don’t want you to be lame.

On Twitter, we recommend following back everyone who follows you.  This will increase your number of followers.

Start posting as soon as you create your accounts and post often.  We found it helpful to create a list of tweets for the weeks preceding the event.  Things like links to music or speakers or even a countdown to the event’s start can help create excitement and interest.  Think about your event with a “Twitter mindset.”  Every time you have a thought about your event, before, during, and after the event takes place, ask yourself, “Is this tweetworthy?”  When in doubt, run the thought by someone you trust – other team members or pastoral leaders. We highly recommend that your posts be a combination of fun and serious, which will keep your audience engaged and curious as to what the next post might be.  And if you ever retweet through your account, make sure that it relates in a clear way to your event.

Tweet pictures and videos whenever possible.  People love them, and seeing a URL in your tweet makes people curious what they’ll see when they click it.  If you have talented photographers assigned to the event or simply in attendance, you might want to consider posting pictures on a regular basis and also uploading them all to a Flickr account.  You can see how we do this here

Remember your audience. In our case, we try to consider both the folks back home and those attending the event.  We try to ensure that our posts appeal to participants at the event, those who wished they could attend but were unable to make the event, and the parents/other family members of the participants.

A team approach can make your efforts much more thorough, interesting, and energetic.  If possible, have some brainstorming sessions before, during, and after the event.  Checking in throughout the event can lead to new ideas that can be put in place before the event ends, and recapping/evaluating how well the team did using social media after the event can help put new ideas in place for the next event. You could have different team members focus on different facets of the event (i.e., a photographer, a videographer, a copywriter, an interviewer of attendees, a narrator of the event, etc.). Try to avoid redundant tweets.  If more than one person is tweeting an event, they should be in regular communication with the others whenever if possible – and it certainly helps in this regard for all team members to have all tweets sent via SMS to their mobile devices. If you use mobile devices like smartphones, make sure they are fully charged, since regular social media updates quickly drain battery life.

When possible, even after the event is over, continue your social media postings so that your followers will continue to be informed and encouraged in their faith. These reminders throughout the year serve not only to bring the attendees back to the event and remind them of what they experienced, but also to build momentum and excitement for attending the event again in the future.

As youth workers, it is imperative that we meet our teens where they are at – and we all know that the vast majority of them utilize many forms of social media. We wish you all of God’s best as you strive to “evangelize the digital continent,” as our Holy Father has so clearly encouraged us to do.