Chris Brogan on Workflows – Social Media Pastor

If you’re not a regular follower of Chris Brogan, let me suggest you either subscribe to his RSS feed or at least go to his website periodically and scan through his postings. He is a prodigious writer on topics of social media and social networking in a manner that’s easy for everyone to understand. Chris published a series of posts that talk about the idea of ‘workflow’ for a pastor, a teacher and a marketer. Normally, I think of workflow as something you do in producing media. Of course, the notion works fine from his perspective, which is to highlight the use of various social media and social networking tools that, let’s say, a contemporary pastor uses each day.

Here is part of his post on how Pastor Emilio uses social media:

“Emilio rises at six and starts coffee. His RSS reader has many blogs to read, plus links to a ‘Bible in a Year’ website that sends him daily updates. It’s no longer strange to be reading the Bible in his RSS reader. It just feels like another way to connect. Emilio is thinking of setting alerts for his community in general as well as for specific issues facing the people in his congregation.

“Emilio has a personal blog for reflections and a website for his church as well. Most recently, he’s added a section for using UStream.tv to show live sermons. Not that every house has a broadband Internet connection, but if this is another way that someone who can’t make it to the church can feel connected to the community, why not give it a try?”

These posts show how anyone can use social media tools on the Internet to be more connected with their constituents or clients or prospects. When I say more connected I mean more ‘in’ the conversation with them – listening and talking. There is little real cost associated with using these tools these days (RSS, blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter … on and on), and there are so many choices now that you can find social media tools specifically for your job and your audience. For example, Emilio uses GodTube to post videos (he uses YouTube also). It’s all a matter of revisioning how you apply your time with these various tools (meaning your workflow).

So if you’ve been finding yourself resistant to exploring and then using all these new tools you’ve been hearing about, go read Chris’ blog articles on how a pastor, a teacher and a marketer use them in their daily lives to help them be more successful. It’s all about your market and how you choose to have conversations with them in a way that works for them as well as you.

Tom