It’s Friday and we are in the full swing of fall and baseball playoffs (Go Cubs!). Here’s the latest news on the social media weekly brief. This week, we have stories about Facebook’s new Notify App, new Pew research, and Facebook’s new video features. Also, next Monday on the Ask Darrel Podcast we’ll talk about how to take a digital sabbatical.
Twitter to Cut More Than 300 Jobs
What this means for your church: No, Twitter is not dying. Rather this is just another example of what happens when you’re a publicly traded company. You have stock holders take care of and you have to watch your profit margins. I believe this is a move to help Twitter become more focused and hopefully develop better features that can compete with Facebook’s newsfeed.
Facebook Testing Notify App
What this means for your church: Interesting development. What would be cool is if the Notify app would let users select pages (i.e. your church Facebook page) and push notifications to users. I can see users getting overwhelmed with notifications, however this would be a good way to put your content in front of your audience.
Why Live Streaming is the Water Cooler of the Future
What this means for your church: A few weeks ago I was on Periscope showing people around our new production studio. I was amazed at the number of people that I knew who popped up on my screen and said hi or asked questions. Social media networks that push immediacy will continue to break through and disrupt our paradigms. Here’s a thought, is any using Periscope during your worship services?
65% of Adults in U.S. Use Social Media (Report)
What this means for your church: Interesting findings. Again, we see the growth in the senior adult audience and the females continue to outnumber men in terms of users. If you’re a church continues to ignore these two audiences then you’re missing out on a huge portion of your audience. (I say this as a guy who typically creates for the under-30 crowd, so I too need rethink this.)
Facebook goes after YouTube with video suggestions, floating screen, and dedicated feed
What this means for your church: Facebook is going after one of YouTube’s key features which is discovery. If Facebook can create an experience which will allow users to spend more time viewing videos than they can start replicate part of the Youtube experience. That won’t be easy, but it’s worth a shot.