To harness the full power of social media you must make it conversational right? It’s not about tooting your own horn and telling everyone how magnificent you are. It’s not about getting the most followers and blasting everyone with tweets about yourself. To make social media benefical you must build trust, be generous and have a conversation. Yes this means you, rental property company that blasted me with tweets when I said I was going to Big Sky, Montana for the weekend.
I get that lesson. I’m all in with that.
So what does this teach me about evangelism? In our culture if someone trusts me then they’ll engage with just about anything I’ll say. If I want to turn someone off instantly all I have to do is turn on the bullhorn of righteousness.
Trust, relationship and authenticity is everything. But keep in mind this trust and relationship can be built in a surprisingly short amount of time.
Keith Davy and Cojourners have highly influenced my thinking on this subject of evangelism. I haven’t got my hands on Keith’s new release Backstory yet, but I’m excited to see how it’s received on college campuses.
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great thoughts matt! very much agree that trust can be built surprising quickly online.
i love what chris brogan suggest: a 12-1 ratio of replies vs push messages on twitter. that is probably harder for people like you, me and most people who don't have thousands of followers, but the principle is clear–listen first, talk second.