In October I spoke at the Relevant Conference on a panel about social media. I have this awesome gig as the social media manager for DaySpring and community manager for their website, (in)courage. I love my job and I think about social media like, a lot. This week I’ll be sharing 4 posts with some of those thoughts.
I like to build things.
My son, he builds with wood and hammer and nails so rusted they speak of being long forgotten in the yard. He drags his dad’s yellow and gray tool box outside and uses its contents so lovingly that it’s hard to complain when he forgets to bring it back inside.
I like to build things too.
I build with words. I build with a keyboard. I build with thin strands of friendship strung across the globe.
You can call it social media. I call it conversation. And I think it’s one of the most powerful tools we have to date to live out that greatest of commands:
The world tell us social media is about building our platform, our brand, our followers, our name. To get while the getting’s good. That it’s a land grab and grabbing requires a finger in every network, a post every day, a PhD in SEO, and herculean competition for attention.
Exhausting. The worrying that wherever one woman succeeds there’s that much less land for the women coming up behind.
What if instead social media was a way to build a bridge?
To lay ourselves down, plank by plank, word by word, and offer a way for women to walk out of their fears, their loneliness, their desperate belief that they are the only ones to have failed at parenting or marriage or decorating or educating their children and discover that they are not alone.
I’ve made four international moves in the last decade and they’ve taught me three things: 1. that every city is full of people who will cry over my boxes by the time I leave, 2. that the metro makes sense in any language, and 3. that people are people are people no matter which side of the road they drive on.
My dad is a doctor and he tells anyone considering medicine, “If you don’t like people, it’s not for you.”
Social media is the same. It runs on relationships. And if you’re in it for you more than you’re in it for them, it will never pay off.
I find this applies across the board – no matter our zip code, our faith, our niche, or our culture.
We have to be willing to hammer out our stories and share them for free. And I’m not talking about ads vs. no ads on our sites. I’m talking about what we expect in return from our readers. Are we in it for what we have to give them or what we hope to get from them?
What if we cared less about our stats and more about the wonder of encouraging someone who lives half a world away from us but is comforted by what we’re going through?
What if we served ourselves as love offering to those starving for encouragement.
What if the best translation of the Gospel is your life?
How are you spending your social media currency?
What if it looked like this?
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AMEN, sister! Amen!
I will look forward to the rest of your posts in this topic. Social media is a mixed bag for me, and I want to learn to be more happy with the way I use it. (not sure if that makes sense!) thanks for a great post!
http://tuningmyhearttopraise.blogspot.com/2011/12/his-sweet-loveablewill.html
Truth…truth…truth…this bloggy world is a strange place…and I new place for me…I feel God wants to use blogging to bring greater freedom from myself…and in the process if someone else is helped or blessed…icing…first my relationship with Him…than others…Oh I love…love the last quote….we could read that every time we log on…
thanks and blessings to you…
Thank you so much for this post! I look forward to the rest of yours. Relationship is so key in every area of life…thank you for the reminder!
Preach it, Sister! Can’t wait for the next posts…
AMEN.
LOVE the photos…they are so emotive of the encouraging words you have written here…my “table gatherings” feel quite small, but worthy nonetheless. Love the prayer at the end…am going to print this out and post on my bulletin board right above my computer.
Pure motives. They should exist in all areas of our life – including our online networking. I can’t wait to read your other thoughts/tips on social media!
LOVE this LJ… you know who is fantastic with this stuff? YOU!!!
And I also immediatly think of Mary deMuth who is just generous with praise and reaching out… it is so beautiful.
This year as I have moved out of writing into photography, God has blessed me with some amazing other photogs that I have gotten to know and I am having a blast there! Definitely finding my sea legs there :)
A to the Men, sista! Beautifully said!
Love this!! It’s so true…..I love social media because of the friendships I’ve made and the people I meet. It’s a strange online world, but an AMAZING one!
Thanks for sharing this! If we all decided to turn social media on its head this way, God could truly use us to change the world!
Great encouragement, Lisa-Jo. I especially love what you said about focusing on who is at our table instead of who isn’t there. God’s Words must flow through us.
Many blessings!
Wonderful post! I love you perspective and I’m thankful to see words put to my feelings!
Thanks!
Lisa
So true, so true. And good to read it, even though it’s something we should instinctively know already. :)
This is wonderful – thank you. I really needed to read that little poem at the end. I so often obsess over my unfollowers or unsubscribers (be they 1 or 2 even) and forget to celebrate how I have some amazing readers and am building relationships with women who have shown up ;) Thank you all the way from Cape Town!
Thank you, Lisa-Jo! This is much needed…and so received by this little blogging sister. You are submitting to the Holy Spirit and are spreading His charge to all of us. Thank you!
“Are we in it for what we have to give them or what we hope to get from them?”
Wow. This is an incredibly important post, Lisa-Jo. Thank you for writing it.
Love every word of this. I can’t even tell you how much I needed to read this today. Thank you.
Oh Lisa-Jo, this is *exactly* how I feel, too! “What if we served ourselves as love offering to those starving for encouragement.” Yes, sister, YES!
Thank you for translating the whisperings of the Holy Spirit in such beautiful prose. {hug}
Great advice. Easy to hear. Hard to put into practice. Reminds me of Colossians 3:16-17 “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Yes! You summed it up for me; writing as a mama mission, a way to tell the truth and live authentically.
You know what’s funny? When I write what’s real in the Mama World in a bid to help my mama friends Find the Funny, or Nod at the Heartache, or just make it through the day with a giggle, I find that those heart-to-heart mama connections result in releasing *me* from the burden of my expectations. What a gift.
“What if instead social media was a way to build a bridge? To lay ourselves down, plank by plank, word by word, and offer a way for women to walk out of their fears, their loneliness, their desperate belief that they are the only ones to have failed at parenting or marriage or decorating or educating their children and discover that they are not alone.”
Lisa-Jo, thank you for this! I needed it, and I appreciate your words so much! I want the relationships so bad, but I struggle with the time-management of it all. Are you going to address that at any point? I need help with running a blog and building friendships in blogging.
Thank you!!!
Brenda
Lisa-Jo this is an awesome perspective on social media and blogging.
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be :).
I wanna sit in these words and soak ’em in. Knowing them to be true is one thing. Behaving like they are is another.
xo
Awsome post! I love the social media prayer: ‘give me the eyes to see their beauty, instead of the threat of their competition’! I’m going to post that on my blog….thanks:]
So good, Lisa-Jo. I appreciate your words so much, and how you live it out. Thank you, Mama! You encourage and inspire!
Lisa-Jo, you’ve posted on this topic a couple times recently, and both those posts and this one hit me right where I am. Thank you for not pulling any punches!
I love this reminder, Lisa Jo. May we all remember to keep sharing with those who are listening rather than pining away for those who aren’t. Thanks for the encouragement – and I look forward to reading your next posts on the topic.
An excellent post! Amen! Amen! AMEN!!!!
You bring tears to my eyes, Lisa-Jo. Such a generous heart. Thanks for reminding us all that the relationships are at the heart of it all.
Thanks for these great reminders! I look forward to returning and reading the rest of this series. I’m going to share this with our team.
My favorite of all ~ “What if we served ourselves as love offering to those starving for encouragement.”
What beauty in selflessness.
Wonderful post, with a terrific perspective!
I’m very new to blogging, and am still fumbling around and making a lot of mistakes.
However, I’ve been at it just long enough to figure out the the book promotion that got me started doing this is not the reason to continue. I’ve set the promotion to the side to focus on enjoying sharing Christ’s love thru blogging.
Thanks for the post!
Relationships are the key – both with our fellow man and our Creator.
Great post!
Hear! Hear! This was beautiful, full of love to share.
Love, love, LOVE your “Enlarge my heart…” prayer. How beautiful. And what wonderful things you are doing with your writing & experiences! I followed a fellow blogger’s reference to “Five Minute Fridays,” and I’m so glad I did! I am only beginning to delve into social media as I work with a religious community to help them grow their retreat & spirituality ministries. It is so refreshing to hear you talk about social media as a powerful tool for relationship building with a reminder that it is not about solicitation. I agree (so much) with what you say, “We have to be willing to hammer out our stories and share them for free…” I really believe what you say is true, especially when your hopes and efforts are focused on bringing a positive change to the world; it requires some selflessness and trust in reciprocation (I think) – because of course at the end of the day your efforts have to result in your being able to support yourself & your business.
One of the first steps I have taken in this very new role for me is to help others see that social media needs to be part of our ministry rather than a segregated space for advertisement…. but I do still wonder very much how to strike an appropriate balance of “free giving” in the virtual world to support & attract people to participate in the physical ministries… If you’re building an organization that is out to help change people’s lives for the better, do you have any marketing thoughts to offer on how marketers might devise how much of their resources should be committed to social media versus other (grassroots?) efforts? Or are there other (better) questions for someone like me to be asking? (In a leadership position for a small faith-based organization).
P.S. I also checked out (in)courage. So many great things here. I look forward to following you. But first, I’m going to take the 5 Minute Friday challenge. See what doors OPEN for me. :) Blessings to you in 2012.
This brought tears to my eyes! Beautiful and heartwarming! :) I love your blog! Grateful I stumbled on it through Ms. Colline’s blog.