I was reading a Nielsen report on social media networking (facebook, twitter, etc.) and some of the highlights struck me.  Your can download the full report here but here are some bullet points:

• The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.
• Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000 percent over the same period.
• In the last year alone, unique viewers of online video grew 10 percent, the number of streams grew 41 percent, the streams per user grew 27 percent and the total minutes engaged with online video grew 71 percent.
• There are 87 percent more online social media users now than in 2003, with 883 percent more time devoted to those sites.
• In the last year alone, time spent on social networking sites has surged 73 percent.
• In February, social network usage exceeded Web-based e-mail usage for the first time.

Here are some questions/thoughts to consider, some of which I’m asking myself:

1. What is your church doing to engage people using social media networking and website interaction?
2. Is it just one way communication (ie: watch our video, read our website, etc.) or are you actively engaging people online in a conversation?  More and more people are looking for the latter.
3. Does your “online campus” have any type of interaction (live chat)?
4. If your lead team doesn’t use any kind of social media or blogs, I would say a few things: 1. Get your head out of the sand! 🙂  2. Find someone on your staff that will or does and utilize them to get your church connected.