social media

There's a new Twitter hashtag around these parts, for social media use. This hashtag came about as a response to those who were wondering where to move after the bulk of the #cnmc (Catholic New Media Celebration) tweets were becoming less and less about the Celebration, and more and more about general Catholic social media practices and discussion.

Therefore, a general consensus was made that #cathmedia would be a good hashtag for Tweets having to do with Catholic media, and social media initiatives.

Some other hashtags I've used:

• #catholic - for all things Catholic
• #vocation - for vocations-related tweets
• #pope - for all things Pope Benedict XVI

Are there any other commonly-held Catholic Twitter hashtags everyone should be aware of? Currently, it seems the common practice to put a string of hashtags together for certain topics, like #Catholic #Prayer #Faith... while this is okay to do, it's best if there are some more specific hashtags which people can add to saved searches (like #cathmedia).

From Matthew Warner's blog on the National Catholic Register website: How are parishes using new media?

Last week I asked my Twitter followers for some examples of parishes using new media. I got some good ones, which I was pleased with. So thank you fellow tweeters!

But I must admit that, overall, I was a bit disappointed in my search. I also “googled” the topic fairly extensively and the pickin’s were few. I hope that one day when we google “Catholic Parish,” we are blown away with how impressed we are with the many, many great results we find. In the meantime, we have some learning, sharing and working to do! Keep in mind I am looking for new media being applied specifically to the life of the parish, not simply its use in various other ministries by those in the Church.

I tried to capture a good variety of new media applications that parishes might find useful. But I hope it doesn’t stop there. I hope leaders of parishes will be contacting these parishes, asking them what works and what doesn’t and all taking some steps forward together. I also pray that the laity who have been blessed with the ability to produce and apply new media will come forward and fulfill an important roll in their Church.

What do you think? Be sure to drop Matthew a line either over on the original post (which has more findings from Matthew), or on Twitter (@MatthewWarner). (Matthew also blogs at Fallible Blogma, and is the founder of TweetCatholic).

The Steubenville St. Louis Mid-America conference is attended by over 6,000 teens every year, and there are many parents, friends, and other teens who wish they could participate as well. We have always posted information after the conference, but in St. Louis, for the past two years, we've started live-blogging and posting to social networks frequently throughout the conference, driving up traffic to our OYM websites.

Here are some of the things we've been doing to drive traffic and share information live from the conference.

My setup for the first week... watch a video highlighting the gear » Continue Reading »

On July 1, it looks like two separate Archdioceses made announcements relating to online evangelization:

Archdiocese of St. Louis' new Office of Web Development:

In July of 2010, seeing the need for an increasing presence online and in social media outlets, the Archdiocese of St. Louis has created a new office, the Office of Web Development, to help Archdiocesan agencies, affiliated organizations, and (eventually) parishes with their online development.

The Office of Web Development will work in especially close collaboration with the St. Louis Review and the Office of Communications in making sure news and newsworthy stories are delivered online to as many people as possible.

Read more »

Archdiocese of Boston's New Media & Initiatives group:

BRAINTREE — Embracing new and state-of-the-art forms of digital communication to reach the faithful has been a top priority of Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley.

As part of that effort, effective July 1, the secretariat for Catholic Media will be added to Cardinal O’Malley’s cabinet. Scot Landry, the current secretary for Institutional Advancement, will become the secretary for Catholic Media and oversee all of the archdiocese’s print and digital media including The Pilot’s print edition and its website, CatholicTV, the Boston Catholic Directory, Cardinal O’Malley’s weekly email, the archdiocese’s website, the archdiocese’s new media accounts including Facebook, Twitter and photo sharing.

Read more »

Are there any other dioceses getting started (or already well-established) in these areas?

Something I posted on the Archdiocese of St. Louis' Development Website earlier today:

As technology has progressed in the past hundred years, the amount of information that is immediately accessible has increased at an exponential rate. As time goes on, people are more and more used to the idea of immediate gratification when it comes to images, text, and stories from events.

There is a new term phrased to wrap up this near-instantaneous stream of live information produced around the world: the 'real-time web.'

But what exactly is the real-time web? Wikipedia can help us here:

"The real-time web is a set of technologies and practices which enable users to receive information as soon as it is published by its authors, rather than requiring that they or their software check a source periodically for updates."

Basically, there are many new technologies available today that weren't even heard of just ten or fifteen years ago, including "RSS", "XML" and other ways of exchanging information.

What does this mean for you? Well, for your organization to stay at the fore online, and to reach the broadest range of people, you need to be able to participate in this real-time web.

Continue reading this post on the Archdiocese of St. Louis' Development Website: The Real-Time Web and Archdiocesan Websites.

...for the love of everything sacred and holy, do not use the term "Web 2.0" or say "we are joing the social media revolution."

We are not in some crazy new age of the web, nor are we in a revolution. The Internet is in a constant stage of evolution, and reorganization. There will never be a point at which the web will upgrade to 'Web 3.0,' or even 'Web 2.1.' So stop using that term!

The 'Web' is not a software product. It is a relatively new medium by which humans communicate. When television went color, it wasn't called "TV 2.0."

Web 2.0 is a buzzword that needs to die. Any organization that uses this term is dating itself and making the Church look passé and behind the times. Instead, say "we are constantly adapting our Gospel message to the latest technologies, and using social media to communicate this message to others on a more personal level."

Of course, if you say this, you have to follow through! Don't ever be content with where you are. Always innovate, always be adaptable. The world is not a static place, and neither is the Web.

From the Catholic News Agency:

Vatican City, Oct 29, 2009 / 11:30 am (CNA) — Addressing the full Pontifical Council for Social Communications today, Benedict XVI urged its members to help communicate the teachings of the Church on the “digital continent” of the ever-changing technological landscape.

Reflecting on the role of social networking and increasingly real-time electronic communication, Pope Benedict XVI said on Thursday that "modern culture is established, even before its content, in the very fact of the existence of new forms of communication that use new languages; they use new technologies and create new psychological attitudes.”

"Effectively," he continued, the advent of new technology “supposes a challenge for the Church, which is called to announce the Gospel to persons in the third millennium, maintaining its content unaltered but making it understandable.”

Quoting John Paul II's encyclical "Redemptoris Missio" that affirms: "Involvement in the mass media, however, is not meant merely to strengthen the preaching of the Gospel. There is a deeper reality involved here: since the very evangelization of modern culture depends to a great extent on the influence of the media.”

“It is not enough to use the media simply to spread the Christian message and the Church's authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that message into the 'new culture' created by modern communications," the Holy Father asserted. Continue reading [CNA] »

So, what are we doing to "spread the Christian message and the Church's authentic teaching? And, beyond that, how are we, as the Holy Father suggests, integrating our faith and the love of Christ into our (and others') online lives?

There truly is a 'digital continent,' and it is the 'new world' of our century. Can we venture out with the other explorers and evangelize to the inhabitants of this new world in an effective, loving way, as did the missionaries of years past, who risked their very lives to spread the faith?

I have seen many great examples of this happening - personalities such as Matthew Warner, Patrick Madrid, and Jeff Miller come to mind (along with a plethora of others), but what more can we do? How can we bring more people outside the Catholic blogosphere (and podcast-osphere) into the faith?

As a companion posting to our directory of U.S. Archdioceses and Dioceses on Twitter, I thought I'd include any of our stateside entities on Facebook below (note: not all of these groups leverage their social media presence as much as they could... but it's good that they're trying ;-).

Are we missing any? Let us know in the comments below.

(Arch)Dioceses

• Archdiocese of Saint Louis (MO)
• Archdiocese of Allentown (PA)
• Archdiocese of the Military (USA)
• Archdiocese of Atlanta - Group (GA)
• Archdiocese of Milwaukee - Group (WI)
• Archdiocese of Baltimore (MD)
• Archdiocese of Chicago - Group (IL)
• Archdiocese of Anchorage - Group (AK)
• Archdiocese of Oklahoma City (OK)
• Archdiocese of Detroit - Group (MI)
• Archdiocese of Denver (CO)
• Diocese of Amarillo - Profile (TX)
• Diocese of Arlington (VA)
• Diocese of Buffalo (NY)
• Diocese of Austin (TX)
• Diocese of Orlando (FL)
• Diocese of Jackson (MS)
• Diocese of Bridgeport - Group (MN)
• Diocese of Joliet - Group (IL)
• Diocese of Alexandria - Group (VA)
• Diocese of Lubbock - Page (TX)
• Diocese of Ogdensburg - Group (NY)
• Diocese of Dodge City - Group (KS)
• Diocese of Madison - Group (WI)
• Diocese of Camden (NJ)