A simple guide to social media

By: Yewtree — 27 July 2012 at 08:15

How to market your brand / book / website on social media:

Set up a Facebook page and/or group where you will post regular news items (from your site and those of other relevant sites). Attract attention to it by posting it in other related Facebook groups (search in Groups for related keywords for your topic). Keep it updated regularly.

Set up a Twitter feed where you will post regular news items (from your site and those of other relevant sites). Attract attention to it by following other similar Twitter accounts (search for related keywords for your topic) and retweet and reply to their tweets. Keep it updated regularly.

Set up a blog where you will post regular blogposts about topical items in your subject area. Attract attention to it by adding other similar blogs to your blogroll (search for related keywords for your topic) and post comments on their blogs. Keep it updated regularly.

If you don't "get" Twitter, there's a remarkably succinct and clear summary of what it is and how it works in today's verdict on the Twitter joke trial. (PDF)

Using HootSuite (a paid service), you can also automatically send your blogposts to Twitter and Facebook.

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Introduction to social media

By: Yewtree — 18 August 2011 at 05:48

Report by Sue Woolley

Lifespan Religious Education Conference 2011
Star Island, New Hampshire, 16 – 23 July 2011
Report on Social Media Workshop by Sue Woolley

Thanks to the generosity of the Manchester Academy Trust and the Hibbert Trust, I was able to attend this conference. The basic structure of our own Hucklow Summer School is based on this Unitarian Universalist conference, so many elements were familiar to me: the morning devotions, the daily theme talk, the compulsory morning workshops, optional afternoon activities, and lantern-lit procession to evening worship.

The morning workshop that I attended was led by the dynamic Peter Bowden, who is a “church growth consultant and Unitarian Universalist change agent” (to quote himself) who has dedicated his life to helping UU congregations to understand social media and to use them effectively. His blog (which is well worth looking at) is UU growth. I am writing the workshop up without much comment, as the things he was telling us are just as relevant to Unitarian congregations in the UK as to UU congregations in the US, if not more so.

Read the rest of the report →

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How to promote your blog

By: Yewtree — 27 April 2011 at 09:24

Comment on other bloggers' posts - if your comment is interesting and polite, they might drop by to read your blog
Add other blogs to your blogroll - they may return the favour (but never ask to be added to someone's blogroll, it's really tacky)
Follow other bloggers and add them to your Google Reader
Get yourself added to Unitarian Universalist and Unitarian blog aggregators
Have a Twitter account, link it to HootSuite and have HootSuite update your Twitter and Facebook accounts automatically whenever you publish a new blog-post

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How to use a URL shortener

By: Yewtree — 12 September 2010 at 14:49

Web addresses (URLs) can be very long, and if you are pasting them into an email, Twitter, or printing them in your newsletter, it's better to use a URL shortener. This creates a much shorter version of the web address, which redirects to the long version. This saves space in Twitter, prevents the problem of URLs breaking when they are wrapped round to the next line in emails, and saves your newsletter readers from typing out the long version.

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Join our Twibe

By: Yewtree — 29 January 2010 at 04:55

Twibes is an application that allows people to group together on Twitter, the microblogging site, and tag posts with a particular tag or word so that they appear in the feed on the Twibe's page. The tags for the ukunitarians group are unitarian, unitarians, ukunitarians, uu, universalist (with or without #). We can have up to seven, so if you want extra ones, post a comment here.

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UK Unitarians on Twitter

By: Yewtree — 21 November 2009 at 05:58

Twitter is a micro-blogging service where you can post links, quotes and items of interest without the need to write a full-size blogpost. Quite a number of UK Unitarians are on there already.

I have also created a group list of UK Unitarians on Twitter.

There may be many others but I haven't found them yet - add a comment and let us know your Twitter address, and if you want to be added to the group list.