Editor’s Note: This is the first of a three-part series about using social media platforms to help EthicsDaily.com reach more people in our mission to challenge people of faith to advance the common good.
With the advent of social media, advertising and promoting organizations, movements and causes became cheaper and easier, but not less complicated.
Though there is a learning curve, it is essential for organizations to use social media to promote their mission.
EthicsDaily.com has made intentional efforts to further its mission through social media platforms.
You can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and subscribe to our e-newsletter. We send out daily content through these platforms, and these efforts have generated positive results.
Our Facebook page has around 1,100 “likes,” posts on our Facebook page received more than 171,000 views in 2012, and our Twitter feed presently has more than 600 followers.
This is great news! We are thankful for your support.
In 2013, we hope to expand our social media presence even further because:
- We believe that our daily content offers helpful moral reflection for people of faith seeking to advance the common good.
- We believe that expanding our social media presence is an essential component to carrying out this mission.
In the physical world, we all know the importance of networking in order to expand connections and influence. We attend conferences, seminars, “meet-and-greets” and other social occasions in order to meet new people and hand out our business card and other promotional materials.
The same holds true in the digital world, as social networking has become an essential part of organizational development. This is where you have an important role to play.
Recently, I’ve noticed that several of our contributors have received above average views of their columns on Facebook by using social media to promote their content.
First, I want to thank all who contribute content in the form of columns and Skype interviews, all who read our content, and all who promote EthicsDaily.com through social media. Your contributions are essential and greatly appreciated.
For those who are not doing so already, I want to encourage you to help us further our mission by using your social media network to promote EthicsDaily.com and the daily content we post.
Those for whom social media is “old hat” need no instructions, and I would ask that you use your knowledge and connections to help advance our cause.
For those who find social media new and unfamiliar, over the next few days I will share about how you can use social media to help us reach more people with the challenge to advance the common good.
Today, we begin with Facebook.
If you visit our Facebook page and click “like,” the content we post will appear on your news feed (the screen that appears when you first log in).
If you have Facebook friends who might be interested in EthicsDaily.com, you can share a link to our page on their timeline (or in a private message) and invite them to “like” our page so that they, too, will receive our daily content.
To do so, visit our Facebook page and follow these steps.
Step 1: Click the down arrow next to the “Like” button and select “share” from the list that appears.
Step 2: Click the down arrow and select “on a friend’s timeline” from the list that appears. If you prefer, you can share our page privately by selecting the last option, “In a private message.”
Step 3: Type the person’s name in the first blank (you can include multiple friends), insert a personal message in the second blank and then click “share page.”
If you would prefer to share specific content that we post on, follow these steps.
- Click the “share” button on the item you wish to share.
- Decide how you wish to share it: “On your own timeline,” “on a friend’s timeline” or “in a private message.”
- Type your friends’ names and a brief message in the blank, and then click “share link.”
While clicking the “like” button on individual posts is greatly appreciated, using this “share” feature will help us extend the reach of our daily content, increase our organization’s profile and help us challenge more people of faith to advance the common good.
One word of caution: Only share the content you feel strongly about, not everything we post. If you share everything we post, your Facebook friends might begin to disregard what you share. In other words, be selective.
That was a lot of information about digital networking on Facebook, and perhaps much of it seemed foreign to you.
If so, don’t worry. You probably know someone familiar with these social networking platforms, and they can help teach you.
You can also follow this link to a video tutorial in which I will walk you through these procedures step by step. We have also added a social media page on our website that can be accessed under the “about us” tab.
Whatever your social media knowledge (or lack thereof), I hope you’ll consider how you can use your digital connections to help us promote EthicsDaily.com.
Let’s work together to expand our social media presence in 2013, so that we can challenge more people of faith to advance the common good.
Zach Dawes is the managing editor for EthicsDaily.com.
Managing editor for news and opinion at Good Faith Media.