It has been a little over 2.5 years since I wrote the blog-post 'Towards a Diocesan Social Media Policy'. In that time it has continued to be the most read post of this blog. Perhaps it tapped into a need, and perhaps it needs a bit of an update.

What you may not have known is that the aforementioned blog-post started out as a communication to my then bishop 3.5 years ago. Did I get any response? I think it may have been passed on to someone in the curia who still has it in an in-box somewhere.

But I knew that this wasn't just a local diocesan issue, so I scrubbed the communication of local identifiers and that's how the blog-post came to be.

Given that the blog-post has been read so often, and that there haven't been any comments or private messages about it, in all likelihood it has been read by frustrated social media apostles like myself and not by any movers-and-shakers at diocesan level.

So for you, dear fellow social media apostle in the trenches, this update is for you. I'll go through the original blog-post and update it, and then at various points I'll do the controversial thing and point you to examples of people doing a really good job of soft evangelisation via social media.
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I continue to believe that it is time that something was done to promote what I call 'soft evangelisation' at a diocesan level, as well as at local parish level.

'Soft evangelism' is using social media to provide reminders of God to the unchurched. The aim is to get trickles of good Catholic content into the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and RSS feeds of people who live in the diocese; so that among the Aunt Acid jokes, pet pictures and holiday snaps would be an article about the Pope's latest homily, an image of the mother of Jesus, and a photo from a local parish event. Things that people can easily flick through, and opt in for a read if they wish, but which even for that very brief moment are reminders that God exists.

Soft evangelisation has the capacity to plant seeds of faith that one-to-one evangelisation or parish evangelisation can later reap.

Current Situation

By and large our social media reach is very poor. It doesn't help that the majority of people in the pews don't have a social media account. However it goes a long way to explaining the disconnect between those who actively practice their faith and those far out on the fringe of 'spiritual but not religious' or 'practical atheism' because they aren't rubbing shoulders together either physically or in cyber space.

Many parishes and dioceses have improved their websites over the last 2.5 years to make them more user-friendly for mobile devices, adding in Twitter feeds from Pope Francis (@Pontifex) and uploading parish bulletins, and including a page for new parishioners/visitors/inquirers. Mostly these necessary improvements are happening in urban areas, and sadly there are still many rural and outback parishes without websites.

Yet when it comes to Facebook, very few parishes have a presence, and much fewer parishes have an active presence.

However just about all the schools do have an active Facebook presence because it is such an effective means to get information about changes to routine into the hands of parents, teachers and students ( eg. the school excursion bus for Year 4 is running 30 minutes late; the Reds vs Greens soccer match for under 15s has been cancelled due to wet weather.) The good news is that the necessary expertise is available very close to just about every parish.

As I think Brandon Vogt once said, 'If St Paul was alive today, where would he consider to be the modern Areopagus?' Considering the global possible outreach for minimal effort, social media would be the answer.

This is no longer 'optional extra' stuff. In the world-scape we live in today, any entity that doesn't have an online presence does not exist. Bishops need to insist that parishes have online active presences to 'keep the digital light' on for anyone the Holy Spirit is moving along the path to conversion of heart and mind. That insistence needs to be backed up with resources; computer hardware, internet connections, people expertise, help desks, information how-to packs etc.

Some parishes have begun sending out parish bulletins by email, and this seems to be a very good innovation, as well as being very useful for building up a database of contacts for when urgent information needs to be sent out (think bush fires, road closures, rescheduling of Mass times due to emergency illness of clergy).

Why do Facebook?

Facebook is very good for getting out messages to local people. I really need you to hear that. These days it is even better than putting a press release in the local newspaper.

There are 2 ways this is true.

The first is that for a small outlay of money a parish can get Facebook to put prepared material in front of Facebook users by postcode. The average parish normally has between 1-3 postcodes within its borders. Where do the people most likely to respond to a 'Catholics Come Home' initiative or to an invitation to the next RCIA program? Yes, in those postcodes. Prepare the material well, get it proof read by a handful of unchurched people for like-ability and removal of churchy-jargon. Upload it shortly before the Saturday vigil Mass, and then invite parishioners over that weekend to find it, like it and share it.

To understand the second way you need to unpack how Facebook works. The average person on Facebook has over 200 Facebook friends. Some of these will be family, some will be friends, some will be co-workers, some will be influencers/celebrities/organisations and some will be other parishioners and people they play sport with or do hobbies with. Possibly a third of them will live within the parish postcodes or in nearby suburbs. The more people in your Facebook network who like, share or comment on the same Facebook post, the more you are likely to see it in your Facebook feed. Due to this, a single message about pre-Christmas Reconciliation times could have a large reach, especially in the target postcodes, if it was liked by even 10 parishioners; and it would get seen by well over a 1000 people who don't have access to the parish bulletin and who would never think of looking up a parish website.

Granted, many of them won’t act upon a message like that this year, but if you back it up with prayer, some will act on it next year when they see the message again, and more will act on it the year after, if you keep sending the messages, getting parishioners to like/share/comment, and backing it up with prayer. Even getting an extra five parishioners intentionally using Facebook for this kind of soft evangelisation could double the impact of that message in the parish postcode area.

Why do Twitter?

Because Twitter is where the thinkers, and the deep thinkers are. There are plenty of extremely witty people, too. Twitter is where people share well written articles that have the potential to change political policy and social opinion. If you are passionate about pro-life issues, God's plan for marriage and family, the freedom to preach and practice religion without compromise, and many other Gospel-based values, you need to be on Twitter to support those on the front lines with your likes, shares and comments.

Very early in the proceedings of the 2014 Proclaim Conference Bishop Ingham got up and shared what at the outset seemed to be an innocent ice-breaker, 'Tweet others as you would like them to Tweet you'. It was far more than that. Those words reverberated throughout the conference, and are the words people remember from that conference far more than any of the other content. Only after many months did the penny drop that the only way to do this was to actually have a Twitter account – and use it.

Apart from a great message, reliance upon team work, prayer and the Holy Spirit, what else do the Divine Renovation people from Halifax, Canada have going for them? Ministry team leaders who tweet, and who like, share and comment upon each other's tweets. It gives their ministries enormous global reach, and huge encouragement to those on the journey from maintenance to mission in our parishes and dioceses. Visit @MacLorik, @CoachRobinson1, @frsimoncc, @colautta, @ron_huntley, @FJMallon, @LauraORourke, @divreno, @Tanya_Noye, @K8Robinson and the rest of them to see what is possible if you have even 10 social media tweet-leaders in a parish.

Many urban dioceses now have a social media – photographer team that shares photos, and information about the bishop's activities (eg World Youth Day, ordinations, school openings, official statements etc). They tend to have an inward focus.

Even in social media we have to lead by example and be heading towards the right mix of inward focus and outward focus, because without outward focus we cannot be the missionary disciples we are called to be. The Archdiocese of Toronto is leading the way. @archtoronto produces very high quality infographics on topics like Lectio Divina, the seasons of Christmas, What is Advent? etc as well as simultaneously honouring deceased clergy and giving funeral details, sharing Prayers of the Faithful, announcing Days of Confessions, and all the regular stuff. They are worth studying. Consider liking and sharing their content.

Here's a list of people on Twitter who greatly impress me.
@frpatrickop He has a very good mix of story, images, articles, and video on life as a priest, with musings, blessings, encouragements, simple prayers and thanksgivings. He has hold of the kind of faith that gently attracts and doesn't forcefully proselytise.
@jkuebbing is a Catholic mother and journalist, sharing her experiences of living faith and trust in God in the midst of family life. What she writes and what she shares are always worth the time to stop and read.
@ArchbishopGomez of Los Angeles, his tweets are always worth reading
@BishopZubik of Pittsbugh is also well worth following
@Pontifex for Pope Francis's inspiring daily tweets
@DisabilityJ supporting faith and access to churches for disabled and abled alike

Why do Instagram?

Because Instagram is primarily where the young people are. If you want an insight into how young people think – you have to be there. If you want to have a hope of connecting them into your parish, deanery and diocesan activities, you need to broadcast it through Instagram as well as your other regular channels.

Instagram is also where many of the creatives are: musicians, artists, illustrators, photographers, craft-workers etc.

Instagram has advantages over Twitter because you can write a short article. It has advantages over Facebook because you can see posting history easier and there appears to be no limit for the number of hashtags you can use.

On Instagram you can post short video, multiple photographs, and text. Each post must have an image. Unlike Twitter and Facebook that work better on large screens than on small screens, Instagram is designed specifically for mobile devices. There is a growing trend of people posting on Instagram first and sending secondary versions of those postings to Twitter and Facebook.

It comes into its own particularly at World Youth Day time, when through hashtags you can follow several pilgrimage groups, and get real time coverage of major events from many different perspectives. For me World Youth Day is a major opportunity to discover new social media apostles and start 'following' and supporting them.

@archie.will (a.k.a Archbishop William Goh of Singapore) is very good, uplifting and inspiring.
@srjulia (a.k.a. Sr Julia Mary Darrrenkamp), is a wonderful example of sharing her joy in living a consecrated life and gently inviting us into how wonderful a relationship with Jesus and His mother is.
@frgoyo (Fr. Goyo from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles) shows us faith with a sense of humour, and gratitude for the ways God is acting in people's lives.
@frjasonsmith from New York is also impressive.
@ingamae is providing excellent content to help end abortion.
@litcatholicmemes for doses of humour that contain life giving truth.

Why blog?

Because that's where the longevity is. Have you ever tried to find that great tweet, meme or photo on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram? Even if you can remember who posted and a relevant hashtag, they are still very hard to find, and almost impossible if it over a week old. What's blogged stays blogged and findable by the browser search-bots. Your best content needs to be blogged to give it the longest and widest reach.

These days there are several places offering free technology to set up websites, (eg Weeby, Wix) that have templates to 'choose, drag and drop' and include blog web-page options.
With Weebly, and possibly with some of the others, you can have multiple editors. For parishes and dioceses this means you can give person A responsibility for uploading parish bulletins, person B responsibility for uploading accounts of recent parish events on the blog, person C responsibility for keeping the up-coming-events news up to date etc – and you don’t have to wait for a web designer to schedule time to do it for you.

To have a glance at what's out there, http://topcatholicblogs.com/ is a good place to visit. Aim to get on, and stay on, that site. It requires 6 months minimum of blogging, with a minimum of one blog post per month, staying true to Catholic teaching, be Catholic content, and have a link somewhere back to the TopCatholicBlogs website.

The better the content, and the more frequently and regularly you post to your blog, the more chance it has of succeeding. But it takes perseverance. It takes about 50 blog posts for the browser search-bots to flag you as worthy of notice, and it takes a minimum of 2.5 years to find your style, rhythm and audience, and often a lot longer.

Go for promoting the good, the true and the beautiful. Of course it is easier to grow using controversy or click-bait titles and lists, but that doesn't do much long term good to anyone. Ranting is better done elsewhere, if at all. Take Eph 4:29 as a sure guide, 'Let your words be for the improvement of others, as occasion offers, and do good to your listeners, otherwise you will only be grieving the Holy Spirit'.

You can bet that if you write something particularly good (and this applies to all social media), the first thing you will attract is not praise but a troll. A troll is someone who lurks online for the purpose of starting an argument. It is far better to ignore a troll than to 'feed' them by engaging with them. The only exception to this rule is if you sense that they are genuinely seeking truth, in which case you take the conversation private as soon as possible (eg email).

Connections

Apart from priests and deacons, who preach the Word of God mostly within church walls, those believers who are intentionally using social media for evangelical purposes are the front line troops in the culture war and battle for souls. They deserve the name 'social media apostles'. The vast majority of them serve God in this ministry without any monetary reward at all, despite the many hours it takes to produce and prepare content to upload each posting. These are dedicated warriors and it is more than time that they are recognised as such and publicly honoured, supported and protected at parish, deanery and diocesan levels. Now is the time for co-operation to increase between the bishop's communication team and these social media apostles who can get the bishop's messages into the ears of those that the regular media channels cannot.

Many of them have been lone rangers for a very long time, and they have the skills and the experience to get a worthwhile message out very effectively. It is time that they were officially commissioned by the church for this purpose.

It isn’t difficult to do; it just takes a bit of medium range planning and good communication. (Yes, I know that is hilarious, but with God all things are possible).

A bishop and his communications team should be in regular contact with his bloggers, just like a general should be with his captains. No blogger likes to be micro-managed, but give them a vision for what the bishop wants to achieve and themes for various times of the year together with cogent reasons for that timing, and they will astound you.

For example, if you know there is a political election up ahead and there are one or two topics that are important in that context (eg funding for schools, protection for the seal of the confessional, programs to reduce the incidence of domestic violence etc), get the bishop, his theologians and researchers and the bloggers together as early as possible to brainstorm together how to raise these topics for public conversation and how to share the wisdom of Catholic teaching on those topics in fresh and creative ways. Provide background documents to read, banks of images that are open source and relevant to the topic, and lists of online content for private research. Ask for one post of content a month, on which ever topic speaks to them, until the election is held. The same goes for other things that can be seen coming, eg referendums, plebiscites, Royal Commissions, legislation on pro-life issues coming before state and federal parliaments, diocesan year of Marriage and Family, Year of the Refugee in the universal church, whatever the next Papal document or Bishop's Conference document is to be about.

The more you get to know your bloggers and other social media apostles, the better you can tailor the prepared resource material. For example: A blog that normally does book reviews is going to need good books on the planned topics to review; a blog that usually does scripture meditations is going to need scripture references relating to the planned topics; a blog that comments on quotations from Pope Francis will need references to the planned topics from the speeches and writings of Pope Francis. Of course, your bloggers and social media apostles will still do their own research too, but it sure helps to know where to look, and to have a smorgasbord of excellent content to chew through rather than having to start the research from scratch. If the resource material is very good and the topics are compelling, your bloggers will catch the fire and spread it, and possibly write a whole series on the topic.

Many dioceses have graphic designers on staff. Grant your bloggers and social media apostles 2 hours a month each of your graphic designer's time. That's brainstorming time, idea wresting time and production time. So often the content is written and then a blogger spends just as much time trying to find an image to go with it, an image they have a concept for. Give that concept to the graphic designer and you will get a quality image in a fraction of the time spent previously doing fruitless internet searches. The graphic designer gets some short term wins, and a bit more variety in his or her day, and that's a win-win scenario for everyone. Your bloggers will soon learn that if they want to get an image produced within the 2 hours, then they need to prepare very clear concepts, and any associated text to be used in the image, and allow time for the designer to suggest better solutions or adjustments that will have the same impact but require less time to produce.

Bringing your social media apostles together has other benefits too. If you know someone personally you are far more likely to naturally like, share and positively comment on each other's social media content. I cannot stress enough how crucial this mutual encouragement is. Most social media apostles get so little in the way of positive feedback, particularly on the long lonely road before their content receives widespread recognition. Lack of encouragement is why so many give up before that wonderful moment of 'traction' is reached.

The other benefit is the sharing of technological information, 'tricks of the trade', helping each other bypass common pitfalls and increasing efficiency.

Most social media apostles will welcome topic suggestions, and will definitely welcome resources, as long as they are free to spin it their way, in harmony with the authenticity of their blog.

Good resources would also include access to diocesan image banks for images upon which copyright has already been paid, and information on effective ways of producing memes to go with the text on social media channels. Attaching a relevant quality image to a social media post significantly increases the number of clicks that post receives.

Plan – Step 1 Find your front line troops

One way is to use social media and print media (email, Facebook, Twitter, website, diocesan newsletter etc) get the word out that the bishop wants to connect with his social media apostles. A better way would be to pay attention to who has already been liking, sharing and commenting in useful ways on the existing diocesan social media channels, and who also have existing social media channels of their own, and sending personal invitations to these people. That won't catch them all, so also do some searches using relevant hashtags too (eg name of diocese, name of bishop, recent big diocesan event/conference; #YearOfMercy etc).

Plan – Step 2 Get them together

Initially a Saturday at the diocesan offices would be best, to enable the maximum number of social media apostles to attend. On Saturdays workers are usually at leisure and Mums can find someone to look after the children. Start the day properly with Mass, after registrations, a welcome and a vision for diocesan social media have been presented. First session is on using social media to evangelise. Second session is an overview of how various social media channels work, with a maximum 10 minutes per channel (just because you are proficient in one of them doesn't mean that you know how the others work or what the possibilities are). Third session is where your social media apostles each get 2-3 minutes to introduce themselves and their blog/Twitter handle/Facebook page etc and what they are trying to achieve with it. Some will be more focussed on apologetics, others more focussed on theology, bible study, vocations or family life etc. Fourth session is where people get split up into groups based on social media channel, (bloggers and tweeters, Facebook users, Pinterest and Instagram, Podcasts and YouTube) and learn from each other. Fifth session is re-presentation of diocesan vision, presentation of the diocesan media plan for topics, distribution of free resources, blessing and commissioning. NB Only get people who are actually proficient in evangelising through the various social media channels to lead sessions, and make attendance free.
This is the baseline from which you can build.

Plan – Step 3 Do it again regularly

Aim for four times a year, and make sure you achieve three times a year. Subsequent Social Media Days should have opportunities for feedback at diocesan level and individual level about how things are going (statistics, reach, followers, comments, trends, troll management etc). Take time to pray for each other too, and for God's blessing and guidance upon the development of this apostolate and for God's grace upon the followers of the social media channels and for whatever the next 'can see it coming' media challenges are.

If you start now, and get this moving, the next time an emergency situation hits, you will have a well-trained army ready and willing to spring into action at short notice.

Consider this hypothetical scenario: the bishop of a neighbouring diocese has been called to court to answer allegations of a serious nature. The secular press is having a field day, with op-ed pieces only considering guilt and not innocence, and spinning the story as darkly as possible. If the diocese can put together evidence for the innocence side of the story, or at least context to permit the benefit of the doubt, and then get it into the hands of your social media apostles, the chances of the positive side of the story being told to the community dramatically increase. The chances, too, of a fairer trial, should it ever come to that, dramatically increase as well. However if you don't gather evidence and context, and don’t have a prepared social media army, the community will only get to hear the sensational bad stuff and act on it.

I know I need more examples of lay people to follow social media-wise – I have them, I've just run out of time to include more of them here. I may get an opportunity to add them in later.

Let's pray

Lord Jesus, You know just how urgently teams of social media apostles are needed to spread your gentle yet powerful light one ray at a time. We confess that we have collectively been dragging our feet when it comes to these new ways of spreading Your good news. Please send Your Holy Spirit to encourage Your weary social media apostles, to refresh and reinvigorate those who were doing so well but gave up, and to connect them together for the greater and far more effective plans You have for them. Touch the hearts of bishops and their advisors that they may begin to grasp Your possibilities for this apostolate, and run with it in step with You. Please raise up intercessors who will specifically pray for and spiritually defend these front line troops of Yours. We ask You to inspire Your social media apostles to write words and prepare content and images that will touch the hearts of those who read them and impart profound encounters with Your love to them.
For You. Lord Jesus, nothing is impossible. Amen.
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St Paul, missionary apostle, pray for us
Mary, Virgin Mother of all the children of God, pray for us.
St John the Baptist, whose cries in the wilderness moved the inhabitants of Jerusalem, pray for us
St Francis de Sales, patron of both bishops and journalists, pray for us
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Interesting lay people on Twitter to follow or study

@VanessaComninos
@Keithhinton8
@oranparkparish
@Lorraine_McCart
@mrslbright
@VermD10
@CatholicNerdy
@margaretfelice
@suzannewalsh
@ColletteBP1

Notice how individual they are, the themes about which they post, and how well their posts can be appreciated by insiders and outsiders alike.

Because the Divine Renovation Conference 2016 was designed to let participants 'see under the hood' at how St Benedict's parish, Halifax works, this preamble to the main talk on the Tuesday morning of the conference is included separately because it gives an insight into the culture of the place, and the love and teamwork that keeps it going.

Dan O'Rourke gave this preamble. You can find him on Twitter as @DanORourke and you can find the podcasts here and here.

Dan O'Rourke: Good morning and welcome to Day 2 of Divine Renovation 2016. I am so thrilled that we're all here. It's a full house yet again and lots of people streaming online. I mentioned yesterday that we were the No. 1 trending hashtag on Twitter nation-wide (#DR16). So for those Twitter users, I encourage you to keep taking photos and tweeting quotes. It's amazing. That's driving people to click the Livestream to join us from their homes all over Canada. So please keep tweeting.

In a minute I am going to invite up onto stage my two podcasting buddies, so Fr James Mallon and Ron Huntley will be joining me in a moment. And there's actually a 4th staff member that is part of that podcast. He doesn't appear audibly, but he is our producer and our audio tech, and he's also the guy who plays the central role for all the audio and AV for this entire conference: Paul Lang. Paul, are you around here somewhere? Are you up in the booth? There he is. So there's Paul way up in the booth (clapping). So Paul's a young guy. He's been putting in a lot of hours lately and it just so happens that today's actually his 24th birthday and he's going to spend it here working – working long hours of overtime. But I was just wondering if all 600 of us could turn around and sing Happy Birthday to him. So Paul, stand up again, we want to be able to see you buddy. (singing). Paul, we love you man, you do amazing work.

So I've been blown away by all the love that the podcast has. So many of you have been coming up to me and saying, 'I love the podcast', 'I listen to the podcast'. A few of you have come up and said, 'When's the next podcast coming, it's been a while since we've heard a podcast?' Many of you would know, since we put the podcast on hiatus in the lead up to the conference for 2 reasons. 1) We were doing a conference 2) Fr James had committed to himself, to the team and to others to write another book.

We haven't talked too much about the book, but the Divine Renovation Guidebook is available to buy at the Novalis table at the back. Novalis has been a wonderful partner with us. So if you haven't yet checked out the guidebook, there's a few copies remaining. There's not many. They're the only copies in existence. They are taking orders. And what I want to be able to (I know Fr James will kill me for even telling about it), but what's important to note is that all (he doesn't earn a dime off the sale of that book), all the money from the sale of that book goes straight back into the Divine Renovation ministry. So if you buy the book, know that you are not getting Fr James a new Lexus, he's still going to be driving the same old car he's been driving for a long time. But the book's back there. I know they're going to sell it real soon. They are taking orders. And for anyone who orders at the conference they are offering free shipping of the book – so that's part of the deal there.

I know many of you know Fr James really well – many of you would also know Ron Huntley, who is also on the podcast. And he's had a couple of workshops. But not all of us have met Ron. If you have met Ron, there's no doubt that he's already invited you to Alpha. So that is what Ron is best known for: inviting people to Alpha. But honestly he's a key member of the Divine Renovation team, he's a key member of St Benedict's parish, he's a quintessential coach and he's the host of the Divine Renovation podcast. He brings to life what Patrick Lencioni was talking about last night, which is that healthy conflict. Watching him and Fr James go back and forth is like, I feel like a referee, watching the 2 guys having a healthy conflict in front of me sometimes. So if I could ask you all to help me welcome Fr James Mallon and Ron Huntley up onto the stage (clapping)

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I understand that the Divine Renovation Guidebook is designed to be written in, but how I wish they had released a Kindle version as well as a paperback version!

What you see here is Dan O'Rourke being a living example of Romans 12:10 (Outdo one another in showing honour). He's modelling two things that should be seen in parish life, but often aren't: 1) thanking people for their hard work – especially the 'behind the scenes' people and 2) praising them for how well they do it. Both things encourage people to keep serving God. Hebrews 3:13 (Every day, as long as this 'today' lasts, keep encouraging one another.)

This is the kind of love that Laurie experienced, the love the Holy Spirit had poured into the hearts of the parishioners at St Benedict's, the love that ultimately drew her to Jesus.

Some of you may recall that I took the plunge last year and began an Instagram account so that I could follow our young people through their World Youth Day Krakow adventures. This was in addition to our family Facebook and Twitter accounts. Since then there has been the Proclaim 2016 conference, the Ignite Youth Conference, the Servants of Jesus annual Share the Holy Spirit conference, Disciples of Jesus Summer Schools of Evangelisation in various Australian locations the biannual Light to the Nations conference over the Easter Triduum and the big gathering in Rome for Pentecost and #ccrgoldenjubilee2017.
 
At the Proclaim 2016 conference at Chatswood in early September 2016 (#proclaim2016), there was a spread of social media savvy types in attendance who did a reasonable job collectively of live tweeting memorable parts of the conference content and using the hashtag to enable them to be easily found. The benefits being 1) that those who attended and tweeted have the possibility of connecting with each other post-conference 2) bite sized reminders of the conference content became available to read later on and get re-energised by, and 3) those who were unable to attend the conference were able to take part in it and follow it through the social media postings – thereby multiplying the numbers of those who heard those messages well beyond the number of people the auditorium could hold.
 
Go to any writers (#CYA2016 early July 2016) or business conference (#SCBWISyd) and they will do an even better job of utilizing the multiplication effect of social media. However, it does pay to have a unique hashtag that no one else is likely to use – otherwise it all gets buried under later events that use the same hashtag.
 
Hashtags are your great helper in sharing good content, and in allowing others to find it. However, to be effective the hashtag for each event needs to be unique. #aussiepilgrim was not unique for World Youth Day because lots of other non-WYD travelers abroad used it. #sse17pat was more successful as a hashtag than #sse17 because any three letter acronym can have multiple meanings, for example #ccr can refer to both the pop group Creedence Clearwater Revival and to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. #sse can refer to the business event called the Sweets and Snacks Expo and not just Summer School of Evangelisation.

Hashtags are powerful because search engines can find them across all the major social media websites.
 
Find a hashtag for your event that is no more than 12 characters long, and make sure it is unique. Test the uniqueness by plugging your hashtag options into a search engine like Google.
 
Print that hashtag on all your printed matter for your event, and in an easy to find place on your event's website. Flash it up on the sight screens for your event 2 or 3 times a day.
 
I've been at play in the social media world for a while now: Xt3 since 2008; Blogging since late 2011; Facebook since the beginning of 2013; LinkedIn since 2014; Twitter since mid-2015 and Instagram since mid-2016. So I have seen the power of social media at work to disseminate information, and know that it can be used for great good. That's why I get so utterly frustrated when I see it being used poorly.
 
In the last 12 months I have been paying particular attention to how big evangelistic events in the Catholic world are reported on social media. The report card says, 'Can do much better' and the surprising thing is that it is our young people - and those who lead them – who are the worst at it. Only those in diocesan curia's tasked with capturing and sharing episcopal photo opportunities seem to have a clue, and writers who have (or who hope to have) religious books published.
 
For example the World Youth Day Krakow 2016 report card goes something like this: Lots of happy pilgrim photos, lots of photos of beautiful pilgrimage sites and extraordinary churches, plenty of photos of WYD events but….poor hashtag co-ordination and if you were following a young person's pilgrimage and hoping for a snippet of teaching from one of the catechesis sessions, from one of the pilgrimage homilies or one of the Pope's speeches you were doomed to disappointment.
 
It was similar when I tried to follow the Ignite Youth conference in Brisbane. A single mention of something Sr Hilda OSB said in a workshop was the sum total of actual teaching content shared.
 
DOJ Summer Schools of Evangelisation at Bathurst and Paterson, and the SOJ Share the Holy Spirit conference were no different. There were lots of photos of happy people, but nothing at all about the teaching given.
 
Light to the Nations is a biannual event over the Easter Triduum that attracted over 1000 people this year. Again there were lots of photos of happy people and live action Stations of the Cross and candle lit Easter Vigil, but as to the teaching given? The homily on Holy Thursday night mentioned something about keeping in tune with the beat of Jesus. That is all I was able to glean - and I searched and searched.
 
The big weekend held for the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal was sadly no exception. A few photographs, and enormous difficulty locating a hashtag that people were using for it. Like WYD Krakow it was a mishmash of hashtags, and no real content. Thankfully the talks were livestreamed and I was able to watch them afterwards. I wanted to go back and transcribe them, but they were taken offline and now you have to pay to get access to them https://something-like-real-pictures.myshopify.com/ The talks were truly excellent.
 
Many of my friends were lucky enough to go to Rome for Pentecost and the preceding 3 days of conferencing and workshops, preceded by a retreat in Assisi. Several of them have had social media presences for many years, but did I find anything in their posts about what they learned or what inspired them? Nooooo! Aargh!! The most that was posted was that such and such a talk was very good, or how our souls should be like the magnificent churches in Rome as dwelling places for Jesus. It wasn't only them either, it is a global problem. Thankfully many of those talks and workshops were recorded and are available online http://www.vocepiu.it/GoldenJubilee/ Thankfully Zenit Francais tweeted some of the content from the Pentecost Vigil and Google translate did its best, but sadly they were the only ones doing it. The recording given in the Pentecost Vigil link above didn't come with any English translation voiceovers.
 
What a lot of wasted effort!
A) Because for the want of a few extra words the impact of your social media posts could have been so much greater and B) Think of the time and effort that went into preparing the talk you heard. If it was good it deserved to be shared among a wider audience than just those who heard it at the venue.
 
What a lot of very easy opportunities to share the good news of Jesus with social networks missed!
 
We often say that a picture is worth a 1000 words. That's true if you are trying to describe a scene, but many pictures lack value unless they are put in context with a few explanatory words about Who, What, When, Where and especially Why.
 
There may have been better content posted, but I wasn't able to find it because a relevant hashtag wasn't attached to it.
 
Let's look at some biblical principles
 
1 Cor 11:23 For this is what I received from the Lord, and in turn passed on to you.
 
The privilege of being at these amazing events of faith is not for ourselves alone, we need to pass the good stuff on to others. Social media is a non-threatening way of doing just that.
 
And it is so easy to do!
 
Eph 3:29b-30a Let your words be for the improvement of others, as occasion offers, and do good to your listeners, otherwise you will only be grieving the Holy Spirit of God.
 
Add some words and a hashtag to your images, words that will help you reconnect with that moment later on and words that will help your readers and viewers connect with it too.

For example, an early morning photo of the campsite says something on its own about beauty. But if you added words like, 'I woke up tired after the long Holy Thursday night session last night, but this early morning sunshine lifted my spirits. I feel it's a gift of God to me. It is like He is preparing me for the day, just like last night He prepared His disciples for the unfathomable gift of the Eucharist by washing their feet #LTTN17' it becomes something much more.
 
For the love of God don't post, 'My friend XX gave a particularly anointed talk today' and then not share some of what your friend said. It only needs to be a sentence or two. For example Damian Stayne's talk in Rome was so good it needs to be shared widely. One of the things he said was, 'The charisms are not an optional extra like the sunroof on a car, they are essential, as essential as the steering wheel.' The former is frustrating to anyone who comes across it, the latter is something worth pondering on and may even intrigue people enough to watch the video recording.
 
1 Sam 3:19 Samuel grew up and the Lord God was with him and let no word of His fall to the ground.
 
Get into the practice of taking a photo at each session you attend – usually as it begins is best - then spend a minute or two when the session ends recalling the part of it that meant the most to you. Write it down. If you have time, post it then, otherwise post it later when you can. We forget so much of what happened in a session like that, even 24 hours later most of it has faded. If you capture even a sentence that spoke to you from each session, collectively they will help you discern what God's message was to you from the whole event.
 
Even better if you are the MC for an event, or the person giving the verbal thanks after a talk, or the person giving the talk, help people to do it. It isn't difficult. Just say, 'Before we go off to morning tea (or the next session) let us pause for a moment. If anything struck you from this talk, write it down now. A single sentence summary of what you heard God say to you though it would be ideal. Or a single sentence summary of what you think is worth remembering from it. Let's do that now….Good. Our speaker is happy for you to take a photograph. If you are on social media, share what you want to remember using the hashtag (and remind them what the hashtag for your event is).
 
Sharing even one of those thoughts on social media could help someone else enormously.
 
For an event, I'm likely to pick the best one-liner of the day and Tweet that when I get home. After each talk I'm likely to do a quick summary on Instagram. If it is very good, I will take the time to write out my notes in full and share them in a blog-post. Then if the content warrants it, the blog-post gets shared via Facebook and/or Twitter. Using the event hashtag on all of them, of course.
 
Do what works for you, but do something to share the good teaching you have received.
 
The days of people who believe in Jesus not being on social media need to be over. Realise that more and more people are thinking that if you can’t find something on the internet or on social media, then it didn't happen.
 
Facebook is the best social media site for connecting with people in your own locality. Parishes and youth groups, and those seeking to run Alpha courses and RCIA courses, you need to understand this and use it for good. It is possible, if you pay a small fee, to get posts targeted to postcodes.
 
Twitter is where the thinkers are. Twitter is where you can easily share links to good blog-posts or newspaper articles, and where you can find the good stuff too. There are a lot of good and holy people producing excellent content that doesn't get the readership it deserves because too few believers are online, reading and liking and retweeting.
 
If you want to be able to find a particularly good bit of content later on, for Facebook share it, and for Twitter re-tweet it. That content will then show up on your profile page for whichever social media site you used.
 
Instagram is where the youngsters are. If you want to connect with them, you need to be using it. Instagram is where the creatives are. Mobile devices are what Instagram works with. Instagram access via computer has much less functionality. It is much harder to share a link on Instagram, but then you aren't restricted to 140 characters and can write as much or as little as you wish.
 
Remember your likes, comments, shares and retweets matter. The more a social media post gets, the wider it gets shared and the more likely it is via the various algorithms to hit your inbox and the inbox of your friends. Those who posted them need the encouragement, too. Even if you share a social media post, only a fraction of your friends will see it pop up in their social media feed. However if both you and a friend share the same post, a higher number of both your friends will see it. The increase is lesser for likes, but they still make a difference, and comments are somewhere in the middle.
 
Trolls. Yes, they exist. Don't be one. Don't feed them attention. They roam around the online sphere looking for something they disagree with and then let it rip. The better your content is, the more likely it is to help someone towards conversion to Jesus, the more likely the first comment will be from a member of the trolls. Reading 'One Body, Many Blogs' will help.
 
But if you are called to be a social media apostle, then you really should be blogging. Of all the social media options, the work you do on a blog is the most long lasting, posts on Facebook and Twitter will eventually get buried by new content, and that happens even faster with Instagram and SnapChat.
 
If this sounds like you (and heaven knows we need social media apostles and many more of them), view this interview with Brendan Vogt on The Journey Home program back in 2011. Get a vision for it from him.
 
Hint: If you don't leave home without a notebook and pen, and always take notes when listening to a talk, then you should definitely consider a ministry in social media. It doesn't have to be much of a commitment, just a regular one; like 30 mins once a week reading and liking and sharing, and 30 mins once a week writing and posting about something that matters to both you and God.
 
If you are a grandparent and you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, then you most definitely need to be on social media in order to connect with your grandchildren and to provide some occasional online reminders that God is real and active in people's lives. You don't have to be on all the social media sites, just the one your grandchildren use the most.
 
For those who have waded through all my rants and pleas, a reward is in order.
 
Towards the end of the Pentecost Vigil at the Circus Maximus in Rome, gathered together with the Pope and some 30-50,000 others, Patti Mansfield one of the two earthly protagonists of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal was inspired to give a prophetic word. It is about 15 minutes from the end of the video recording, just after everyone say, 'Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me'.
 
'Lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest and if you would obey Me and if you would obey the prompting of My Spirit you will yet see infinitely more than you can ask or imagine you will yet see power of my Spirit descend upon the human race. I tell you the fields are white for harvest but I need your obedience, I need your docility and I need your faith and you will yet see marvels that will astound you infinitely more than you can ask or imagine for the glory of My name.'
 
Everyone needs to hear this, and act on it…but I am still waiting for those who actually were there to share this prophetic word and mention in online. We have a duty to share the good stuff. Please join me in doing it.

Our Lady, Queen of the Apostles, pray for us.
St Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, pray for us.
St Maximillian Kolbe, Media Apostle, pray for us.