As all of us know from our gatherings, full of laptops, iphones, and cross platform conversations, social media is an important component to this generation.

As part of our commitment to get the word out we’ll be asking as many of you who are willing to join the “Prayer Blog Day” for Exploration 2011. This will be a day when all of us will be posting and sharing across platforms our prayers and thoughts in preparation for this important event.

As a pastor, design team member, and blogger I’ve been asked to share some thoughts that will hopefully make this “blog day” an important day as we continue counting down to Exploration 2011.

• Remember that this is a day of prayer – share a testimony, story, or your requests to God for this event.

• Engage your readers – invite them to pray with you, tell them how many days are left till the event, what your hopes and dreams are for this event in the life of those who will gather there, and make sure you keep them in the loop afterwards.

• Do not write a long post – most of my posts are between 300 and 600 words

• Use the graphic for the event provided by GBHEM – this is very important for quick recognition cross platforms & remember to link the graphic to the Explo2011 website, if you have “widget” capabilities add a widget with the graphic and link, and leave it up on your blog till the event is over in November.

• Remember the theme of “Passion & Possibility” & mention the host city St. Louis, MO.

• Post at high traffic times online – breakfast, lunch, and supper times are not the best, mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and between 7 pm – 11 pm seem to be a great time to get “hits” on your posts.

• Most blogging platforms have a way to “tag” posts, so make sure you tag it with as many related terms as possible – especially UMC, The United Methodist Church, young clergy, discernment, young adults, God, Christ, church, passion, possibility, St. Louis, prayer.

• Share across social media – twitter, FB (both on your profile and on related groups, pages, etc.), Google+, church websites, etc.

• Make sure you share the post at least twice during the day – remember the traffic times, I normally like to share mid-morning and evening.

• Share other people’s post on your profile – make sure you let your followers, readers, etc. know at the start of that day that you will be flooding your timeline, newsfeed, page with blog posts on Explo2011.

• Last but not least – be genuine, engaging, prayerful, and excited. People will be reading, God will be speaking, the Spirit blowing where it may . . .

– Peace, Juan+ (aka, spiritstirrer)

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