Why I Do Social Media

If you ask me about my job in my mission, I would tell you my main assignment is to love and encourage our staff.  How great is that?!I love it when I can do this person to person:I visit staff all over the world.I listen to individuals and to groups.I speak at conferences and leadership meetings.But obviously I can connect with only a small percentage of our staff face to face.Since writing is my background, it’s not surprising we began a women’s resource newsletter quite a few years ago.  Every quarter we provide stories from our sisters on ministry, family and personal topics, along with my letter and one on leadership development.The next effort has been through a website for staff women.  Our purpose is to encourage, equip and connect staff women around the world.  A very active prayer center, an interactive message board, a blog with contributions from many of the women, articles from the newsletter,  and now in a beautiful and friendly new format.And then I discovered Social Media.  Sometimes I think God invented Facebook so I could connect more with our staff.  I love that I have friends all over the world—and when I arrive in an area somewhere in the world, my friends always come introduce themselves.  I am amazed at how much I know about these friends.I resisted Twitter for a long time, but finally gave in.  I have been surprised that you can make friends via Twitter.  I am loving these different interactions with different people, including many staff around the world.The question I get:  How do you have time to do all this?  I really don’t spend a lot of time with social media.  A short time several times a day enables me to make quick comments, check a “like,” retweet a post or comment.I am totally not a techie.  I have no idea how all this works.  I am dependent on my tech friends to keep things working.  But I am so grateful for the ability to love and encourage staff around the world—from my living room, my office, any airport I’m in.Want to be my friend?