What Can You Do With Twitter?

(Guest post by Kevin D. Hendricks, voice behind the infamous Church Marketing Sucks blog, champion for helping others and friend. Enjoy!)

I wrote a book. That’s what I did with Twitter.

People are always questioning the usefulness of social media tools like Twitter. “What’s it good for?” is a common refrain. It’s a fair question, but like many new technological tools, you get out of it what you put into it.

In my case I started tweeting about my family. I shared funny stories of my work-at-home days with the kids. I posted the weird things my kids said. I commiserated with other parents. I talked about our adoption journey. I recruited others to support the causes we love.

I tweeted a lot of other garbage too, but when I went back and sorted through all the updates there was a clear story. That story became Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 Characters, a book I self-published. It’s a time capsule of my family’s early years and our adoption journey. From the reactions so far it’s funny, touching and inspiring, meaning this collection of tweets is about much more than me. And it’s going to save lives. A portion of the proceeds will fund a clean water well in Ethiopia through charity: water.

All that from Twitter.

The next time someone dismisses Twitter, Facebook or any other new technology and tells you they don’t care what you had for breakfast—tell them to think again.

 

Kevin D. Hendricks is a freelancer writer who lives in St. Paul, Minn., with his wife, two kids and two dogs. You can follow him on Twitter and he’s also been blogging since 1998. You can learn more about Addition by Adoption or buy a copy from Amazon.com.

Comments

[GordonMarcy]

Well said Kevin.

The Twitter journey for me started when my daughter suggested that I would like it better than FB as a support tool for blogging.

While "learning the language" and building community, I met so many who were using Social Media for gospel purposes. That led to connections with the folks at Global Media Outreach and to becoming an online missionary with the ministry.

In just the first six weeks, had the high privilege of responding to 100 new and recommitting believers in 32 countries, 11 of which are hostile to organized religion.

As one that could always "do more" in sharing the gospel, didn't see this coming. And it started with Social Media.

By the way, had lunch with Five Guys & A Burger and scoops of homemade peanut butter ice cream for dessert.

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