LAKE FOREST, Calif. — Saddleback Church has more than 200 social media sites and may soon become the most popular social media congregation on the planet, according to the church’s relatively new Social Media Ministry.
Although other church’s may have embraced sites such as Facebook and Twitter sooner, Saddleback’s staff and volunteer force of social media savvy team members have been busy getting the Good News out since before last Christmas … taking the church bulletin concept farther than its ever gone.
This year, Saddleback celebrates its 30-year anniversary on Easter weekend, April 3, 4, at Angels Stadium in Anaheim. The stadium seats about 45,000 people and is expected to fill to overflow on Sunday. However, the bigger news may be how many people throughout the world catch the event live online. The church’s Facebook fan page and Twitter account, @YouMatter2God has been buzzing with the news of the mega church’s mega event.
The EasteratSaddleback.com site enables visitors to re-Tweet and Facebook share the link to the page which give details of the event and will host the live video feed. Two Facebook event pages allow Saddleback fans to invite their Facebook friends to the Saturday and Sunday services … reminding everyone that attending the event could mean watching online.
Using Twitter’s hash tag feature, which delivers a feed of all those tweeting on the same subject, Saddleback has established #Easter30 as a way for everyone to be on the same page. A “Buzz” window screen displays the #Easter30 feed on the EasteratSaddleback.com page … making for an interactive Easter the likes we may have never seen before.
Outreach New Media 