Three ways social media impacted my White House meeting

As many of your know, I’m finishing up on reflecting upon my meeting with the Executive Office of the President and White House staff (read part 1 and part 2). It was an honor to be among 60 other Baptists who met with several advisers to the President.  One of the unusual facets of this meeting was a media blackout.  None of the tradition media outlets were allowed in this meeting.

The media blackout arose from the administration’s frustrations that past clergy leader meetings were nothing more than a photo opportunity. This meeting was supposed to be different, and so it was. We attendees were allow to tweet during the meeting and used the hashtag #BaptistsatWH. This created a direct link to our friends, congregation members, followers, and community individuals back home. Our four-hour long meeting was unencumbered by reporters interrupting or distracting from the meeting’s goal.

My friend and fellow pastor Dr. William Shiell and I discussed how the administration had a message they wanted to communicate. The byproduct of a media blackout, but social media friendly meeting is threefold:

Social media is powerful than traditional forms of media.  The power of 60 clergy leaders attending a White House meeting and then sharing the information through Facebook and Twitter is huge. Social media is faster and more personal than traditional forms of media. The concept of “open journalism” is the future — no, is the “now” of media. If you don’t think so, read about the Three Little Pigs and their rise to fame.  While I was Tweeting and sending messages, 2,000 potential contacts were getting the White House message with my own insights. The power of social media is that emotion can be infused with the medium, thereby making it powerful and personal.

Social media is the best kind of “word of mouth” worldwide communication.  If the Arab Spring taught us anything, it is that social media can start a revolution.  Worldwide communication happens how. As we were tweeting, the messages sent were being read around the country and possibly the globe. A number of attendees had retweets from their followers. In turn those followers retweeted… and so on and so on. In advertising the best way to get the word out is word of mouth. For us goodwill Baptists at the White House, our word of mouth was through social media.

Social media is real-time information and feedback. Since there were so many of us Baptists in the room, it was hard to get a word in edgewise… but how would that be different from any Baptist meeting? Only Baptists get that joke. However, I did have the power of my Blackberry and Twitter. By the way, when you have to get information out fast on Twitter, having a phone with a keyboard is crucial. We clergy leaders were able to tweet real-time information on housing help, mortgage crisis help, faith-based community programs, and other White House information. In a world that moves quickly, social media helps people stay informed even though they may be hundreds of miles away.

This White House meeting wasn’t your grandfather’s meeting. If Generation-X and the Millennials are to be the next leaders, then we’d better get use to social media. Traditional media will never go away, but social media will continue to play an increasing role in the way we communicate.