Salmaan Taseer: The man who shook a nation awake
“Heroism is not the measure of how gloriously one fights and dies; rather, it is the value of the deeds and events which drove the person to their final end.”
A year has passed us by, and much has changed.
I don’t want to dwell too much on history, for much will be written about that today, capturing the bravery and martyrdom of Salmaan Taseer.
I rather want to focus on his legacy. The legacy which many seem to forget in favour of the more sensationalist diatribes that help get more hits, more clicks and more comments, particularly when the monologue gets sidetracked (on purpose) to focus more on Islam, Qadri, the black law and the pivot of it all: Asia Bibi, the Christian Pakistani woman who was jailed for allegedly blaspheming against the prophet of Islam, Muhammad (PBUH).
No, my focus is on the here and now.
On January 4, 2011, after that fateful moment, Pakistan woke up. It may have woken up in shock, like someone after a nightmare at 4 am, cold sweat dripping down their necks, but it woke up nonetheless.
You see, up until that moment everything related to minority issues and persecution was just a by-line. The news would once in a while show a new report here, a quote from a politician there, and that was it. Even poor Asia Bibi was sidelined, apart from a few months before Taseer’s assassination, when him and Sherry Rehman were more vocal in their support for her.
Enter the assassination, followed by Sherry’s own quieter stance, and Shahbaz Bhatti’s assassination some time later.
Suddenly, the rafters were flooded, the media up in arms and the general public finally no longer sitting on the fence. You were either vocally abhorring the blasphemy law, Asia Bibi’s detention, Taseer’s assassination and the state of minorities in Pakistan or you were waiting in line to shower Qadri with more rose petals.
The lines had finally been drawn.
Things have changed, whether we admit to it or not. Sure, we still aren’t out on the streets protesting in the thousands against Qadri or demanding Asia Bibi’s release. We aren’t bombarding the courts or the government with requests for leniency or release. We aren’t even coming out in force demanding the media in Pakistan cover this issue. All of the above has more to do with the liberal stance of voice over violence than mere complacency.
We ARE however very aware of the situation now. The media’s coverage of minority issues is now a daily feature, with every day bringing to light a new persecution, shedding new light over issues long forgotten.
If one reads the comments section of most major news portals in Pakistan, one feels a sense of joy that the youth of Pakistan are showing a rarely seen desire for justice and for the support of Taseer’s efforts to provide a voice for the persecuted. It begs a round of applause for those in the new generation who are proving to have more integrity flowing through their veins than those who are meant to teach them integrity in the first place. While the older folk go about sipping their teas and nodding their beards to the whispers of Qadri’s ghairat, the youth are thumping their chests at a new dawn of understanding and reconciliation.
Shahbaz Bhatti was further a victim of the brutality of some who use a few verses to turn what was one man’s guidance into a divine mandate, and closely following his assassination was the abduction of Taseer’s son, Shahbaz. All of us continue to pray for his safe return. Let no one be fooled by this blog of mine that I may be making light of such a henious crime. I am not, I continue to pray for Shahbaz’s safety. However I owe it to Mr. Taseer as a minority myself to give him the ode he deserves.
I would never have been active on Twitter if it wasn’t for Mr. Taseer. My voice would have been lost in the stream of the mundane, but his selfless act made me realise I am here on earth for a greater purpose. I have a voice. How I use it is what I learnt from him.
Pakistan is awake again. And we have only one man to thank for this. One man who woke us all up in his life and in his death.
Rest in peace, Salmaan Taseer. Pakistan is poorer for losing you. But at the same time, it is richer, because your legacy will reap a future of harmony. This, I truly believe.
How to use Twitter in 2012
Here’s a list of things I’ve learnt from 2011 which I believe should be understood to ensure a greater social media impact in 2012 for your personal or professional accounts. They’re in no particular order. I hope they help!
If you have your own insight to share, please do let me know in the comments box. I would love to hear from you.
You may also follow me on Twitter at @anthonypermal.
(This post assumes a basic to intermediate experience of using Twitter.
1. Engage, don’t enrage
Opinions are as varied as the people who have them. Yet it is easy to recall that not many people like being told they’re wrong. This is why ‘the customer is always right’ has always rung true for those in the retail business.
On the other hand, this should also hold true for your personal Twitter accounts. By and large, especially in topics which are high in sensitivity e.g. politics, religion, finance the discussions can reach deafening proportions with every person wanting their opinion to be heard and accepted as is.
A society is measured on its ability to debate. The Greeks thrived on it, and gave us much of the philosophies we base our societies’ existence on today.
Instead of being sucked into unhealthy, negatively charged discussions with harsh debaters (many of whom are usually new to Twitter and falsely attribute the Forum-based discussion styles to this new platform), engage with them. Accept for a moment that their viewpoint may not be correct, but in their eyes it is. Once you ascertain that the best way forward is not to deride them but to educate them with lucidity and rationale, you will go a long way in bridging and in fact maintaining a great twiendship with the said person.
Some of the most loyal and positively vocal customers you can have as advocates are those who had a bad experience with you but whom you managed to convince to come back to you through good, old-fashioned conversation and empathy.
2. Remember to build rapport
Have a conversation regularly with your most loyal re-tweeters and your new followers.
You know how when you’re invited to a party, and you don’t know most of the folk there yet since they’re all mutual friends you know there’s at least ONE thing you have in common with everyone in the room? And you know how you hope someone there talks to you and makes a connection so that you don’t feel like the awkward dork standing in the corner while everyone’s busy ‘connecting’?
Same thing.
A new follower is almost always a potential customer, prospect, friend or in some cases a love interest. It has happened. Can you afford to ignore your future Mr. or Ms. Right?
Someone who re-tweets you often enough is also worthy of a good pat on the back once in a while, and if you have the time then they’re worthy of a conversation that is longer than ‘thanks mate’. A few words of encouragement go a long way when your followers don’t really want much more than to be noticed.
3. Choose a side
No one likes ambiguity or indecisiveness. It kills commentary and sours discussions. On Twitter, where one is forced to limit one’s characters of expression so as to be as succinct as possible, engaging with someone who sways from left to right instead of choosing to sit on the fence can be tiring.
4. Share
You can be one of two kinds of followers:
1) The moocher – you constantly retweet others tweets or links without offering any of your own. This basically makes you like that annoying cousin who borrows your great stuff but never tells others it’s yours
2) The feeder – you don’t just retweet others’ content, you share stuff you write, or links that you find interesting. You add value to the conversations already going on. You’re like the friend who loves to tell stories that you like
You choose which one you want to be on Twitter.
5. Trash the hash!
2011 saw a massive growth in Twitter users globally, and in the ensuing chaos of minds, one aspect of Twitter got abused like bad graffiti in a racist neighbourhood: the hashtag. More often than not, new Twitter users (and annoying older ones) sadistically enjoy adding a minimum of 3 hashtags, and a maximum of,well, there’s no maximum. They literally spam every known word by adding a # prefix.
Yes, I used the word spam, because that’s exactly what it is. Avoid it. Be smart and use only two. Be wise and use only one.
6. Finally, quality vs quantity
Isn’t it awesome, all those people you follow who have 20, 30 or 40,000 followers?
No, it isn’t.
For the most part, when you have that many followers, it is next to impossible to engage with all of them. Sure, they may love what you have to say, but more often than not they follow you because of your celebrity status or clout. I have just over 1,000 followers on Twitter, and because of that my timeline streams very, very fast and I hardly have time to look at all the tweets that come in. By the time my eyes pick something up, it’s gone.
Also, I’ve noticed that when I look at my Twitter timeline, I tend to focus on the few dozen or so people whom I follow, because I know I’ll get value from reading their tweet.
Lastly, there’s no point having thousands of followers when you only average 10 retweets a day, if that. It shows that those people clicked ‘follow’ on your profile, and then forgot all about you. Is that the kind of following you want?
It takes more effort to manage existing customers than to generate new ones, yet those existing customers bring you more revenue in the long run than new ones. Don’t believe me? Think of the buyers of Apple’s products.
In short: don’t worry about increasing your numbers. That will happen on it’s own if you focus on increasing the quality of your tweets and engaging with your existing followers.
After all, Twitter is, essentially, a big party with lots of little rooms, where everyone just wants to have a good conversation.
The New Roman Missal of the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church has recently outlined the improvements in the Roman Missal with its new edition.
The New Roman Missal will be globally celebrated in all English-speaking Catholic churches on the planet on the first Sunday in Advent, i.e. 20 November 2011. It is the Church’s way of unifying the Latin-rite churches in language and liturgy.
Alot of confusion exists both within and without the Catholic faith on the why and how of this update, and much of it stems from one misunderstanding: the church has changes the Mass.
No. It hasn’t.
I want to share this brilliant yet short video which visually explains the New Roman Missal using simple, easy to retain analogies. Do share it with your friends and fellow-Catholics to help them appreciate the Advent Mass this Sunday!
Hello, my fellow Christian marketers
I’ve been on a sabbatical for 8 months due to a few things happening in life, work and love.
Having had a wonderful pilgrimage to the roots of Christian Mysticism in Spain, I’m back refreshed, renewed and with a whole new series of marketing tips and information for ministries and churches around the world.
My focus over the coming few months will be on building high-quality content that helps 1) equip marketers with amazing new ways to market and 2) position your brand, church or ministry as a source of great information.
I’ll leave you with a tip:
I was once asked who the project director of my SEO program is.
Simple answer: my customer.
2010 – The Year Social Commerce exploded
Here’s how social media became a mainstream profit-maker in 2010. AND how people made tens of millions of dollars on Facebook alone.
No longer can brands or causes or ministries or churches or groups or any category you’re in deny or wait to accept the fact that social media is where you need to be putting your money – no pun intended.
In this very informative infograph, designed and researched by SocialCommerceToday.com, we see various brands – both big and small – and how they made a profit – nay, a huge profit – using e-commerce based on social media. By ‘profit’ here, I mean mostly money, but I also mean brilliant new solutions they’ve launched on creating retail platforms on social media sites in ways we’d never have imagined.
I won’t say any more as I don’t want to take the shine away from this beautiful piece of information designed for people like you and me.
Would love to read your comments on it.
Confess your sins digitally – the confession app is here!
In 2008, over coffee with some members of the clergy as well as youth ministry leadership, I predicted that in a couple of years sacraments will be aided by social media, and that the most personal of all sacraments – confession – will make use of the digital age.
I still remember the raging conversation that followed, with a diverse array of people for, against and confused about the idea. ‘Sacrilige’, one said, and went on to say the grace and mercy of Christ cannot be transmitted through fibre optics, it requires a personal interaction between a priest and a penitent.
‘Nonsense’, said another, elaborating that while the personal act is required, there is nothing wrong with using all media to bring the penitent to repent. In fact, St. Paul in all his letters kept calling the Gentiles to repent and evangelised through them.
This week, in something that has shocked conservatives and delighted proponents of social and digital Christian ministries, the first official app for Confessions was launched WITH the approval of the Catholic Church.
For the largest body of Christian believers on the planet to approve this is a testament to the works of God among youth today.
The company that created the app – Little iApps - is a three-man team led by Patrick Leinen, and claims to be a company “with a Roman Catholic twist”. Patrick said ‘his team had wanted to engage Catholics with new media in response to the Pope’s World Communications Address last year, in which he spoke of its potential benefits”. (Full report here.)
The app itself creates a customised and password-protected “examination of conscience” based on a person’s age, sex, vocation and the time elapsed, in days, weeks, months or years, since the last confession. It is designed NOT to replace the actual sacrament, but to aid penitential Christians to do a good examination of conscience and then encourages them to go for the actual sacrament.
It also has seven acts of contrition to choose from, all for $1.99.
Bishop Kevin Rhoades even granted it an imprimatur – official endorsement from a church authority!
Below is a screenshot.
What do you think?
Cell phone usage in 2010 among youth
I was reading Chris Brogan’s blog today and he posted a great infographic on the increase of smart cellphone usage in 2010. I won’t steal the thunder from the infographic but I will mention how this is relevant to your work in using digital media for ministry.
Pay close attention to the number of youth of the mentioned age brackets who are using sns text messages (texting) and the web browsing feature to share information with their peers.
Try harnessing that among your own church or ministry’s youth.
The info graphic is brought to you by Online IT Degree’s Riley Cyan.
Facebook allows you to download all your content
I wanted to post this because I really think this is a wonderful feature from Facebook, one that people have wanted for a long time and can now use it.
You can now go into Account Settings and download everything you have ever done on Facebook: status updates, profile changes, wall messages, photographs (in the original format and size), videos and others.
This is really cool. 
Inspire Digital Christian Radio
Everyone once in a while a website really stands out to you while you’re searching for something else.
I stumbled across Inspire Digital Christian Radio earlier, and I could not stay away from the site after that first trip. The site is sponsored by CBM and no I’m not getting paid to say this.
I have bookmarked only two Christian radio stations:
- Positive Life Radio (www.plr.org) and
- Inspire Christian Digital Radio (www.inspiredigitalradio.com)
Today I wanted to share Inspire with you because of a few reasons:
- I love their collection of music. Their daily track listings really help me sail through my day, no matter how tough its been. And boy, its been an interesting and tough 2011 start!
- They broadcast some very interesting talk-session programmes, including the controversial but brilliant ‘how to find a husband by Friday’!
- They’re simple. Unlike some folks who can confuse you by adding multiple options for the message (they start out as online radio stations but then add forums, chat sessions, presentations etc) Inspire keeps it simple. You log on, click on Listen Live and that’s it.
I’ll let their introduction speak for itself:
Inspire Digital is Australia’s newest Christian radio station with a format of the best Christian music and teaching programs from around Australia and the world. It can be heard on DAB+ digital radio in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, and online via www.inspiredigitalradio.com and iPhone app.
As Christians, we are so blessed to have assurance in our eternity, and personal access to a God who loved us so much, He died to ensure we could be in relationship with Him.
But sometimes the busyness of the day-to-day distract us, and the pressures of life can be more present than His presence. It’s at these times that we need to get some space and take a moment to reflect on God and all his goodness. Inspire Digital aims to provide you with that ‘God space’ at anytime of the day or night. Whether you’re seeking to grow and refresh your Christian faith, or just ‘be’ in His presence, I pray that Inspire Digital will be a place where we can all be encouraged to ‘live the life’.
10 tips for using Twitter if you’re new to it
This is a continuation from my earlier post ‘How to set up a church Twitter account‘.
Now that you’ve set up your church account on Twitter, it is important to learn the basic rules of thumb in order to make your Twitter experience – and that of your current and potential followers – smooth and valuable.
I’ve compiled a list of 10 top tips I use to ensure I have a great time using Twitter and to ensure my followers enjoy my tweets, retweet them and recommend me to be followed by their friends.
Tip 1: Tweet regularly
The last thing people want is to follow someone they feel would be a great source of valued tweets – especially if the tweet is about Jesus – and get only a tweet a week. You’ll lose followers quicker than you’d gain them. And yes, people unfollow. Alot.
Here’s what I suggest:
Do some research, collate your sermon notes, make a list of your favourite quotes, one-liners, inspiring Scripture verses etc. for the week and ensure you have at least 5 ready for each day, maybe 10 for the first day of the weekend. Software like Hootsuite (I’ll speak about what software to use and why in a tip below) allows you to create and schedule tweets to go out automatically, so you’re set.
A rule of thumb for new-comers to Twitter: Tweet an original tweet at least once every 3 hours. That way you’ll get up to 5 tweets out during waking hours.
Reason: The more you tweet, the more people will wait for your next tweet. The more they wait, the more they’ll re-tweet because you’re building an anticipation of quality content.
Tip 2: Use hashtags
A hashtag is commonly misunderstood by new comers. I was completely clue-less about this and learnt on my own after reading websites, forums etc and it took some time to put my head around it. If only someone had written a detailed blog post making it easy for me to figure it out.
Voila! Consider your internet explorer or Firefox (or whichever browser your use). When you like a certain website, you bookmark or ‘favourite’ it so that you can access it for updates etc easily at a later time. A hashtag (or #tag) is similar, but with broader repurcussions.
See, after Twitter launched, there was a realisation that many people have common interests, and the only way for them to find information in that particular interest was to always use the search function. Instead, Twitter started #tags which are Twitter bookmarks. A theme or keyword of an interest group would be preceded by a hash e.g. #jesus or #church. To find an interest #tag, one only needs to search for that #tag (based on what they think would be out there or by following other peoples’ tweets) in Twitter’s search function and click ‘Save’. Next time they want to find new tweets under that #tag, they simply need to click on the saved button which appears on the side.
To create a #tag, all you need to do is think of the keyword you want everyone to follow/bookmark and place a # next to it the next time you tweet something relevant for that #tag. E.g. If I wanted to let people who are interested in Audi cars that this car maker has launched a new model, I would create (unless it already existed) a #tag called #Audi and tweet it as ‘#Audi launches new model for 2011 #cars’. Notice how I added a second #tag for another favourite interest group.
(Image is copyrighted here)
Tip 3: Retweet often
Retweeting is simply affirmation on Twitter. By retweeting someone else’s tweet that you liked, you’re
- Telling the world this tweet was important or insightful enough to be shared with them
- Telling the world this person tweets good content
- Telling the original tweeter you appreciated their tweet – a virtual pat-on-the-back
Plus, if people see you retweeting stuff, they’ll want to follow you and have you follow them, so that you can retweet their’s too. Point being, humans want to feel wanted.
How to retweet: If you are using the website itself, under the tweet that you like there will be a ‘retweet’ option. Click on it and it will send that tweet out with an ‘RT’ followed by the original sender’s Twitter handle. E.g. RT @digitalchrist: I love #Jesus
Tip 4: Try to tweet 120 characters or less
Yes, I know Twitter’s character limit allows you to tweet up to 140 characters, but here’s the thing: if everyone on Twitter can only tweet 140 characters, and when they retweeting they add the original tweeter’s address, you’re not left with space to retweet.
When you tweet only 120 characters, (it can be 125 or 130, the number is simply an indication to go by) you leave room for people to retweet your stuff. That’s what you want, because others can see your address and follow you.
Tip 5: Follow quality, not quantity
It is easy to get swayed by people in your interest area who have thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of followers. Be careful of these numbers. There are a number of apps out there which allow Twitter users to add hundreds of followers a day and vice versa, which may boost your numbers but doesn’t guarantee visibility, especially since you’re one of 10,000 odd tweeters on that person’s stream.
Look for quality tweets and see who’s sending them. They may have thousands of followers, or just 10. That shouldn’t matter to you. If you retweet quality, people will remember you. And they will most definitely follow you.
Rule of thumb, if you’re still interested in following people with many followers (its ok if you do, I’m just helping you get more out of your experience on twitter) then follow this rule: follow people who are following at least 60% of the number of people following them. E.g. if Bob has 1,000 followers, and Bob is following 600 people, follow Bob. He seems to be someone who a) follows back one of every two people and b) he doesn’t follow for the heck of following.
Hot tip: Follow anyone who follows you. Its only fair, and its polite. Beware of spammers and bots though.
(Image courtesy here)
Tip 6: Promote people
This is a tip I learnt from Chris Brogan. It is always good to promote the lesser known tweeters and newbies. But only if they’re worth promoting. See a tweet you like from someone new, someone with very few followers? Got an instinct about them? Then send something that is becoming a good trend on Twitter: Follow suggestions. Simply make a list of 4 or 5 people you think others should follow, and some new ones like I mentioned above, and tweet the following: ‘Gr8 folks to #follow: @xyz @abc @123′. They’ll appreciate it and retweet you and more.
Tip 7: Put a good picture of yourself as your avatar (profile display image)
People want to follow people. People are human. If you see a logo or a graphic, yeah you may follow it or may read its tweets, but you always feel more comfortable following a person they can see.
Tip 8: Use Bit.ly as a URL shortener
When sharing links you like from websites you’ve visited, most often it’s difficult to share the URL (the internet website address) because they’re quite long. For this, there are many services that offer URL shortening and among them, I recommend www.bit.ly the most. The reason is analytics.
Bit.ly allows you to create register and use its services to shorten your URLs, and in the bargain also gives you some great analysis tools to see how your links perform, who shares them, which geographic locations are sharing them and so on. This is great to know if you are using your Twitter account for your Church, because it shows you how far-reaching your tweets really are.
Tip 9: Use Twitter on your mobile phone
If you can. Some folks prefer to keep their mobile phones specifically for calling and text messaging.
But if you really want to be in personal contact with your followers and keep your finger on the pulse of the Twitter-verse, install either the Twitter application on your phone or any of the various other applications from 3rd party providers. I’ll list some good ones in Tip 10.
Tip 10: The best software to use
There are more than enough Twitter applications for the desktop, smart phone, tablet and other digital devices out there to confuse the life out of you.
This is why I thought I’d collate a list for you to help you along. This list is not exhaustive, its simply the apps I have used and liked among others. There are probably other apps out there much better than these, so please add them in the comments section, it’ll help me and others check them out as well!
Desktop applications:
Phone applications:
I hope these simple 10 tips will help you have a richer Twitter experience. Please do share your own tips and suggestions as well as comments in the Comments section. We live to learn!
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