Tatango

Have you ever wanted to send a message to group but didn’t have time to contact everyone? Tatango is a new mobile text and voice messaging service that allows to send messages to your groups. For churches and ministries this service will have a number of uses. One small example would be your activities are getting canceled because of the weather. With your group started you can log into your Tatango account and send out a voice or text message letting everyone know class will be canceled tonight. Not only that but this update has also been posted to my Facebook and Twitter profiles for others to see.

I opened a account to try out this new service. I have one word to describe how to use the service “simply”. First I tried to send out a voice message. In just 3 steps I was able to click the Call Me button; in seconds Tatango called me and asked me to record my message. Options were limited to re-record or accept. After accepting you are given a screen that allows you post to Facebook, Twitter and Myspace profiles along with a link to the actual message in your Tatango profile. Only seconds later I got my message. Since I was using the free version I had to listen to a very short message about eBay. I actually didn’t find the message invasive more like informative. After the short ad I got my message. Sending a text was equally as easy and the text ad was small placed under my message.

As I stated above this service is free with ads but they do have a PRO paid version that removes advertising. Prices are as low as $5 per month to $99 per month with varying levels of service.  We have a special 10% discount coupon by using “tango”.

So what does this mean for small groups, ministries and churches? A few ideas come to mind; daily/weekly devotionals. Daily Bible reading messages is something I have personally been thinking about lately. A mid-week reminder about this week’s sermon. Reminders or changes for upcoming events. Really the possibles are endless but one thing is for sure this technology will allow us to better communicate to groups of people to help further the gospel message. Amen

Additional services: Church Texting Manager

Starting a Facebook Group

After you have created you new Facebook profile and found a couple of friends the next step is learning about groups. Groups can be started for any reason reunions, prayer needs, memorials, churches or missionaries are just a couple of examples. Once you create your group it opens a number of new options to your users. You can now create topics which allows people to post on a common topic. Upload video; post pictures, post general comments to the wall and send messages to the entire group for updates. There is one limitation and that is once your group reaches 5,000 people the option to message the group is disabled. If you reach 5,000 people in your group you should consider a website if you haven’t already created one. See the video below to lead you step by step to create a group in Facebook.

Setting up your Facebook profile

Starting a Facebook account

Social networking has been around for years. The most popular of these being Facebook and Myspace. As we push forward this year we will be training churches and ministries how to leverage this technology to spread the gospel message. Currently I have account setup on both networks and without a doubt for the purpose of comunication and networking Facebook wins.  To that note the first thing to do is to get you started with a Facebook account. I found this video that leads you step-by-step on how to create a Facebook account.