When you’re developing a strategy of what to post to your church social media account, it can be helpful to ask yourself these two questions: Why am I posting to social media? and What is the overall purpose that I hope to accomplish?
We believe that the purpose of a church being on social media is simply to reach people with the life-giving message of Jesus and to inspire them to take the step to come to church or to get connected to the church in a greater way. Social media is a powerful tool that allows us to connect with people through an online community, to share the good news of Jesus, and encourage believers in their faith.
CREATING POSTS THAT ENGAGE
What kind of posts will help to engage your church community? We’ve found that it’s posts that add VALUE to people. This could be a quote or a video clip from the message, a worship moment, or better yet, FACE TIME with a pastor or someone on your church leadership. What do we mean by face time? Create opportunities that your church members can see your pastoral staff throughout the week. This could be a daily devotional, a short word of encouragement, or a worship song. Be real and be authentic. It doesn’t need to have a high production quality to it, people just want to be together, and when true connection is felt, it can make up for the low production. There are a lot of lonely people in the world who are looking for some hope, encouragement, and love. Why can’t the church be the online community that supports them and does just that? The possibilities are truly endless.
Did you know that going LIVE every day on Facebook and Instagram can DOUBLE the number of viewers AND followers that your account has?! According to marketing expert Sandi Krakowski, going LIVE up to 5+ times a week will put you at the top of social media algorithms and actually make your page visible to your viewers. Your LIVE videos can even just be 5-10 minutes, or upwards of an hour. Speak right to your viewers and watch your reach grow!
When you’re measuring engagement on posts, don’t look at the likes, look at the COMMENTS and SHARES. That is where the true engagement is, where people are actually interacting with your posts. Be sure to engage with everyone who comments on one of your posts. Acknowledge their comment, thank them by name, and show appreciation for their engagement. Provide clear answers and pathways for any questions that may be asked. Encourage staff and team leader involvement and engagement on social media. Encourage them to share, invite, and create awareness of your social media accounts on their personal accounts. Regularly encourage your congregation to use social media as a tool to reach others with the life-giving message of Jesus. Involve your staff and some volunteers in helping to create content and to come up with post ideas! Model the community and the collaboration that you’re wanting to create online.
Ask Questions
Whether they respond through a comment or not, you’re causing your audience to take a look inward and to think through what their answer would be! If you don’t know what questions to ask, a good one to always start out with is: How can we pray for you? This gives you an opportunity to meet a need and be an encouraging person on the other end of their request. When you comment back, you are letting them know that their church is standing with them in faith.
Create Shareable Graphics, Videos, or Motion Graphics
Who doesn’t love an awesome graphic, video, or motion graphic that they can share with a friend or in their own social stories? Visually appealing posts that advertise service times or events are a great way for your friends to be able to spread the word about how others can get involved in the life-giving message of Jesus at your church! The more creative and fun, the better!
Posting Goals
Post 4–7 times a week to increase regular engagement with your audience. Always share your posts to your stories to get more views and awareness of your account. According to Facebook algorithms, pages that post often are more likely to be meaningful to their audience. Posting frequency is a ranking signal that can affect how high up in the news feed your posts are placed. If you post at similar times in the day, dedicated members of your audience will look forward to viewing your posts and make it a point to check back in with you frequently and even visit your profile if they didn’t see the post come up in their feed.
Content Strategy
As we said last time, focus on creating posts that add VALUE to people’s lives. For visuals, focus on variety. Be aware of how your Instagram grid looks. Try not to stack or post similar visuals next to each other. Make sure to vary busy photos and clean photos. Focus on adding pictures that show movement, angles, and people connecting with one another. For ideas on photos to post, check out our Photography Shot List Guide PDF in our MediaToolkit.
The Practicals
In this series on church social media, we want to give you practical hands-on tips that you can start using each week to enhance and grow your church social media. To start off, we’ve provided a list of resources on our website for you that have been helpful to us as we’ve built our church’s social media. To stay tuned to our series on church social media, click below to subscribe to our weekly Free Training Articles.
CHURCH SOCIAL MEDIA SERIES:
(links will be updated when released)
A Beginners Guide to Church Social Media
Creating An Effective Church Social Media Strategy
How to Create a Compelling Instagram Grid
Social Media FREE Software Tools
Social Media Content Organization Schedule
Church Social Media Growth Strategy
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