How to effectively manage your church's social media
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If you've been a church leader for any length of time, I bet you've been asked, "Can you make sure there is an announcement this Sunday about 'XYZ'?"
In my role as a community outreach pastor, I've received this question from both my volunteer leaders as well as others in the church. The assumption is that a Big Church announcement is more significant and will have a greater impact than any other form of communication.
Although Sunday announcements can be helpful, experience has shown me that there are other, more effective ways to communicate the vision and opportunities of a ministry. The primary method I encourage my leaders to utilize is social media.
The great news about social media is that you don't have to be an expert with technology, a great writer, or a marketing guru. The following are best practices for leveraging social media for a ministry:
- Recruit staff or volunteers in your church and build a social media team. Choose one or more organized people who have a passion for your ministry and who can communicate well.
- Select your social media channel(s). Many social media platforms exist, but Facebook is still king (for now). Among Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials, Facebook is the most popular tool. Among Gen Z (age 14-20), Facebook is not very popular…other platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat are much more popular. After Facebook, choose platforms where your people spend their time. If you don't have the time or resources to post to other platforms, stick with Facebook until you have more bandwidth…that is unless you work in Student/College ministry. If that is the case, Instagram or YouTube might be a better starting point.
- Determine your posting frequency. For Facebook, it is recommended to post once-twice a day. For Instagram and Twitter, postings should occur two or three times a day. That might sound like a lot of work, but once a strategy and rhythm are established, it's not as bad as you might think.
- Develop a rhythm for your content. For instance, focus on a theme for a set period of time—a week, a month, or so on. Also, have a recurring emphasis for different days of the week. For example, day one can be a prayer focus, day two can be a God story, day three can be serving opportunities, day four can be a volunteer spotlight, and so on.
- Utilize a social media posting schedule/tool.There are many great tools that can help keep you organized, as well as allow you to work ahead of time and schedule social media postings. Here are some websites to check out: www.loomly.com, www.hootsuite.com, www.later.com, and www.monday.com.
- Constantly be on the lookout for God stories, video, and photos.Look for content that attracts attention as well as demonstrates how God is at work. Videos, livestreams, photos of people (make sure to tag them), links with great photos, and so on are all great ways to gain engagement.
- Connect all social media back to a webpage. Connect with your audience further by pointing them to your landing page, your church's website, a sign-up platform, or so on.
- When possible, provide a next step. For example, if you have a God story, immediately make the connection: "This is how you can experience this as well…"
- Respond to comments and questions.Make sure to respond to any feedback, comments, questions, and so on. Social media is a great way to have a dialogue with your audience.
- Create shareable posts. Create posts that your audience will want to repost. Before you post something, ask yourself this question: Would you want to repost this message to your own social media outlets?
- Use the same branding across media channels. Use the same ministry logo, church logo, photo, or so on across all platforms. This action will allow your audience to quickly recognize you visually and will ensure consistency across your media outlets.
 | Kris Eldridge lives in Louisville, Kentucky and is the Local Outreach Pastor at Northeast Christian Church. He is also the founder of Outreach Ministry Solutions, where his focus is consulting with churches to help them reach their communities. Learn More » |
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