Social media has more power in culture now than ever. According to Google, over 1 billion people are on Facebook, 800 million people are on Instagram, and 330 million people are on Twitter. That’s a lot of people. A lot of people that your church can REACH with the gospel of Jesus. Now more than ever, it’s absolutely critical that churches are present on social media. Social media is no longer a “nice to have” but an essential line of communication to engage with your audience, especially younger generations.

Have you ever wanted to check out a new restaurant, but before going you looked at their Instagram account to check out the atmosphere and what the food looked like? We personally do this all the time. As humans, we crave connection and belonging, as well as great experiences that enhance those two things. We’re all looking for meaningful and uplifting experiences. We want to be ensured that we’re going to have a great experience before ever stepping foot in a new place.

Social media not only is a window to give others a look into our environment so that they know what to expect, it also is a space where we can reach people with encouragement, inspiration, and love.
There’s a very real possibility that we are the only positive interaction that they’ve had on social media all day.

PURPOSE

When you’re considering what to post to your church social media account, it can be helpful to come back to the question of why are you posting to social media, and what is the overall purpose that you 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.

VALUE

If you want your social media to be effective in reaching and engaging people, especially those in the younger generation, you have to create content that adds value to people’s lives. Ask yourself the question, how is my content adding value to someone’s life and serving them?
Things that give value could be inspirational posts, Sunday recap posts, message quotes, worship moments, etc. Avoid only posting about upcoming events or registration deadlines. Look at your last ten social media posts and evaluate whether the posts are adding value to people’s lives, or if they’re just advertising events. Try to increase the ratio of having more meaningful posts versus advertising posts.

STRATEGY

Looking to jumpstart your church social media? Creating a social media strategy and a plan to implement it is an essential part to have an effective social media platform. We’ve created a Church Social Media Strategy Guide that will help you in forming your strategy and goals. We also have provided weekly schedule ideas as well as a Church Social Media Schedule Spreadsheet to keep track of when you’ll be posting. You can download these guides from our FREE Church MediaToolkit below.

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 were starting to build our church 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