5 tips for church social media managers
#2: Invite your followers into a conversation.
Do you struggle with figuring out what to post on your church’s social media channels?
Maybe you’re the church’s marketing director, volunteer social media manager, or even the senior pastor wearing yet another hat, and every time you sit down to create a Facebook post, you freeze up.
You think to yourself: Am I really doing this right? How should I REALLY be using these platforms to connect with my congregation?
The short answer is: YES.
Here are 5 tips to help you get the most out of your church social media strategy:
1. Listen to your audience
What are they talking about on social media? If you manage social media for your church, then there’s a high probability you’re friends with numerous church members on Facebook.
What kind of content are they posting? What are they sharing? What’s the general theme?
Better yet, what are they talking about at your Wednesday night dinners? What kind of questions are they asking in Sunday School?
This is a great way to develop a social media content strategy. Tailor your content to address their questions, fears, concerns, etc. (bear in mind, your audiences will slightly differ across your social networks).
2. Invite your followers into a conversation
It’s one thing to share the link to your most recent devotion online, but it’s another thing entirely to share a Bible verse and then ask your audience to respond to it.
When composing a social media post, ask yourself if it gives your social media followers an opportunity to respond. If not, edit it so it will.
This subtle shift can be the difference between your post getting lost in the ether or plastered to the top of everyone’s news feeds.
3. Post RELEVANT content
Most social media channels no longer share content chronologically. Instead, they display the most relevant content first.
Ensure your social media content is relevant to your audience!
For example, as a local church, your audience is likely seeking out content to encourage them spiritually, to help them build their relationship with God, and to connect them with their church leaders and community.
And again, keep in mind, that type of content might vary across your social channels.
For instance, your Twitter following might prefer faith-based news articles to pictures from the latest church event; whereas your Facebook audience may prefer the opposite.
Know your audience and share the content relevant to them.
4. Measure, Measure, Measure!
Make it a habit to sit down once a week and evaluate the performance of your social media posts. If you don’t, then you won’t be able to identify trends or discover what’s truly clicking with your audience.
Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, Instagram Insights, and Google Analytics are all great tools to help you break down posts, determine their reach, engagement rates, click-thru rates, and more.
It will be impossible to have a massively effective social media strategy if you don’t make even the smallest effort to figure out what is and isn’t working.
5. Do more of what works
And after you measure and identify what is and isn’t working, do more of what works.
Does your congregation obsess over every picture you post on Facebook from Sunday’s service? Then post more pictures on Facebook.
Do your Twitter followers like, retweet, and comment on every post you make about the day’s lectionary text? Do more of that.
Your social media strategy should always be evolving
It should.
Your strategy should evolve because you’re constantly listening to your audience, creating content relevant that’s valuable to them, and measuring what does and doesn’t work.
You are doing that, right?
And don’t feel pressure to be on every social media network. If you work with a primarily senior congregation, chances are they’re not going to be plugged into TikTok.
Set up shop where your audience is. They’ll thank you for it later. You’ll thank you for it later. Trust me.
Want to see some examples?
I was invited to present how churches can use social media to connect with their congregations in the following webinar presented by PosterMyWall. You can watch the replay below.
In the webinar, I discuss the above suggestions and offer examples for how I leverage social media at First Baptist Decatur to connect with its audience.
My presentation begins at 23:40.
Have more questions about how your church can use social media?
Leave a comment below or shoot me an email: matt[at]copywritercreative.com.
I would love to connect with you and give you some help!
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