Social media is essential to your church’s communication strategy. It’s something that cannot be ignored. Social media is a great way to connect with your members, regular attenders, and even new folks where they are already hanging out. Whether you’re just getting started in social media or have been at it for awhile, here are three tips to ensure you avoid common mistakes and flourish on social media.
Post Content Regularly
Anyone can set up a social media profile. That’s the easy part. (Our ebook Facebook for Churches makes it even easier for you to get setup on Facebook.) But before you create profiles for Faceobook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and whatever other social media platform you can find, it’s important to think about the longevity of your social media presence.
Wherever you have a presence, your church needs to post content regularly. If you find it difficult to get into a consistent rhythm, create a content calendar to help you organize what kind of content you post and when. Being consistent is the key to growing your social media audience and engagement.
Engage Often
Your church’s social media presence needs to be more than an online version of your church’s announcement bulletin board or event calendar. Social media should be a two-way conversation. So, start a conversation. ask interactive questions. Solicit feedback. And engage often. If someone leaves a comment on a post, reply in a timely manner to the comment in a thread. Be a good conversation partner.
But engagement is not only important for community building. It also ensures that your social media posts will reach a larger number of people. The fact is that only a small portion of your audience (e.g., the people who like or follow your Facebook Page) will see anything you post. The same goes for every other social media platform too. If you want more people to see your posts, you need to engage and interact with people. The more engagement there is, the more people the social media platform will show it to.
Make Social Media a Part of Your Larger Strategy
For your social media strategy to thrive it needs to work in collaboration with your overall communication strategy. You shouldn’t task a volunteer to run your Twitter profile without also equipping them with the tools (and knowledge) to understand how it fits with the other pieces of your communication puzzle. Maybe you can provide a quick orientation for any new social media volunteers. Or maybe it’s best to create a one-sheet summary of your church communication strategy to serve as a quick reference for all church communication staff and volunteers. However you do it, you need to ensure that what’s posted on social media is in sync with what’s being communicated on other mediums. Never let your social strategy occur in a vacuum.
What social strategy tips do you have to offer?
