Everyone is talking about social media for churches. Small churches are trying to get on board and big churches are owning it. If you’re a small community church or if you’re a big religious organisation with multiple locations, you really should be using social media to promote your message.
Why should churches use social media? Because communication is changing and embracing technology more and more. And churches can use this to their advantage. Going to church every Sunday is great, but it would only be great for the people that’s there.
By using technology and social media churches can reach people all over the world. Technology has removed the need to be physically present.
Changing communication also means that some methods of communication has lost its effectiveness (e.g. postal letter) because newer technologies are more efficient and much quicker (e.g. Facebook Instant Message). The best thing about using social media for church is that most people are already active there everyday.
In case you’re wondering…
Yes, social media is a good idea for churches
I can go into a million reasons about why social media for churches are a great idea, but we will be here all day. Here’s the short version 👇
Think about the main goals of churches and religious organisations for a minute. It’s usually something along the lines of creating community, communicating a message and reaching people near and far. These goals are aligned with some of the aims of social media like: creating spaces for people to create communities, giving a platform for people to communicate and providing the tools to reach out to people.
Taking that into consideration, using social media for churches = a platform to reach people with your message and draw them into your community and fellowship.
Churches owning Facebook
They’re the worship ministry of Bethel Church so their social media is optimized for promoting their music and tour dates. They have a full tour date calendar and link to their website for ticket sales.
How Bethel Music owns their FB page:
By using a combination of photographs and beautiful graphics, this church has made their church social media page feel like scrolling through a friend’s newsfeed. Everything about their social media is aimed at young people, their colours, graphics, use of photographs, acronyms and even language use.
How Grace Chapel owns it:
If I had a favorite, this would be it. They are like Social Media for Churches 101. Elevation Church is setting the bar *very* high with their church social media channels. They are the go-to source of inspiration for many church social media managers because their combination of content is cool. You won’t even realize its a church social media page until you start noticing all the scriptures or listen to the videos.
How Elevation Church owns Facebook:
A little bit of everything. That’s what you’ll find on Fresh Life’s church social media pages. But it is very cohesive and visually appealing because they seem to understand the ratio between graphics/photographs and text. They also don’t do information overload, they post 1-2 times a day.
Fresh Life Church owns Facebook by:
Best bits:
Best bits:
Social media for churches: best and bad practices
What to do:
Plan content– Social media for churches should be done on the fly, it requires planning ahead. That way, you can prepare the photos, graphics, captions, scriptures for the week. No scrabbling for a background or last-minute content
Use a content calendar – it helps you plan content, gives suggestions about what you should post and some calendars are downloadable so you can edit them offline.
Use a scheduling tool– Planning ahead means you can schedule your content! This is a lifesaver for so many reasons – its automated based on times and dates you choose.
Use all the tools/features of social media – try and use as many of the features that you can. There’s Facebook Live, Instagram TV, highlights on Instagram, stories on Facebook and Instagram, Facebook Shop, Location/Maps on Facebook, Events on Facebook. And new features are added every day. If you want to stay in the loop, you have to use the features of the platform.
Cross Promote – use you church social media pages to promote other church channels like the website, blog, YT channel etc. Also, cross promote different congregations/locations of the same church.
What not to do:
Here’s an example of five days worth of content for a church Facebook page
Monday > Content Category: Sunday service recap
Tuesday > Content Category: Small group promotion
Wednesday > Content Category: Event
Thursday > Content Category: Scripture
Friday > Content Category: Memes
BONUS 👉 content ideas for your church social media:
Of course, you can decide what to post on which platform but the overall idea is that the church pages remain active and post consistently.
How often should you post on church social media pages??
You have to find the balance between consistency and becoming overbearing. If your church has a lot to share, then once a day is perfect. The examples used earlier posts 1-2 times a day on average. The thing is – if you’re posting daily it has to be quality and relevant content. And you will have to post different types of content – that way people are seeing something different every day.
If you’re a smaller church, then you can post 3-4 times a week and be very effective. If you’re not posting on the feed every day, you should definitely post stories daily. A tip to use here is to collect content, like take lots of pictures on Sunday and space them out on your social media during the week. Repurposing content also works great if you can’t post new content every day.
If you’re using a scheduling tool like Postfity, posting to your church social media regularly is super convenient because you can plan your content using the free templates, you can schedule your posts at in advance and kinda forget about it, the scheduler gives awesome suggestions about what to post, based on what you’ve posted already and who your audience is. It is priced based on how many accounts you manage from it and it gives you access to metrics of how well your posts are doing. Looking at metrics helps you know what types of content are good and what’s not so great. Postfity also has an awesome blog with the latest trends and features of EVERYTHING social media.
Don’t forget to share this blog with your church social media team!