How To Sabotage Your Churches Social Media
82% of Americans use social media on a monthly basis, which means almost everyone your church wants to reach is on social media.
73% of churches have a Facebook page today compared to 26% in 2012. This is a great thing. More churches are leveraging social media to reach people for Jesus.
But the problem is most church leaders don’t understand how social media works. For that reason many churches end up sabotaging the potential of social media.
The point of social media is to be “social.”
The point is not to be a running commercial for your church events. There is a place for that. But it should not be the overarching theme of your churches social media plan.
Many churches sabotage the unbelievable potential and reach of social media for their church by turning their social channels into a billboard for their weekly events.
We need to find a way to engage people and create interaction just like your church does in person. Many churches have a “connections” team and their job is to walk through the lobby on Sunday mornings and connect people to one another and connect them to the church. We should be thinking the same way about our online audience. How are we building “connections” through social media like we do in the lobby?
The question we should ask ourselves about social media is not, “what is our social media plan for building a posting schedule,” but instead “what is our social media strategy for building connections and relationships with people?”
“A social media plan focuses on getting people to the building for a couple of hours every weekend, whereas a social ministry strategy focuses on how to help them grow in their faith through social technology after they leave. You need both, and if you focus only on a social media plan, you will build an audience while stopping short of building disciples.” -Nona Jones, From Social Media to Social Ministry: A Guide to Digital Discipleship
If connection is the goal for in person, then engagement has to be our goal for social media.
What many churches don’t understand is that the more engagement (likes, shares, comments, saves) your posts get then the more people will see your post. Wouldn’t it be great for more of your churches social media content to reach more people?
How do you get engagement on social media?
Most churches strategy for social media is posting all of the weekend announcements just in graphic form. This is not the way to get more engagement.
If someone from your connections team met someone on a Sunday morning in your lobby and immediately just starting giving them all of the announcements for the week and telling them about every event and service you were doing that would be weird and narcissicisit. That’s exactly what most churches do with social media, therefore sabotaging any chance for a real connection and engagement.
There is certainly a place to share things that your church is doing online, but it can’t be the main focus of your social media strategy. Your “announcement” type social media posts should make up no more than 20% of your posts on social.
Instead of announcing all of your events on social media a better strategy to engage and connect with people is to post content that can create meaningful connections online like you would in person.
There are many ways to do this. Let’s apply what we do in person to social media.
One of the accounts that I follow on Instagram recently posted a video of the Titanic so I started watching it when it came across my feed because it was interesting. The content was so engaging that I watched the entire video and read in the caption that an exhibit of the Titanic is coming to New York City next month. The video was so interesting and dynamic I was all in. The last sentence in the caption said “link in bio for tickets.” So I clicked the link in bio and scrolled until I saw anything about the Titanic. Then I clicked it and it sent me to a website for the exhibit. Then after more scrolling I found the dates and times of the exhibit and how to buy tickets.
Do you get it yet? I was so interested in the content that was posted that I did the work to find out all of the other details.
We need to do this for our churches social media.
For example, if you have a Harvest Festival (or Pumpkin Patch, or Fall Carnival or whatever your church calls it) coming up don’t post the graphic with the stock photos of the pumpkins with the days and times. Instead take your iPhone and take pics and videos and put them together to create a reel and pick a fun song to put on it and post that and at the very end of the video and caption you can put the date and time. Here’s some ideas of what to take pictures and video of for your reel:
people sitting in the meeting planning the Harvest Festival
fun pics of all the candy that you’re collecting for the event
people running through the field or area where you’re doing the event yelling things about the event (Have fun!)
people painting pumpkins (doesn’t have to be about the event but it’s relevant content)
You get the idea. Everyone has access to an iPhone to create these types of things. You don’t need expensive cameras or video editing software to do this. This is something volunteers can do as well. People want to serve and make a difference. As leaders it’s our jobs to create opportunities for them to do that.
Authentic content is better than produced content.
So don’t think your volunteers need to be highly trained content creators.
Another example is the Sunday invite post. Almost every church in America post some form of Sunday invite post that has a picture of a smiling face in the parking lot or lobby and a caption that says one of these things:
“It’s going to be a great day at church today!”
“We can’t wait to see you at church today!”
“We’ve saved a seat for you today!”
“You’re not going to want to miss today as we start our new series!”
The woman who just lost her job and is in the middle of a custody battle for her kids is not coming to your church today because you’re starting a new series.
That woman does not think it would be a great day to be at church today.
That woman needs to know about the love, hope and peace found in Jesus Christ and our churches have an opportunity to share that through social media.
Instead of posting the picture of the smiling parking lot attendant holding the pop sign, why not create a post titled:
5 Bible Verses that Remind us to Have Hope in the Middle of the Storm.
Or record a video of someone talking about those 5 Bible verses and post it as a reel. In the caption you can include a sentence or link to push people to find out more. The more you post engaging content like this, the more people will look to your page for content like this.
Click here to get a copy of a 30 day social media plan for churches.
We have to decide. Do we want our churches social media page to be all about our church and what we want to promote, or all about the people we want to reach?
The final thing that churches do to sabotage their social media is stop trying new things.
As church leaders and pastors we think we know what people want on social media. We think that we know the type of content that they want to engage in. But the key to engagement on social media is trying new things and not worrying about if you don’t get a lot of likes or engagements because it’s just research for you if it doesn’t work.
There’s going to be something you post that you think will perform well and then it won’t. Then there will be a random post that you have no expectations for that will completely explode with engagement.
The only way you can get that information is to try new things.
You have to let go of the need to be led by likes and try new things even if they don’t work.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed and frustrated with the ever changing social media strategies and tactics and tips and algorithms. I get it.
But, we can’t let that stop us from using one of the most effective tools we have in reaching new people to share the greatest message of all time.
Social media could become of the greatest discipleship and evangelist tools ever invented in human history.
Next week I’ll be sharing practical ways to leverage your churches social media on different platforms to reach more people.
As a church what is your biggest challenge with social media?
Leave a comment below or send me a DM on Twitter or Instagram.