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Social media can be an amazing tool for ministry, but for a lot of churches, it can be confusing to know exactly how to make it work for you. Many times when people approach me for guidance in this area, they are confident that they need a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, but they aren’t always sure why.

More times than not, the conversation comes back to them seeing other churches online and not wanting to miss an opportunity to reach people. I get that. You’re a fisher of men and want to make sure you’ve got the latest and greatest net.

With this intention in mind, a lot of churches rush into creating accounts on each of these social networks with no clear plan or goals. If you have a church Facebook that hasn’t seen a new post in a month, you know exactly what I’m talking about here.

When you don’t know what success in social media looks like, you’ll keep running a race you can never win.

This always leads to frustration and I don’t want to see anyone grow weary in their social media well doing.

With my church, Piedmont Chapel, we put a big emphasis on social media. As a creative pastor, I spend a lot of my time on keeping it updated. But, even with all of the attention that I give to it, there are still times where I forget what a “win” looks like in this area. It’s easy to let your focus slip.

Here are three things to keep in mind as you’re working with your church’s social media. When you’re experiencing these, you can be confident that you’re doing something right.

1. People Are Interacting With Your Posts

Interaction is the lifeblood of a thriving social media page. It’s best to think of your pages as a two-way street rather than your own personal bulletin board. Your first priority should be posting content that speaks to your followers in such a way that they want to like, comment, and share.

You know what posts generate the least amount of interaction? Announcements. No more than 20% of your church’s social media posts should be announcements. recommend using this platform to encourage and inspire, not inform. It’s the posts that truly minister to people that they’ll interact with most.

 

2. You’re Reaching Inside And Outside Your Church

One of the best parts of your church’s social pages is getting new followers. Some may attend your church regularly, while others may have heard about you from a friend and have never set foot in your building. However they find your page, diversity in this area is a big win.

Your social pages should not only be full of people from your congregation, but of people in your surrounding community. In a lot of ways, social media is a great front door for your church. As outsiders follow your page and see your posts, they get to experience what your ministry is all about.

Also, who says you can only reach people in your area? If you’re posting inspiring messages and God’s Word, your posts have the potential to touch lives all over the world. A new follower from any area is a win.

 

3. New People Are Coming To Your Church

One of the first questions I ask when I meet new people in our church is how they heard about us. With all the time and energy that our team puts into various avenues of marketing, I love to hear what’s working.

This information is so valuable to us, our church has even included it on our cards that we have first time guests fill out.

The first time you hear “my friend shared your Facebook post” or “I saw you on Instagram” makes all of your hard work worth it. Even more, as you see these people go from attendee to joining a small group or volunteering on Sundays, the reward continues to grow. You truly never know the impact you will make with these social pages. The next Billy Graham may be inspired to come to church from your tweet.

 

An Important Note

I feel that it’s important to note that seeing these results in your social media is not something that will happen overnight. In fact, it will take longer than you would probably ever expect. Don’t let humble beginnings get you down. Stay diligent and consistent in posting content. Look for inspiration in churches who are a little farther down the road than you. Over time you will start to make an impact if you do not give up.

Do you have anything else that you’d add to the list?
Let us know by leaving a comment below!

Kendall Conner

What do you get when you combine production, design, and communications together with a passion for the Church? It turns out, this is the precise formula to make up Kendall Conner. For over 20 years, this Christ-led creative has been bridging the gap between media and ministry. In addition to serving as the creative pastor in his local church, he is the Chief of Operations for Church Motion Graphics, a ministry-focused design studio that serves thousands of houses of worship around the globe. Kendall specializes in equipping church media leaders and volunteers to utilize creativity in their services to share the hope of Jesus.

7 Comments

  • Caleb Ogle says:

    Kendall,

    I have been following The Creative Pastor for nearly 2 years. I have used a lot of your tips and tricks, I have utilized resources, and I frequently read your articles on Leadership to keep myself encouraged and to work with my team better. One thing I struggle with is keeping content posted consistently. I will do AWESOME for a month or so. Our page will see record numbers, and then I get overwhelmed and drop the ball for 2 or 3 weeks and lose all that momentum. I should add that we are a smaller church (roughly 170 people) and I lead/run 7 different ministries. I am trying to develop people to take over and help with social media, but they do not see the importance of it the way I do, and they do not understand my obsession with branding. Anything you can suggest to help explain the importance of both would be HUGELY appreciated!

    Thank you so much for this ministry! You have no idea how much I have learned and how much easier my life is because you take the time to pour into other people, even ones you do not know.

    • Kendall Conner says:

      Hey, Caleb! First of all, I totally understand your struggle. I go through this myself quite a bit. When you’re pulled in many different directions, it can make it really tough.

      One quick tip that’s been helping me is I’ve been scheduling text posts for every day. They take only a tiny amount of time to schedule for a month. And, if I don’t post something substantial (like an image) that day, we still have a presence.

      Thanks for all the kind words. They mean so much!

  • Kenny says:

    Great post. I was just wondering what are some churches that are making this kind of impact?

  • Betina Moffitt says:

    Thank you so much for your information. I can’t wait to implement this strategy.

  • Kelsie Ebel says:

    Hi Kendall! I just recently got introduced to your blog and Piedmont church. The helpful content on your blog has been so valuable to me. I just started working at my church in December, (City Church For All Nations in Bloomington, IN) and I took on all of our social media. Your posts have really helped me get a running start with helpful tips and strategies from the get go.

    A couple of things I would love to get your point of view on:

    What are some churches (or even businesses/organizations in general) who are best in class on social media or who you follow regularly for inspiration, creativity, etc.

    I would love to hear how you utilize and differentiate social media platforms. Currently, I’m managing our FB page and getting it to a good place with the intentions of taking on our instagram and twitter accounts next. I want to understand from a church/organization/business point of view, what types of posts and content should each offer and how can I differentiate each platform so I’m not posting the same thing on everyone which gets redundant. I know the obvious key takeaways for each platform like instagram is picture/video focused, twitter is hashtag focused, etc but I want to take it a couple steps further with the do’s and don’ts for each. I have done a lot of reading myself online but would love to hear what you have learned working at Piedmont.

    • Kendall Conner says:

      Hey, Kelsie. Congrats on the new job.

      I will be doing a post soon about great churches to follow on social media. A lot of readers are requesting this and rightfully so.

      This could be a whole post on its own. For the most part, Facebook is my bread and butter. I post there twice a day with all kinds of media – text, photo, video. I post regular images on Instagram and pretty much only text to Twitter. Maybe I need to do a post on this, too. There’s a lot!

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