When COVID-19 sent churches online, church social media strategy became more important than ever. In the wake of a global pandemic, we saw so much grace given to churches as they got their online presence figured out.
A few years later, people are getting used to the new rhythms, but many churches still feel like they’re scrambling to figure out how to communicate effectively with their members. Developing a social media strategy can be overwhelming when your church doesn’t have a dedicated communications team, but we’re here to help make it easy for you. Here are our five must-dos when developing a social media strategy for your church!
Must Do #1: Start with a Content Calendar
A content calendar allows a sky view of the content and topics your ministry will communicate. Content calendars are the central hub for your design team, communications team, and leadership to calibrate the ‘what, how, and when’ of communication. A good content calendar is all about balancing engagement, fun, and driving the mission of your ministry forward.
Must-Do #2: Take Time to Tell Great Stories
Storytelling is a skill that, when developed, catapults a ministry’s social media marketing presence. You can easily leverage the stories of transformation by creating a central hub to capture stories. It’s easy to create a google voice account to capture your congregation’s stories and prayer requests. Take their voice messages and add your ministry’s photos and videos to create quick and easy storytelling content.
Must-Do #3: Establish Which Social Media Metrics Matter
Every church has in-person metrics that matter (often known as “butts-in-seats”). Do you have these same guideposts for your social media strategy? After viewing metrics, use your numbers to help in your drafts for new content. If your Announcements post consistently gets great interaction, your congregation loves being informed! Continue to make these posts, but also use the foundation of the post to create new posts (Announcements done as a graphic, story, video, etc.)
Must-Do #4: Take Pictures!
If your church is doing community events, your staff participating in fun shenanigans, etc., let’s try it out and see it. If you ever need assistance capturing some of these things, reach out—we would love to help give your church materials you can use for awareness, promotion, and documentation.
Must-Do #5: Guide Your Audience with a Communication Framework
Communication should always be a priority, whether that means having details on socials, the web, the app, between staff, etc., always over-communicate. If a church staff can’t answer the details of an event, then the congregation probably needs more details as well. A consistent communication framework that shows empathy, highlights the benefits of programs & events, and puts your congregation’s needs first will perform better than static details of an event. We use the StoryBrand Framework, but there are multiple marketing frameworks you can choose from.