If your church is on social media, chances are you use Facebook and Instagram as part of your strategy. So, how do you grow an audience on these platforms? What are tips for engagement? And, what about influencer marketing?
At the Church Social Media Roundtable, social media managers and communications directors from a dozen churches came together at Life.Church to discuss strategies for maximizing these platforms.
Tips for Facebook and Instagram
- To increase engagement and gain new followers, create content your followers want to engage with—not content you want to share. Go back and look through your older content—what received the most likes and comments? Continue to create this type of content. If you want to post informational or announcement-type posts, be sure you’re also sharing enough of the value-add content, too.
- Use Instagram and Facebook Stories, but don’t just repeat content. Use complementary strategies for Instagram grid and Stories—if you post sermon clips on the grid, show behind-the-scenes on your Stories.
- Use an Instagram link as a swipe up in your Facebook Stories to encourage your Facebook audience to follow you on Instagram.
- Increase your frequency in posting. More posts will allow people more opportunities to engage with you on social media. Every post is an opportunity to grow your account. You don’t have to go from once to six times a day. Start with consistently posting once a day, and then slowly work your way up. However, as a general rule of thumb, don’t post more than six times per day and try to spread your posts about 3-4 hours apart. If you post closer together, your posts will compete with one another.
- Create online invites for events like Christmas, Easter, or Baptism. Fun graphics around holidays allow users to pick their favorites and share on their own platforms. Your template can contain your church URL, logo, or other watermark to connect back to your brand.
- Consider working with influencers, but give first. Before asking them to share your content, engage with their content and share on your platform, if it fits your audience and strategy. If you don’t know the influencers who are in your church, talk with your youth team and students, and they’ll more than likely know.
- On Facebook, invite people who like your posts but don’t follow your account to like your page. To do this, simply click the number of likes on your posts to see who hasn’t liked your page and click the “Invite” button.
- Use IGTV if you aren’t already. Push IGTV to the main feed in Instagram and engagement can double or triple. Consider putting a call to action at the end of the video to increase engagement.
Not sure what to post about or when to post? Hillsong shares this content strategy with their campuses as an example.
- Mondays - Inspiration (snippet of message, worship, or photo with quote)
- Tuesdays - Connect Groups (small groups)
- Wednesdays - Next Steps / Evening College
- Thursdays - Sisterhood / Men / Team Night
- Fridays - Youth & point to Sunday services
- Saturdays - Point to Sunday services
- Sundays - Sunday services recap
The tips were gathered from the Church Social Media Roundtable, an event featuring twelve of the most creative and innovative churches. Special thanks to the churches attending who agreed to share key learnings with Open Network. View more resources from this event here.
