Nowadays, there is no better environment than social media to attract new people, promote the church, and still produce content for members. After all, with the increasingly predominant advent of the internet in social relations and due to its great impact on human behavior, there is no way we can ignore this tool: we must take advantage of it.
Although we know this truth – that we must take advantage of as many tools and instruments as possible to spread the gospel and bring people to the house of God – many pastors and leaders still have prejudice and fear in relation to the use of social media.
Generally, we see the following reactions:
- Apprehension, because they do not know how to use;
- Indignation, because they don’t think the church needs to use it;
- Mistrust, because they don’t believe there is anything that can be improved from using it, or;
- Ecstasy, because they were waiting for an opportunity to innovate.
Other pastors even like the idea and recognize that the church’s social media can be great allies for the advancement of the ministry, but end up not knowing how to use them properly or not knowing exactly what they should publish.
It was with all these types of pastors in mind that we prepared this article with 7 post ideas for your church’s social media. Want to know what they are? Keep reading!
There are three things to think about and consider before starting to publish content on your social media:
- What do you want your community to know? What important news and announcements do you want them to know about? Your posts can inform them;
- What do you want people to feel? What reaction do you want to elicit from your viewers and followers? Your posts can trigger this.
- What do you want your congregation to do? Your posts are able to guide you in the next steps of your walk with God.
Given this, you can start analyzing what types of posts are for your target audiences and start creating them, always keeping these 3 questions above in mind.
But be careful: don’t settle for just creating excellent content, you also need to be concerned with your audience’s engagement and involvement in relation to this content. That means having people following, liking, commenting, sharing, saving, and reposting your posts.
In fact, studies show that content shared by individuals is seen as more credible and is eight times more likely to be engaged, considering that the more engagement your content gets, the more social media algorithms will show it to a larger audience.
And so that this starts to become possible, we prepared 7 tips for posts (content) for you to publish on your church’s social media and start getting a lot of engagement. Enjoy!
1. Sermon summaries and key phrases
Writing down the messages that the pastor conveys, in addition to being a way to fix the lessons in your heart and remember the teachings after some time, can also be extremely useful for creating posts on your church’s social media.
This is because publishing small summaries of the preaching of the previous service or else the main impact phrases that marked the message is a very effective strategy to engage church members and still remind them of the learning.
Not sure exactly how to perform this? Take our tips:
- Insert the punchline you want into a photo of the pastor followed by his name, as in a quote;
- Post a creative artwork containing a short summary of the word;
- Use the summaries or key phrases as a caption for photos of the service/program that took place.
And speaking of photos…
2. Photos and videos of previous programs
Photos and short videos of your church’s services and events are perfects content to promote your church, attract visitors, and get greater engagement from your members.
Therefore, invest in good photography and editing fast and quality videos, these will certainly be the posts with the greatest impact on your networks.
3. Devotionals and verses of the day
Devotionals and verses of the day are great posts for everyday life and to be posted throughout the week, as they uplift your members’ lives and still keep your followers engaged even when there isn’t as much church programming going on.
To publish devotionals and verses, try to make arts that are standard, so that this content becomes recurring content – that your target audience can always expect – in addition, small videos are also great requests.
For this, take advantage of social media resources! See some examples:
- Instagram reels: Reels is a great tool for short videos, no longer than 30 seconds. To make the most of this functionality, you can make animated and devotional verses of the day in sentence format, for example;
- Instagram videos: here you can publish longer videos, which is ideal for calling on a leader of your church to bring a brief word – the devotional of that day.
4. Reading and entertainment tips
Another really cool idea for your church’s social media is reading and entertainment tips – Christian books, movies and series, music, and artists – among others.
Generating this type of content is great for attracting the attention of people who still don’t attend your church, for example, in addition to being a type of post that will likely have many shares.
Want some movie tips for creating your content? Get our article on Christian films here.
5. church calendar
Let’s remember the first thing you need to analyze before starting to produce content on your church’s social media.
- What do you want your community to know? What important news and announcements do you want them to know about? Your posts can inform them.
Remembered?
For this criterion to be met, it is essential that your church’s agenda and schedule be on your social media as well.
“Ah, but my church’s agenda is already on the website and in the app, do you need to put it on the networks too?”
The answer is yes. Remember: In addition to the huge reach that social media contains, the more likely your members and new people are to have access to your timeline, the better.
Also, always keep in mind that your church agenda/schedule needs to be in a visible and easy-to-find place at all times. After all, we don’t want people to waste time digging through their networks – which should make their lives easier – when there are programs in which they can visit their congregation. Our tip is that you use the Instagram bio or highlights, and the description of your Facebook page.
6. Retrospectives
Our sixth post idea for your church’s social media is also a super cool tip: retrospectives.
Retrospectives are ways to make your followers and members of your church remember things you’ve lived together as a church and family, in addition to awakening in them a feeling of nostalgia and gratitude. (Remember the second criterion to be analyzed before creating content for social media? Scroll up and read again!).
In addition, retrospectives are a great way to show people who are not yet aware of your church all that it can offer them, which is a very successful way to market your ministry and attract people.
To do this, invest in short videos, well-crafted captions, and unpublished photos. Here, it’s interesting that you try to interact with your target audience: that’s what we’ll talk about next.
7. Interactive & fun
As we have already mentioned, as important as creating content for the church’s social media is to ensure that this content has an audience, engagement, and interaction: there must be an impact.
And for that, nothing better than interactive and fun posts: a meme, a poll for people to answer, a small poll, etc.
Contrary to what many think, you don’t need to lose your “seriousness” and posture to publish a post like this. In reality, just use creativity and simply post. Want some interactive post tips? Take it here:
- Name the things you are grateful for this past week;
- Answer [this question] by commenting with a GIF;
- Tag someone you’re inviting to church this weekend!
- Post a photo of how you are watching worship online and tag our page!
So? It’s very easy to start interacting with your followers (and have a lot of fun too).
We hope you enjoyed our tips and start applying them today!
