Church Social Media Strategy Breakdown

With the launch of Harbor, perhaps it’s not surprising that we want to heavily focus on church social media strategy for the month. Social media can be a daunting task for anyone with its constantly changing algorithms and time-consuming functions. It takes a lot of work not just to plan and create content but to keep consistently engaging and analyzing what does and doesn’t work. Of course, this is why having a social media strategy is vital.

We talked a little during our last blog post about why churches should be engaging on social media platforms. The short version of that is because it can serve a lot of functions at once. It can be an outreach tool; it can be a way to keep members included and encouraged throughout the week. It can even be a way to better engage not just with a worldwide audience but specifically with your community or city. With that in mind, let’s talk about how to form your church social media strategy. 

Pre-Planning

Before you ever post a single thing, we recommend stopping and planning. Let’s go ahead and frame social media as a ministry in its own right. It’s best to talk through objectives and timelines as you would with any other endeavor. This is also the stage where you decide which social media platforms you’re going to use; each one skews to a different kind of audience. This is also where you decide on what types of content you’re going to utilize. You can even look at other church accounts to get ideas of how you want to approach it all. 

Establish Posting Schedule

Once you decide on which platforms to use and what kind of content you want, it’s time to establish a posting schedule. Now, you can read a dozen articles about what days and times are best for posting; there are a lot of great ones out there. We recommend starting there and adjusting as needed. 

Also, while promoting events is great, I would encourage you to balance that out with other types of posts like sermon clips, testimonials, devotional posts, and recaps of events. The goal is not just to keep people apprised of what’s happening at your church; you should be offering value to your followers and audience as much as you can. 

Creating Content & Posting

This step is self-explanatory. You have to create the content in order to post it. Word to the wise, though: Don’t underestimate just how much time can be spent on creating and posting content. When you’re utilizing photos, graphics, and videos consistently throughout the week, it takes a fair amount of time and effort. 

Also, be sure to include your logo and branding on your social media content. It helps provide consistency to your posts. 

Engage 

This step is underrated in the grand scheme of things but so vital to your social media strategy. Whenever people leave comments or send a direct message, the goal should always be to engage. Part of the allure of social media is the chance to continue building relationships, so don’t miss out on those opportunities when they arise. 

Analyze and Adapt

Oh, analytics. The truth is that you can do all of these steps “right” and still feel like you’re not making any progress or expanding your reach. All of these platforms have metrics of some kind available, and you have to use them. Look at your engagement numbers every week to get a sense of days/times/content that is and isn’t working. Take a deep dive every month to see any emerging patterns. You don’t want to be too reactionary when adjusting your posting schedule, but you have to be willing to adapt if things are not working. If videos perform better, post more videos. If Tuesdays at 6pm work better than Wednesdays at 10am, then change it. It’s a constantly evolving thing, and that’s ok. 

So, have you taken the time to develop this kind of strategy for your own church? What challenges have you encountered? Which parts have been the easiest to implement? Comment and let us know.  

If you find yourself looking for ways to incorporate more content (and specifically more short-form video content), I encourage you to check out the details of our Harbor service here. The brochure is free to download and can be found at the bottom of the page.

We’ll be back later this month to talk about some specific tips for churches when utilizing social media.