In case you missed Part 1 you can read it here
So let’s ask some questions: What’s your ministry’s message? What’s the voice of your church? What will be the message that you will convey to people via social media and how will you convey it? Will your church speak on societal and current issues? Will your church quote scriptures on every network? Will your church push out announcements and never respond to people?
Make sure your church isn’t one dimensional. There are many types of people that you can reach therefore you should distribute many types of social media posts. Here are three focal points in establishing your church’s message via social media:
1. Inspiration - Make sure to provide inspiration and motivation via your social networks. These are the best types of posts, whether they are quotes, scriptures or photos with encouraging words on them, everyone wants some type of inspiration in their life.
2. Information - Provide information about your church via your social networks. Don’t assume that everyone comes to church, reads your website or saw your eblast. Distribute the information about events and other happenings within the church via your social networks. You can repurpose flyers, newsletters, eblasts and other marketing materials and send them out via social networks.
3. Communication - Social media is “Social” therefore it should be a two-way communication. If you post to a network and people comment, ask questions and take time out of their busy day to respond, then make sure your church takes time to acknowledge them and respond back. Don’t let your church appear too arrogant to respond to its social network fans. Even if you don’t have the staff or time to answer every comment or question, at least answer some. Show that the ministry is seeing their comments and questions.
Notice how I haven’t stated whether to use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other social media network yet. The network that you push content out to your online users is irrelevant if there isn’t a consistent strategy behind it. Ten years ago, everyone was using AOL email to communicate with the masses. Five years ago it was MySpace. Three years ago Facebook and Twitter became popular. Just recently, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram have been introduced to the masses. The networks will come and go but the strategy remains the same: make sure the content from your ministry flows consistently via your online properties to your online users.
For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of "The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online." or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.