The first question that a ministry needs to answer is how many people will participate in the social media strategy of the ministry. My recommendation is that you have two people at the beginning and see how that goes. The reason that I suggest two people is that one person should be in charge of gathering content for the ministry and the other person should be in charge of pushing it out. Of course you can have more people do this because you may want to have people commenting and responding to users on the social networks. But initially, the main focus is gathering content and pushing it out.
How many hours per day? Social media operates 24 hours a day. However, it’s unrealistic to believe that someone will be managing your social media properties for the ministry 24 hours a day. Instead, dedicate 2 – 4 hours daily gathering content, scheduling it for social networks and responding to online users. As time progresses and you get more people involved on behalf of the ministry, you will increase those hours. Hopefully though, your process will be much more streamlined.
Software to help – Hootsuite.com is a free scheduling software that makes social media management much easier. Hootsuite connects with social networks Facebook and Twitter and allows you to schedule updates, add files and coordinate a full social media strategy from one location. The main benefit of Hootsuite is that you can schedule out all your Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter posts for the week (or month) at one time and let the software automatically post items for you. This will keep a continuous stream of content coming from the ministry and allow you to focus on other things such as gathering more content or responding to online users from various social networks. Hootsuite also has great reporting features that can help you identify some key metrics in your social media campaign such as who are your top 10 followers, how many people clicked the link you sent out and how many people are “liking/subscribing to” you weekly on social networks. Add this capability in with the Google Analytics for Social Media features where you can track social media links coming to your website and you can start to see how effective your social media campaigns are on a grand scale.
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.