Okay, it's really a list of 15 ways to use social media.
Utilizing Social Media Tools
Let me start by saying that social media is simply another tool in your toolbox that can be used to communicate with your congregation and community. Similar to phone calls, emails, and good old fashioned face-to-face interaction, social media offers you ways to connect with others.
Caveat
You will most likely not get 5,000 fans on your Facebook fan page in the first week. You may never even reach 500. What is important is that you are using communication tools that make sense for your audience. Building a community and making your efforts worthwhile takes time. Much like any communication effort, social media needs a strategy. Because there is no “one way” to use social media tools, your church will need to consider the ways in which you want to reach out and connect with the online world.
10 15 Tech & Social Media Uses
When evaluating your communication strategy, I encourage you to consider the following ways in which churches are using social and new media.
#1 Post sermon audio
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Upload files to your own web host OR use a service like Sermon Cloud to host your sermon audio files. They offer a free plan that will host up to 52 sermons (upgraded plans cost extra).
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From there, Sermon Cloud integrates directly with iTunes by offering an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed, which creates a podcast for people to subscribe to and receive every sermon to their portable device. You can also link to the file from or embed a player on your website.
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To learn more about these processes, I recommend the following resources:
#2 Post welcome / announcement video messages
Recording video messages can be done with even the most basic cell phone these days. To get quality image and audio settings, you’ll need decent video, audio, and lighting equipment. At the District, we use Canon handheld cameras with Rode Mics for inputs (these have been used to film videos like those in the "Just a Thought" Series).
For a simple, barebones, inexpensive recording solution you could use the following setup.
Video
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Basic, Barebones
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District setup
Lighting
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When shooting video, lighting is perhaps the most important element
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Controlling lighting with a setup similar to this would be great.
Are you recording videos at your church? Please share your video tech setup in the comments section below!
#3 Stream worship services over the Internet
Broadcasting worship services over the Internet has become a very popular way for churches to reach beyond the building (we understand this does not take the place of true Word & Sacrament) . This is a popular option for shut-in ministry, worship archives, and sermon series catch-up for families that may have missed a service.
Some of the popular services include
#4 - Post a playlist of videos to songs from Sunday’s service
Creating a playlist of YouTube videos is easy. This tutorial will show you how.
#5 - Post a blog
Start up a free blog at wordpress.com - with a few clicks of the mouse you are up and running in no time. Wordpress blogs automatically generate an RSS Feed that can be shared and subscribed to in a variety of ways (e.g. email digest, RSS feed readers, etc), ensuring that your members receive the messages in a way that works for them.
#6 - Conduct polls via Questions on Facebook
Questions is an application on Facebook that allows you to create a question, input the possible responses, allow for additional responses, and share with anyone.
Facebook Questions - https://www.facebook.com/questions/
Conducting polls can be a great way of learning more about your congregation's members. Ever wonder how much they know about the Book of Concord? Ask them!
#7 - Send out weekly & monthly e-newsletters with MailChimp
We touched on the simplicity and “freeness” of MailChimp in a previous post. MailChimp lets you add up to 2,000 emails for free and allows you to send up to 12,000 emails each month. Even if you max out at 2,000 email addresses, you can still send up to 6 email messages each month.
Churches can use this avenue to share weekly thoughts on a current sermon series or Bible study. You could also share prayer notifications, ministry updates, volunteer opportunities, and event reminders.
E-newsletters should remain consistent, if possible, always appearing on the same day and around the same time to maintain a sense of continuity from week to week, or month to month.
Try not to send out too many emails. Members might start to think of it as spam / junkmail.
#8 - Schedule e-newsletter info to also go out throughout the week or month via Facebook & Twitter
Rather than saving all that good content for a once a week/month e-newsletter blast, you can also schedule your announcements to also go out via Facebook and Twitter using a social media management tool like Hootsuite.
Hootsuite is free to setup and connects to all major social networking platforms. From the Hootsuite dashboard, you'll be able to post messages immediately to your social network profiles or schedule posts to go out on a certain date and time. Putting space between your posts will help your ministry to avoid the "clutter" that would overwise fill a member's Mini-Feed and potentially influence them to "unlike" your Facebook page.
#9 - Discuss & highlight one of the church’s ministries
Highlight a ministry in your posts – Is your men’s ministry working at a Habitat for Humanity project this weekend? Take pictures, get interviews, and upload everything to Facebook.
Have an amazing choir? Record them singing some Christmas, Lenten, or Holy Week hymns, post them to YouTube, and share them on Facebook and Twitter.
#10 - Post upcoming event reminders
Not only can you have calendars on your website, but Facebook has calendars for fan pages too. Post all of your events to your Facebook fan page to allow members to set Facebook reminders about events and even share the events with friends.
https://www.facebook.com/events
An RSVP to Facebook events does not (and should not) replace a normal RSVP, if required. It does, however, allow a member to have the event appear their Facebook events list. Once there, it serves as a continual reminder about the upcoming event.
#11 - Provide venue for members to connect with each other
Posting volunteer opportunities, carpool information, and other opportunities on Facebook will provide an open door for conversation and engagement for members and guests.
#12 - Follow-up with new members (can be combined with teaching)
Send a private message to a new member on Facebook. Let them know you’re available to talk. Send them links to helpful resources. Basically, make yourself available without going overboard.
#13 - Start a Facebook Group for New Members, Small Groups, and Ministry Efforts
Facebook Groups gives group members a private space to interact. Updates, questions, photos, and events posted within groups will only be shared with those who have access to the group.
Controlling visibility: Groups can be set up as Secret, Closed, or Open. If "Secret," the group and its posts will only be visible to those are are members. "Closed" groups mean that the group can be searched for and seen by the general public, however, non-members will not be able to see any posts within the group, just that it exists. Finally, "Open" groups can be searched for and seen by everyone, including all the posts that have been made.
https://www.facebook.com/groups
#14 - Connect with other church leaders RE: social media topics
Every Tuesday, there is a Twitter chat using the hashtag #chsocm - Read previous chats at http://churchsocmed.blogspot.com/.
When Twitter users put a hashtag (the "#" symbol) before a word in a tweet, it automatically links to other tweets that have included that same hashtag. By utilizing a unique hashtag you can start to build a dialogue on Twitter. Setting up a scheduled time for users to join in and use the hashtag creates a chat environment. One example of this would be Church Social Media, which uses the hashtag #chsocm. Every Tuesday night, users tweet with that hashtag to discuss issues relevant to social media and the church.
Join in at 9:00 p.m. EST every Tuesday night!
#15 - Post links to videos and blogs created by others that share the same theology and doctrine
You don’t need to generate all the content yourself!
Grab a direct link to a YouTube video you want to share and post it to Facebook. The video will now play within Facebook and your friends can see the video without having to click over to YouTube to see it. It makes sharing videos much simpler.
Ongoing Discussion
These are just 15 ways to use social media tools to help connect with and engage your membership via social media and new technology. To be completely honest and cliche, there are an infinite number of possiblities that exist in social media, and new ways to connect arrive every day.
My recommendation would be to sit down with your communication strategy, target some new opportunities and TRY ONE. Test the waters. See if that one new type of communication works for you. If it catches on, make it sustainable, and then build from there.
You can't do everything. It's just not possible. But you can try one and go from there.
As always, if you have comments, suggestions, or questions, please post them in the comment section below or contact me directly at seth.hinz@michigandistrict.org.
God's blessings on your ministries!
Ask your members to "Donate a Tweet" per week. Here's one way to execute: start a Twitter account for the church, make sure members know about it, and get them to "follow" your account.
Get the honest truth. Ask your members to write a review for your church on Google Places (
Plain and simple, status updates, photos, and videos that have more "Likes" get more attention. Recruit a few of your most enthusiastic supporters to keep an eye out for your updates. Every time someone clicks "Like" on a Facebook post, it then shows up in their timeline and even their friends can see that member's "likes."
Foursquare basically takes your day to day life and adds a game element. When someone visit venues, stores, churches, etc., they can "check in" via a Foursquare smart phone application and earn points and unique badges. After checking in, there are options to add a photo and/or a note about what's going on at that particular venue. Once the check-in is complete, a person can elect to share that check-in with friends via Facebook and Twitter.
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