09/05/2022
Read on for five types of posts you can post on your church’s social media this week and every week.
1. Invitation
From weekly services to community gatherings – social media is a powerful tool to keep your community informed of what’s coming up and invite them along.
Posting what’s coming up to your page will also make it easy for your church community to share the invite with their friends and family too.
Alongside the basic details, give people a glimpse of what to expect with photographs, video or a quote from someone who’s attended before. Showing behind the scenes preparation can build anticipation for the event too.
Spread the word by creating a Facebook event - a place where people find events local to them - and share a post about the event into your local Facebook groups, so that more people will see it.
On Instagram and Twitter, use location based hashtags such as #Norwich #Norfolk to help local discovery.
2. Stories and news
It’s not possible to fit every update in a Sunday service, so social media can be an effective way to keep your community informed and share the good work of your church.
Stories from church projects are some of The Church of England’s most widely read and shared posts.
Ideas you could use are:
- Behind the scenes photos from your building project
- A story from a cause you are supporting
- Pictures from a recent event
- Update from an initiative, and its impact
You could look beyond your church too your local community. Is your local school celebrating an achievement? A local charity raising money for a cause? Or a community group working on a project together? Use your social media to lift up others in your community too.
3. Ask questions
Get to know your community by asking questions – from light heated conversation starters, such as what’s the funniest thing they’ve overheard a child saying, to deeper questions, like what unanswered questions do they have about prayer. Leave space for your community to share their thoughts in the comments.
You can go a step further and tie their answers into an up-coming sermon series or thought for the day.
Don’t forget, when they reply in the comments, be ready to continue the conversation with a reply – this will encourage others to get involved too and the interaction will spread your post further so that it’s seen by more friends, family and neighbours online.
4. Answer questions
What is Good Friday? Can anyone pray? Can I get married in a church?
Answering questions like these is not just for Sunday. Short videos, blogs or social media posts are all tools you can use to start conversations about faith and life which could help you welcome new people from your community in.
Don’t forget to think about the next step for those curious to find out more; do you have a group where they can ask questions, or would you like to invite them along to a Sunday service?
Our video ‘What is Ash Wednesday’ was widely watched on YouTube by 18 to 24-year olds wanting to learn about the meaning behind the day.
Keep the content short – 2 minutes or under to keep your community interested and watching.
5. Share faith
Just as the disciples in the bible used letters to teach and encourage their Christian community wherever they were, social media is our tool to disciple our community mid-week wherever they are.
Prayers, reflections or a verse for the day can be encouraging content to share throughout the week.
You don’t need to come up with these ideas yourself, take inspiration from your weekly services.
Use the prayers, verses or stories and share these to your pages.
Don’t forget to make it relevant to your community mid-week. For example, when you are sharing a verse used in the Sunday service, add a comment in the caption to make it relevant for today.
Here are some ideas for posts you could share:
- Use video to pray with your community mid-week. Have you tried Facebook Live?
- Share a reflection from the Church of England account.
- Share a verse and reflection based on the Sunday message.
We’ve shared five posts that you can share this week and every week. You don’t have to post each of these every week, but could post three types this week, and a three different types next week to add variety.
And don’t forget that you have a range of tools available to you - photographs, video, live video and blogs – add variety to your social media by using a range of mediums to engage your community.
Liz Morgan
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