5 Practical Ways Your Church Can Engage With People Through Social Media

1) Use consistent social media handles and a website URL

If you want to connect with people in your church and new people interested in your church, you need to make it easy for them to find you online. If you have a different handle for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter it makes it harder for people to find you and confusing for you to have to explain. For example, at New City Church everything we use is @newcityrdu, and our website is newcityrdu.com. All consistent, all easy to remember, and all easy to find.P.S. The only thing worse than people not finding your church, is when they start following a different church that has the same church name as you on accident. If all of your handles are the same, people won't have to guess if it is your church or not (and trust me, it does happen).

2) Post consistently

Posting once a week, or less, won’t cut it. You don't necessarily have to post every day (though that is recommended) but you do need to post with regularity. If you don't, it is perceived that you don't care. And if people don't think you care about them, why would they want to come to your church?In fact, the only thing worse than not having a presence on social media (which is a terrible idea) is having accounts that are rarely used. If you are a smaller church or a church plant, I understand you may not have the capacity to do as much as you would like. But if we can't at least engage people with a few posts per week, our priorities, not our time, may need to be adjusted.If we want to reach people, we need to go where they are. An active online presence is not something "you get to when you can get to it." It reveals whether or not we are interested in engaging people where they are.

3) Don't just promote, offer value and be engaging

Social media is not a place where you go to dump all of your church events and reminders. We must give people a reason to follow us. In fact, some of the newest research shows you should only do one promotional post for every five non-promotional posts. Not only that but not everything we post needs to be spiritual in nature. Again, we need to engage people, which means we need to post things that give them value. Here are a few of the regular non-promotional posts we use at New City to give a few ideas:

• Message quote: A picture of the preacher that weekend on stage with the main point of the message.
• Message clip: A 1-2 minute video clip from the Sunday message.
• People of New City: A picture and brief "blurb" from one of the people of our church (click here to see our archive to give you an idea of what it looks like). By the way, this is the most liked, shared, and commented on thing we post every single week. I couldn't recommend enough you implementing a version of this at your church.
• A GIF or poll: For example, ask people to comment with GIF of their favorite candy. Or maybe a picture with a few pieces of candy that each have a number and ask people to comment below on which one their favorite is.

Also, the more people engage with and trust your church, the more they will lean in when you do post things that are more spiritual in nature. Give people a reason to follow your church online and they will listen to what you have to say.

4) Get other people involved

Maybe social media isn't your thing or you're just not good at it. That is ok, there are people in your church who are. Most people who enjoy photography, or graphic design, or creating content never think they could use their passions in that way to serve the church. And as an added benefit, when others get involved, they are more likely to share and engage your church's content (which means more people see it) because they feel ownership about it.

5) Don't waste your sermon

One major benefit churches have is that we have already created content waited to be used every week. Here are three ways you can use your/your churches sermon for social media content.Message clip: If you video your sermons, take a 1-2 minute clip from the main point and a powerful point in the message. Not only is it an easy way for people to be reminded of the sermon during the week, but those that impacted from what was said on Sunday are also very likely to engage and share the post.Blog post: If your church or pastor blogs, they could post a brief or easy to follow outline of the sermon. Or a post could be written elaborating the main point or a confusing part of the Biblical text that was used.Message quote: Posting a picture of the preacher with a/the main point. Here is an example of what this looks like.

Bonus tip: Start somewhere

Ultimately, the only way to figure out or get better in engaging people through social media is to try. As you go, you'll learn what works and what doesn't. Don't let feeling like you can't do everything stop you from doing something.