Do you feel like you’re running ragged trying to get your social media out the door? You have Hootsuite and Buffer, but scheduling isn’t the problem, actually CREATING is the problem.
I totally understand that. When your week’s just getting started, the last thing you want to do is sit down and try to create social media graphics. You have no idea where to pull the content from. You don’t know what tools used to get the job done most efficiently and effectively.
Here’s a list of 7 strategies that will hopefully change your social media game for the better. Let’s kick it.
1. Let’s Get a Transcript of that Sermon
Your church is probably already archiving the sermon via video and audio, why not go the extra step of getting that audio transcribed? Here’s why you should get a transcript:
- Posting the sermon transcript on your website underneath your video helps your SEO.
- Posting your sermon transcript is a nice thing to do for the deaf community in your area.
- Getting a sermon transcript helps you easily create content for social media!
I think those first two are great reasons enough, but the sermon transcript changed my way of working. I no longer had to listen to it over and over again trying to find great quotes or places to cut video, I could easily highlight those great spots and then create.
If you eliminate the search, you free up more time to be creative and get content out the door. Transcription services are easily found online and there are many that are church specific. They aren’t expensive either, and I bet your pastor would appreciate this as well.
2. Let’s Plan Our Week
It’s so much easier to create content when you have a guide telling you what to create. Here’s an example of what I’ve done in the past. Yours might need to be different depending on your church, but it’s a good starting point.
Sunday – At the moment
Monday – Recap from Sunday
Tuesday – Question and Answer
Wednesday – Giving
Thursday – Throwback Thursday #TBT
Friday – Highlight Upcoming Sunday
Saturday – Highlight a Volunteer
Now that you have some idea of what to create for each day it will be easier to plan ahead for the week. On top of this, I would also try to do some sort of quote art and event promotion daily.
3. Let’s Create Graphics
There are many ways to create graphics today and there’s no excuse to not create them. Social media post with an image will always outperform just text. Hubspot states, “Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images” (link). So your social media posts need (almost require) images. But where do we get these from? Where can we create great images?
If you are creating graphics then I recommend using Canva or Photoshop. Canva is free. You can also get Canva for Business (premium Canva) for free using your church’s non-profit status (find more about that here). Photoshop isn’t free, but is the gold standard for creating and editing photos and graphics. I don’t think one is better than the other for social media graphic creation, but I would say that I think Canva is a bit quicker since they have templates for quote art already created for you.
Additionally, There are a few iPhone apps that get the job done in a pinch, WordSwag and Typorama. These are paid apps, but work well. Also, an honorable mention to Adobe Post (free).
You will need some stock photos for your graphics as well and I highly recommend starting your search at Stock Up, rather than wading through a bunch of free stock sites. Why? Because Stock Up searches across 26 of those sites for you rather than you having to pull up a bunch of websites.
4. Let’s Ask Questions
If you’re looking to increase social media engagement in your church then asking questions is probably a good place to start. Here are the type of questions you could be asking:
- Direct/Specific: What’s your favorite bible story?
- Current Events/Time-related: Happy Thanksgiving! What are you thankful for?
- Yes or No/Survey: Are you ready for Sunday? Do you think we should change the bulletin?
- Experience: What’s your favorite moment or quote from yesterday’s sermon?
Keep the questions simple and try your best to not sound like a robot. Also, try to reply to each comment.
5. Let’s Cut Some Video
Now that you have a transcript of the sermon, it should be fairly easy to read and highlight. If you don’t have one, you’ll just need to remember highlights of the sermon in your head. I did this for a while and it’s doable, but not the best situation.
Video almost always outperforms anything on social media. You should upload these videos natively if possible. This means if you have a video, you should upload it directly to Facebook rather than uploading it to YouTube and then sharing the link to Facebook.
6. Let’s Pray Together
Weekly, I ask across all our social media platforms what we can be praying for.
And weekly, I go down that list and write out individual prayers for each person.
Does it take time? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes.
Social media is an amazing tool and we can use it to disciple and evangelize I’d we open ourselves up to it. Many people are just waiting for the opportunity to talk with you about your faith and there’s not a single person who doesn’t need prayer. Try it today.
7. Let’s Review What’s Working
You cannot know where you’re doing unless you know where you’re coming from. Take some time to sit down and do some basic analytics and find out what’s working for your church. Here’s a couple links to help you get started learning about social media analytics:
- Facebook Blueprint (Free)
- Hootsuite Certification (Paid)
- Quintly Social Media Analytics Course (Free)
