How Churches Can Use Social Media

church social media

Shyju Mathew

"Experience the Word of God, in the power of the Spirit."

June 3, 2012

Sathish Isaac is an online marketing consultant based in Chennai, India. His desire is that the church should be well equipped to meet the revival digitally. You can follow him on Twitter here . If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines – here.

Social media has a ripple effect that most business players can attest to. Nowadays, it is much easier to get recognition because the world has become a global village. Hence, if you want to enhance the image you want to portray to the world what better way is there than social media right? At the same time, it only takes one wrong move from a company and a word on a social media site to set the company to ruin. The main objective to have a strong social media presence is to build an active community for your brand.

church social media

However, the same can be said about enhancing the image of the church. How churches can use social media? Go ye into the world and spread the good news: those are the words that most preachers subscribe to. Over the years, the word has seen a resurgence of ministries and the trends doesn’t look like it is going to wane anytime soon. With the help of a dedicated social media activity churches can also build up a strong and active online community around them.

Blogs

Boost the profile of the church by connecting with people. What better means to do so than blogs? Think of it this way, if you want people to come to your church by the thousands or even the millions, you should reach out to them. Churches can use blogs to post testimonies, videos, podcasts, encouraging stories, devotionals, etc.

Facebook

In a research done last year in America, it was found out that more and more youth spend their time texting and on Facebook more than anywhere else. Hence, if you want to reach more youth to your church, create a page in Facebook to start off with. Notify people with quotes, devotions, videos church events that are just round the corner and also post daily updates to reach out to people. Create an event and send out an invitation requesting for response. Voila! This is one way how churches can use social media.

Twitter

It is also important to highlight that many ministries today have made a point of opening accounts on Twitter, from which to send out tweets regularly, thereby creating a platform where it can reach out to a wider audience in fractions of second. How churches can use social media in this regard? It seems as though they are emulating the trend that is followed by many businesses today of using Twitter in order to extend their reach to the populace.

Email Opt in

Create an e-mail list to communicate news, event dates, announcements, requests for prayers, and even funeral and baptism details.

All said and done, it has been proven that social media is the fastest method of disseminating information worldwide. Hence, more and more churches have moved toward social media in order to meet this goal.

Question: What are the other ways do you think churches could use to reach people through social media? What good examples can you recommend?