Learning to use social media efficiently and effectively takes a lot of time, effort, and patience. Although many people are not willing to put in this effort, it is a strong platform to reach people in this day and age. In one of our training videos, Chris Martin, Director of LifeWay Social, walks through digital communication training and how to serve others, and ultimately God, through the use of social media.
It’s easy for Christian leaders and churches to talk about how great they are, sometimes from a place of pride or self-promotion. Other times, these leaders and churches are excited about what their church is accomplishing or hosting. It may not be sinful or prideful but can be perceived that way from people in and outside of your church.
Social media is best used when content focuses on the needs of others. By focusing on the people in your church, you are serving them and ultimately serving the kingdom of God.
Many social media strategists suggest that people buy their followers in order to gain a larger audience. However, this is a cheap trick that can hurt your church’s credibility. People often get duped by these strategists, who scam them with unsuccessful social media techinques. People often have a large number of followers but lack engaging content. You can’t fake quality content.
Many social media teams feel the need to blog every day of the week. This is often not the case. Posting seven times per week often leads to low quality content and burnout. A church would be better off posting high quality content twice per week for years rather than posting seven times per week for three months.
Unless you are a large church with a social media staff that can create that much content, you will exhaust yourself and not be able to serve your audience well. It is important to create consistency with your posts. If you choose to post twice per week, you can gradually increase to three after maintaining two quality posts for a few months.
To read the remainder of this article, and to watch the entire video training with Chris Martin, click here for the full video and post.
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Daniel Im (@danielsangi) is the Director of Church Multiplication for NewChurches.com at LifeWay Christian Resources. He is a Teaching Pastor at The Fellowship, a multisite church in Nashville. He is the author of No Silver Bullets: Five Small Shifts that will Transform Your Ministry, and co-author of Planting Missional Churches: Your Guide to Starting Churches that Multiply (2nd ed) with Ed Stetzer. He also co-hosts the New Churches Q&A Podcast, the 5 Leadership Questions Podcast, and a brand new podcast with his wife on marriage and parenting called the IMbetween Podcast. He has an M.A. in Global Leadership and has served and pastored in church plants and multisite churches ranging from 100 people to 50,000 people in Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, Korea, Edmonton, and Nashville. Visit Danielim.com to learn more.
