3 Ways You Can Avoid Burnout As A Communications Director
The year is 2021 and we came out of a year that sent churches online both with video and social media. Living in an online world means we live online. From Zoom calls, to livestreams, and social media inspiration. We are all spending a lot more time on screens. With more screen time means more content. More content means more work for you as a communications manager. What do you post and what is too much? After months of producing content for your church you can feel like you're going at this alone.
Join the over 28,000 church communicators for encouragement and feedback
Ask for Help
The first thing you can do is to not go at it alone. Schedule a time with your pastor or ministry leaders and see what they're doing and how you can support them. Creating content needs to be relevant to your church, and who knows your church better than the leaders who interact with your congregation on a daily basis.
Some things you could ask them might be. What are you studying? Or what resources do the people involved need? If you want your content to stand out you have to make sure it's what your audience wants or needs to see. So ask your audience. They may need resources on how to use Zoom, or a funny meme to get them through a hard day at work.
InShot has the tools you need for on the go posting
If you ever need encouragement and feedback its time like this. Go search out folks at Church Communications and join the over 28,000 other church communicators like you from across the country.
Invest in the Right Tools
There are also plenty of tools out there for you to use, many are free and others are a low price. First off, the free ones. A free app for your phone is InShot. InShot allows you to create a variety of different graphics for social from your photos. It also has a video editor as well for on the go editing and posting.
Sunday Social has an extensive library of graphics to choose from for churches on a budget
Another great tool is not free but is very low cost. Sunday Social. Sunday Social is a huge library of premade social graphics for you to download and use. It has interactive, inspirational, scripture, and all different styles. It is as little as $9 a month. So if it's only you at your church and you only have time to create 1 or 2 graphics a week, Sunday Social can fill in the rest. If you want the ability to edit each graphic, then you can download the Photoshop files as well for only $19 a month.
That leads me to one more tool. Photoshop.
Use Photoshop
Using Photoshop can give you so many options to create great content. It has all the tools you need to make custom graphics and it can be as simple or as easy as you want. If you want to remove a background, you can do that with the “select subjects” feature. Photoshop even comes with Lightroom for the entry level price of $10 a month. With Lightroom included, you can use the mobile app to edit images on your phone, save and store presets, and get a consistent look every time.
Now after using all these tools and you're still burned out from going at it alone then it's time to call for help. Whether it’s help with content creation, captions, strategy, or planning. I have you covered. I have been creating content for churches for the last 5 years and have also grown up in the church. I know how it feels to work for a church and not have a lot of support. I can be that support for you. Let’s chat, plan, and strategize each week. If you need content created or edited I can help with that too.