Churches and social media can be a hard sell.  Do you focus on it or does it take a back seat to everything else your church is doing?  We all have seen the “Instagram famous” influencers who promote products and sell services.  Churches on the other hand, don't sell products.  So what’s a church to do on their Instagram account?  There are two options. When it comes to Instagram, you either promote or you engage.  The latter is what you want.  

Promotion is the easy way for churches to post on social media.  You have events and you promote those events for people to come to.  This ends up being a scrolling billboard that is exactly like your events page on your website.  People don’t scroll social media to view an events page.  They get on social media to engage, get inspired, and learn new things.  

Engaging is harder, but can prove to keep your followers coming back for more.  How do you post for engagement you might ask?  By starting conversations.  

Start a Conversation 

Conversations are key to Instagram’s algorithm.  Posts that lead to comments, direct messages, shares, and saves are better than ones that just get likes.  Ask questions in stories, your feed, and even in live video.  Stories make it really easy by giving you poll questions and sliders.  Another easy way to create conversations is the popular AMA, or ask me anything, sticker.  After the weekly message, post the sticker to your story and have people ask questions they might have had and then have one of your pastors go live during the week to answer them.  Pro tip, you can save those live sessions as an IGTV video on your profile for later viewing and sharing.  Having times during the week that you “go live” lets people know to get on and watch and interact.  

Inspire Someone

People also go on social media to get inspired.  This can be used to show a verse of the day or maybe a visual graphic that illustrates key points of the weekend message.  The goal here is to inspire people of course, but what do you inspire them to do?  Well the mission of the church is to make disciples and help them grow and become better disciples, who again make more disciples.  You can also use inspirational posts to promote in a not so direct way.  Instead of posting “sign up for a bible study”  show people in a bible study and let people see what it looks like to be in one.  

Attending a small group for the first time can be intimidating, but if you show what it looks like and what type of people go then it breaks the ice for new people to join.  Instagram is such a visual platform that people want to see what your church looks like, not told to come and “join us this weekend.”  Instagram is a window into life at your church, but it’s also the living room where people come to talk.  

“Instagram is a window into life at your church”

Provide Value

Another thing people go on social media for is to learn something.  Social media is known for a lot of negativity, but it is also a place to learn and grow.  There are whole channels meant to help small businesses grow online or help homeowners clean and organize their home.  People love new tricks and hacks to make their lives easier.  This is perfect for the church.  Why don’t people read their bible more?  Why not share the gospel with a neighbor?  Maybe because they don’t know how.  How-to posts are the perfect thing for that .  You can even use the popular carousel post to do this.  

Carousels are great because you get 10 slides to explain yourself.  Start with a hook to stop the scroll and then start answering their questions.  One example might be “ 5 ways to read the bible everyday”  or “How to confidently share the gospel with your friends.”   Carousels help provide value and even start a conversation either in the comments or via a direct message.  They also might be saved or shared.  Leading to higher engagement, more accounts reached, and ultimately more people hearing the good news of the gospel.  

There are so many more ways to use social media, Instagram, and even YouTube in your church than just posting the weekly “see you at church”  post every Friday.  Reach out.  Be active.  Spread the good news.  If used correctly you can harness social media to reach people with the best news in the world.  The Gospel.  So if your thinking church missions are more important than your communications team then it might be time to rethink that.  You can reach people just as easy if not easier by leveraging social media the right way and creating content that starts conversations, inspires, and provides value.