Utilizing social media is easy to begin but far more challenging to do well. Many churches make post after post with little response or increase in following. So how can you get your social media unstuck? In our latest report, Say What?! Key Research on Church Communications, we uncover three insights that can help you engage better.
1. Smaller churches have significantly higher levels of social media engagement on all major platforms.
A church’s level of social media engagement measures the followers on its social media account as a percentage of its weekend attendance. Churches of less than 500 people actually engage about twice the percent of their congregation as churches with 500 or more in attendance. This is the case on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. So what are smaller churches doing to get significantly stronger levels of engagement? The next finding might answer that question.
2. Smaller churches are less promotional on social media.
We asked churches what percent of their social media posts are focused on programs and events. Only 28% of churches with 500 or more in attendance said that they keep these promotional posts down to 0-40% of their total social media content. At the same time, nearly half (46%) of smaller churches said that they limit posts about programs and events to 0-40%. It seems that by promoting less, smaller churches are actually engaging a greater percent of their congregation!
3. Churches are most engaging on Facebook.
Despite the development of Twitter and Instagram, Facebook continues to be the most engaging platform for churches. The average church with Facebook engages a following the size of 166% of its congregation. Churches using Twitter engage 68% of their attendance size while Instagram-using churches engage just 20%.
Are you interested in increasing your effectiveness on social media? Our latest report is filled with action steps to help you improve in this area along with four other essential areas of church communications. You can also gauge your performance with this Communications Scorecard based on nearly 200 churches.
Best of all, this report comes at no cost to you! We simply want to resource your team to get unstuck.
