Does your Church have a Social Media Pastor? pt 2

So before we know who is going to handle our social media for our church, we need to know what they are going to be doing. We need to know the reason behind what we are doing. How can social media help connect the people in and outside of your church? There are several reasons for using social media. Today we will talk about a few.

Social media is great for sharing information. Now don’t just use this as another place for advertisements. Share how lives are being changed. Tell stories of what God is doing in your Church. How God is making an impact in the community your church is in. Share stories about the people that attend your church. Social media is a great place to talk about changed lives.  You can use it to discuss the message your pastor just spoke on. Let’s face it, a lot of people hop on facebook during the work day or get twitter updates on their phone. A reminder of the weekend’s message might be just what they needed.

Connecting people is one of the best things about social media. No matter what size your church, it’s just not that easy for someone to stick around and talk to every person. A lot of churches have more than one service, some even spread out over more than one day. Not to mention several churches have multiple locations. You just can’t be in every place at once or be around for every service. Using social media can make your big church seem small.

Social media is not only for sharing stories and connecting people, but social media actually records it. Every picture you upload to facebook or flickr, and the same goes for videos on YouTube. It’s out there for anyone to go back and look at it whenever. So whether it’s a mission trip, a cool worship service or a church picnic; no matter the event you not only want to use written words, but also visual media like pictures and video.

There is nothing wrong with using social media to make announcements about what’s going on at your church; classes, baptisms, or when the next mission trip is. We would all like to think people attend church every week. Yet we know things come up and they don’t, but more than likely they’re checking their facebook.

Now social media isn’t to replace what you might be doing at your church, but to enhance it. To help you connect, share or store.  These are just a few of the ways you can use social media. Stay tuned the rest of the week as we ask, does your church have a social media pastor?