Get Social
We all scroll through a ton of posts on social media each day. While some get double-tapped, most simply get scrolled past. As a youth ministry, you’ll want to leverage on the interactivity of social media, and that involves creating content that your young people can and will engage with!
Here’s 5 tips to getting the most outta your social media pages:
Make It Relevant
It’s all about speaking to them – think about what’s “thumb-stopping” for your young people, so that you can cut through the social clutter on their feeds and reach them. Create content that will interest them, whether it’s a fun video to hype them up about the next activity, or a sermon quote that will challenge them in their devotions.
Go a step further, and instead of duplicating the same content across Facebook, Instagram & Twitter – curate posts that are specific for each platform. For example: Short sermon quotes for Twitter, short Boomerang videos and strong visuals for Instagram and shareable content (i.e funny videos) on Facebook.
Keep Up With Trends
Whether it’s the latest vine that has gone viral, or a trending hashtag – keep up to date with pop culture and tap on it to create content. Eg. Our youth ministry recently ran a sermon series on “I Knew You Were Trouble” (cue Taylor Swift) that talked about temptation and everyone went wild with the “goat scream”
Speak The Language
What does the voice of your youth ministry social media sound like? Young people speak best to their peers, so get a team of young people to manage the social accounts (both the look of the visuals and the tone of content) and they’ll ensure that your youth ministry’s social branding is on FLEEK. (It’s okay if you had to google the meaning of this term.)
Plan Ahead
Youth ministry is a busy place, and with all the different programs, sermon series and announcements that happen, it’ll make life easier on your social media team if you plan ahead. Consolidate all the information that you’ll want to shout out about at least 2 months in advance and plot them into a content calendar. This will also give your creative/design team more time to work on amazing looking visuals and videos.
Be Where They’re At
Did something epic happen in church today? Post a picture about that hilarious moment that happened during a game, or tweet about it! For large-scale church events, prepare early and get people to stand by and take photographs. You can even think beforehand about the kind of post that you want to create.
It’s likely that your young people are also on Snapchat, so create an account to capture all the epic moments that go on in your youth group, and let people know what they’ve been missing out on.
Organisations use social media for all sorts of information, but challenge yourself to think about social media as more than just a bulletin board (i.e Here’s what’s happening, SIGN UP NOW). It’s an amazing platform for your ministry to connect with your youth and converse with them. (If they tag you in an awesome photo, double tap it!) It will also come in useful for them to invite their friends to the next activity, or to let their friends catch a glimpse of what goes on at youth service.
It’s a ton of fun, so start posting and get social!
