Since Instagram has quickly grown to be one of the most used social media apps out there, everyone can benefit at least a little by using the platform to get the word out about their activities. Even churches and religious groups have jumped on the bandwagon to start using Instagram to engage more online through images! There isn’t much planning or work that needs to go into running an Instagram account dedicated to your church, but it does take a little bit of thought to decide what, when, and how you’ll post in terms of content. We’ve come up with a few words of advice for creating a successful, account that the members of your church will love to engage with.
- Include information! Using social media is a great way to answer questions that your members, and potential church members, maybe haven’t even thought of yet. Include in either the bio or in your photo captions the times that your services are held, when worship begins, and what night your youth group meets on. You can also include information about special gatherings your church hosts, a link to the official website, and what small groups are looking for members.
- Encourage others! Bible scriptures, motivational quotes, and just a few happy posts can brighten up someone’s day. Adding some words of wisdom and guidance could be exactly what some of your followers are needing, so change things up from time to time with these kinds of posts. A bonus is if they relate to your current sermon series!
- Honor your volunteers! Posting pictures and tagging their accounts is a great way of appreciating your amazing volunteers in a public way. It also lets you give a great behind-the-scenes view of what goes on in your church to create the smooth flow of a Sunday morning.
- Promote a series! Use Instagram to grow excitement about upcoming sermon series by offering sneak peeks, descriptions, and quotes or verses from the series. You can even share real-life stories from others if they relate to your sermons or any other sort of relevant material you could tie back to a sermon series.
- Ask questions for feedback! People feel comfortable engaging on Instagram more than they do any other social media site, so use your account on the app to ask for feedback from your members. It can be as simple as asking how they liked a sermon or something deeper such as life struggles they’d like to see spoken about in a series.
- Support charities and other churches! Build a sense of community and share God’s love by drawing attention to local charities, other church events, and ways that your followers can get involved with the community. You can even accept offering online, so suggest a few non-profit groups that your church supports. This is a great way for people to see and learn about where their offering money goes, and it gives the chance for other charities to gain extra exposure!
