The internet is transforming the way we communicate with each other and disseminate information. Churches, youth ministries and Christian events are beginning to unlock the potential of social media. But which networks should your church have a presence on, and why? And how are they best used?
We’ll take a look at the main options below, but whichever networks you decide on, make sure you have the resources to monitor and maintain them — a social network presence that looks abandoned or only created as an afterthought won’t encourage followers, and doesn’t give a favourable impression of your church to visitors.
The big one. One of the advantages of Facebook is that (almost) everyone is on it, and if you create a branded Page for your church (see facebook.com/pages to get started) then worshippers can easily keep up to date with what’s happening and get church-related content in their news feed. In order to subscribe to your Page’s updates, other Facebook users need to ‘Like’ the page.
A Facebook Page can be used to share updates, photos and videos, and create events, just as you can for a personal profile. If you only have a church presence on one social network, then this is the one to go for, but managing content and updates can take some time. Bear in mind that if you have a large congregation, responding to posts on your church page wall and direct messages could quickly become a full-time job. On the plus side, your Facebook followers can quickly re-share content you’ve created, and tag the church in their own updates.
Often seen as the cooler, more straightforward little brother to Facebook, Twitter is much simpler to use and much more time-sensitive. Twitter users are more likely to post about what’s happening right now (which is why news stories often break on Twitter), and generally speaking Twitterers don’t expect all of their updates to be seen by all of their friends.
A church Twitter account is less comprehensive than a Facebook one, but it’s suitable for announcements and breaking updates, as well as quickly responding to questions (try managing both Twitter and Facebook on a mobile phone and you’ll see that the former is much more intuitive and less complicated).
Another advantage of creating a presence at twitter.com/yourchurch is that anyone, Twitter user or not, can quickly load up the page to check for new updates. Various tools are available if you want to link your Facebook and Twitter accounts, but if you’ve decided to make a choice between the two, then Twitter is preferable if you want a simpler, more instant church presence on the Web. Pictures, videos and links can be shared with the minimum of fuss, though the community aspects are less strong, and there’s no way to create or manage events.
Flickr
Instagram might be grabbing the tech headlines at the moment — and it works well for individuals and personal photo-sharing — but if you want to create a stream of photos from your church then Flickr is still the platform to opt for.
It’s website is far more fleshed out (Instagram is largely mobile-only), and virtually every publishing platform, from Blogger to WordPress, includes a Flickr widget to display your most recent pictures. Flickr users or not, anyone can view your latest updates at your church’s personalised flickr.com page, and the network provides plenty of control over who can share your photos and at which sizes. The only downside is that there are some restrictions if you don’t subscribe for a Pro account, but at just $25 a year (about £15) you may consider it worth your while to sign up for unlimited uploads, unlimited storage, and unlimited bandwidth.
YouTube
YouTube isn’t often thought of as a social network, but in fact it has more in common with the likes of Facebook than you might think — the ability to follow other channels, for example, and quick and easy ways to respond to other users on the platform. If your church produces a lot of video content (you film every sermon for example) then a YouTube channel is the most comprehensive and powerful way of managing all this material.
The Google+ social network has been largely ignored by most Web users, but it ties in very nicely with YouTube and if you create a YouTube channel then you can get a Google+ page thrown in for free. One of the most appealing features of a Google+ page is that you can easily control who sees which updates, but it lacks many of the features found on Facebook (such as the ability to create events and personalised URLs). The good news is that YouTube material can be embedded almost anywhere, so it makes a nice complementary tool to a presence you have already created on Facebook or Twitter.
Tumblr/Pinterest
Our fifth choice is a tie and which one you go for will depend exactly what you want from your church’s social media presence. We’ve listed them together because Tumblr and Pinterest are actually very similar — both networks enable you to quickly find content you might like through tags, which you can then reblog (Tumblr) or repin (Pinterest) to your own page. Both networks provide a stream of content, similar to Twitter, from other users who you have decided to follow; users can in turn decide to follow your updates.
Tumblr is much more comprehensive and is a fully fledged blogging platform — there are thousands of themes to choose from, and it’s a worthwhile option if you want to combine a church webpage with a social network presence (you can even use it with a domain name like www.ourchurch.co.uk). Blog posts can be text, photos, videos, audio, chats, links or quotes.
Pinterest is more niche, more personal, and more suited to visual fragments and clippings — we wouldn’t recommend it as a main social media presence, but you might find a smaller use for it, particularly if a lot of your church members are already signed up.