Building a Resonant Church Brand on LinkedIn: Effective Strategies and Tips

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You may be surprised to hear this, but LinkedIn is actually one of the best opportunities for churches on social media right now. And in this episode, we're gonna tell you why. Let's do this. You're listening to the Reach right podcast, the show dedicated to helping your church reach more people and grow. Hey, guys, I'm Thomas. [00:00:22] Speaker B: And I'm Ian. [00:00:23] Speaker A: And today we are talking about LinkedIn for churches. This is a first on the Reach right podcast. It's episode number 197, I believe, and never before have we talked a whole episode about how churches should be using LinkedIn. So I think it should be a good conversation for us. Right, Ian? [00:00:40] Speaker B: We haven't. And I think this is a social media platform that a lot of churches overlook or maybe even think they don't need to use. [00:00:47] Speaker A: So, yeah, and I think there's some reasons for that. I think, obviously, you know, we all know that LinkedIn is more for business connections a lot of times, and it's not so much the kind of platform that I would go to first when it comes to trying to reach new visitors to come in on, you know, this Sunday morning. But I think when it comes to building a brand and gaining exposure for your church and building momentum, LinkedIn is a valuable place that it is worth a look. Now, I'm not here to say that, like, if your choices, like, you should choose between Facebook or LinkedIn, you shouldn't use Facebook or Instagram or. Or YouTube or one of those, I think those obviously should have more attention. But if you have those dialed in or if you're at least kind of moving in that direction, I think LinkedIn is one that you could probably get some results from. And I think it presents some really big opportunity, especially for, like, organizational growth opportunities. So connecting with local business leaders, you know, especially when it comes time for you to hire or change some of your staff positions there, having a built out LinkedIn profile can really go a long way. So, yeah, I think it's worth something. It's something that churches should be looking at. Again, probably not the number one priority. I wouldn't get up out of bed every day and say, we got to get that LinkedIn dialed in, but I think it's something to be. To be focusing on, and it does some opportunity for results for churches, I'd say. [00:02:12] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. We should dig into those results, for sure. [00:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, so we have ten different strategies that we've seen be effective for churches in kind of building their brand on LinkedIn. So the first one is, uh, kind of with building your brand is defining your brand, uh, making sure you have that. So what I'm talking about here is LinkedIn is the best place you could be putting all those, uh, branding type statements and documents and look and feel type things. So your vision, your mission, your core values, all those kinds of things, they absolutely belong on LinkedIn. Uh, so you'll want to make sure that you have some of that kind of stuff really thought through. It's probably on your website already. Hopefully, you're talking about these things in your church services, but getting that onto your LinkedIn profile, it really kind of helps set the organizational tone for your church. And I think that's a good thing for churches to be doing. [00:03:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And this is, that's probably one of the best things LinkedIn does since it started. You know, by nature being a networking for jobs and a professional network, if you will. So the defining of an organization, a business or a church, their brand, they do that very well and give a lot of options. I remember that, Thomas, when we set up our LinkedIn here as a company at reach ride. The next step after that is completing your profile, of course. How many profiles are incomplete out there? A lot, right? Probably even my Facebook one is or whatever. I don't know. It's been a while since I've looked at it. But as a church, you want to make sure that's dialed in your church's name, location, you know, all of that, a good profile picture, cover photo, contact information, all of that stuff that's pertinent. The details really matter on LinkedIn, for sure, when it comes to those things. [00:04:01] Speaker A: Yeah, here's, this is kind of general advice for all social media platforms. LinkedIn, I see this being especially true, but we have found that with social media, give the social media companies everything they're asking for on your profiles and you will tend to reap the benefits and they'll give you more traffic when you do these kinds of things. So I think this is something we definitely see this with, like your Google, my business, that's something that, or your Google business profiles, what I called now. So you get that dialed in and you'll show up on more searches. The same thing goes for LinkedIn. You get your profile dialed in and you answer every question. And LinkedIn, I think they probably have the most questions of any social media system out there. They ask you lots of stuff about, you know, what your business is about and what your values are and when you meet and all that kind of stuff. Get all of that completely dialed in and you'll get more traffic on your posts and more people engaging with your content that way. So the next one is to engage regularly. That's number three. This, again, is general advice for all social media platforms, but I find that on LinkedIn, I find that it's the friendliest of all the platforms. So I find it's easiest for us to engage with people when we get comments and interaction on LinkedIn or when we're trying to reach out to other companies or other churches. It's usually the most cordial. You'll get the fewest potshots, at least, of people saying bizarre things or telling us that we look funny or the comments that we get every single day around here at Reach. Right. You do 197 episodes of a podcast. Yeah, you've heard about everything. I had people criticizing haircuts and all that kind of stuff. So it's just whatever. You won't usually find that on LinkedIn. I'm sure you could, but I found that it's the easiest to engage on, but it goes both ways, making sure you're reaching out to other people on LinkedIn and make that part of your strategy to have conversations with other like minded organizations, like minded people, and you'll start to see more results that way. Yeah. [00:06:08] Speaker B: The other one, and this also is one Thomas, that we would recommend for all social media platforms, is share stories. Storytelling is huge. We've talked about already building your brand. Part of that is storytelling. And so this is definitely a good place to do it as well, where you're interacting with people. So, and it's a way to, I guess one good way to say it is humanize your brand and making it relatable to people. And so, yeah, a lot of different things you can do there. We've always said personal testimonies. Maybe it's an outreach you did, or just something just that's unique about your congregation that you want maybe other churches your network to know about but tell those stories. And even though LinkedIn is thought of as kind of a business social media network, it makes you just kind of more relatable, authentic, and makes you more memorable. And there's nothing wrong with that. We see businesses doing this all the time, too. Not just churches, but businesses telling stories about what they're doing uniquely. And so good thing to do here as well. [00:07:12] Speaker A: We see actually longer form text content doing better on LinkedIn than any other social media platform right now. In fact, we're looking for content writers here at Reach write right now to really leverage some of this. But we found that when this kind of goes with telling stories is that people are more willing to read long form content on LinkedIn than any other social platform at this point. If it's engaging, if it's storytelling and actually engaging with people that way. So, yeah, I think there's a big opportunity there. You're right with that. So next one up is showcase your services. So this is something where just like on other platforms, having photography and even short form video, well, they don't as of today. And this recording, there isn't a LinkedIn version of like TikTok or YouTube shorts or reels, but there is a place for video still. Wide content or square content seems to do best on LinkedIn. But showcasing your services either there or using photography from your services and putting that kind of content into your LinkedIn feed, I think it just kind of helps to build momentum and give people a snapshot of what your church is all about. [00:08:26] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And that's actually a perfect segue into the next one, which is you want to share multimedia. So not just photos and video. This could be inspirational quotes, it could be short videos. We recommended long form stuff as well, but, you know, and that can be also short videos, but short videos and just other types of things to make you engaging, make it more interactive, to get more comments and shares, because people do that, too on LinkedIn is they comment and they share as well. So mix it up, I guess, is what we're saying. And this is, again, kind of similar to what you would do on other social media platforms as well. But it could be testimonials, like we said, other inspirational things, quick, quick stories, if you will. So. [00:09:13] Speaker A: Yep, yep. Absolutely. That's right. Okay, next one is offer value. And this is something that we don't talk a lot about on other platforms. But I think LinkedIn, it really is something where you can really focus on this and just making sure that everything that you put out there, it actually has a benefit for the reader. And I think people go to LinkedIn for a little bit different reason. I think they often are going there to learn more than to be entertained. Right. So I think about the content that I would see on LinkedIn, and I do this also on Twitter or X as well, but just I'm looking more for education instead of entertainment with these platforms. So finding ways to do that. I think that to your point about short form videos, I think long form videos, we're doing a lot of testing with that right now on LinkedIn, and we're starting to see some results as long as people are learning something when they're on there. So I think for churches, maybe if you're doing kind of deep dives into books of the Bible or Bible studies, maybe you have a Wednesday night service where you guys go a little bit deeper. That kind of content might be really good for a LinkedIn profile. I think just even if it's long form video, we've seen that, you know, you could put in a 45 minutes video and actually get some traffic and results on that. So some things to test. We haven't concluded our testing on that just yet, but I think that there's definitely a place for you to. The key here, again, is offering value for people. Make it something that they'll be able to learn as a result of being on your LinkedIn page there. [00:10:44] Speaker B: That's good. [00:10:45] Speaker A: That's good. [00:10:45] Speaker B: And next one is encourage interaction. First glance, I was like, well, you think that's a no brainer, but again, because people don't think of LinkedIn as like other social media, they may not be thinking of the interacting part, but you're still going to want to ask for comments. You're going to want people to share. You're going to want people to message you based on the value and the content that you're sharing, for sure. So this is, again, another place to engage. And actually, I would say, and correct me if you, if I'm wrong or you think differently, Thomas, but this might be one of the more important areas to get interaction because of the type of content and because what people are looking for. I think, in other words, it's where you might be able to gain more valuable relationships. So relationships that are longstanding because of what we've already been saying, because you've presented value and good content that someone's looking to educate themselves on. So I think it's a big place to interact. [00:11:44] Speaker A: I think with it lends itself better to good dialogue because the content is educational, people will be more likely to be encouraging and then also just asking genuine questions. A lot of times on, on Facebook or Instagram, questions are actually just potshots of people trying to, you know, catch you in some kind of a theological trap or something like that. Whereas here I have found that usually you'll have more engaged questions of people that actually care and consider you a. A mentor or someone that they're learning from. So, yeah, I think that as a general rule, and we say this for all social platforms, is never leave a comment unresponded to, even if it's a super, super simple, compact like, hey, great video. Let's say someone writes that, you know, just say thanks is a perfectly good response to that comment. A lot of times I see so many organizations just leaving those things make it that way. And if you come and cover it with a response, it's going to be for a few reasons. It'll be encouraging to the person that commented and they know that they're seen. And then also, it's just algorithmically good. And that when LinkedIn or any other social platform sees that you're engaging and going back and forth with commenters, they'll say, this is an engaging post and they'll show it to more people, and then your next post will be shown to more people. And it's just a momentum building tool. So never leave a unresponded to comment on any platform. But LinkedIn is definitely one you want to avoid that for. So, yeah. All right, number nine is participate in groups. This is a really big opportunity. We love this on Facebook. Facebook groups are really dynamic, but LinkedIn actually has some really great professional groups. And so I think for your staff, again, don't think of this as like, these groups are a great way to meet people in our community and invite them to church. That may be happening a little bit in larger communities, but I think it's a great way for your church to network with other people in similar roles in churches in other parts of the country or the world. So I've seen great groups on LinkedIn for church creatives, for worship leaders, for business administrators and executive pastors, and there's all kinds of different groups on there. And I think it's the highest level of interaction happens on LinkedIn of any other social media platform out there. And I just think it's good momentum building again, for your church. If you have lots of conversations with people of similar roles and other churches out there in the country, what happens is that when you need to hire a new youth pastor, well, you have lots of people that are familiar with your church and have some relationship there and will put their ear to the ground. And it's just a great way to kind of build momentum in those kinds of more like some staffing issues, but also just general church conversations that are happening out there. So, yeah, really good opportunity with groups, I'd say. [00:14:30] Speaker B: Yeah, makes your brand and makes you more memorable when those times come. So last and most certainly not least, number ten, measure and adjust. We're always big on not only calls to action that we often mention, but measuring and results. And obviously, like we've said, with all of these things, if you're putting in the work and the time and energy and you're doing a good job of it, why don't you want to know, obviously, what results you're getting? And so, yeah, see what content's performing better than others based on that. Make adjustments, see your posting schedule, what's effective as far as how often you're doing it, and stay consistent with that. But continually measuring and all of that's going to help you optimize things and obviously fine tune your goals. With LinkedIn as a church. [00:15:23] Speaker A: Yeah, we're like broken records here, Ian. We have a core value, as you know, is results count. That's one of the things that we kind of stand on here at reach rite, and we believe that for ourselves, and that's really our, one of our callings for our customers and people that we help, is that if you work with Reachwrite, you know, we're gonna promise you that results are gonna count. We're gonna try and get you results and not just make it look pretty, but actually, you'll see results from this here. So, yes, measure. And then measuring is foolishness if you don't actually adjust based on your measurements. So that's it. Look at the posts that you're doing, and you can try to move more towards the ones that are getting the most results and where conversations happening. Double down on those efforts and stop doing the things that aren't getting you results. And so it's a constant a b test in everything that we do on these things. So, yeah, results count, and you should measure and analyze and make adjustments. [00:16:17] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:16:17] Speaker A: Good stuff. Anything else to say as we wrap up? [00:16:20] Speaker B: No. Don't disregard and forget LinkedIn. You could see some great results there. So we hope, maybe we urged a few to endeavor in that. [00:16:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great opportunity. I think it's something, again, do Facebook, do YouTube, but once you have those things dialed in, Instagram, that stuff, take a look at LinkedIn. I think it's a pretty good opportunity for churches. So if this has been helpful to you, hit that subscribe button. If you're watching on YouTube, subscribe. If you're listening to us on the podcast here, drop us a comment. Let us know. Does your church use LinkedIn, and how has it been working for you? I'd love to hear about that. Also, all of our podcast episodes are our listener inspired. So if there's something that you've been wondering or you have a question for us, you'd like us to talk about in a future episode of the podcast. Drop us in the comments. A line in the comments there. We'll be sure to take a look at it. So thanks for being a part of the Reach ride family. We'll see you next time. See ya.