Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Well, I'm sure by now your church uses Instagram and you probably put posts there all the time. Maybe you do reels. But one of the most untapped opportunities for churches on Instagram is Instagram stories. In this episode, we're gonna dig into exactly how your church can take full advantage of it. Let's do this. You are listening to The Reach right podcast, the show dedicated to helping your church reach more people and grow. Hey guys, I'm Thomas.
Speaker 2 00:00:29 I'm Ian.
Speaker 0 00:00:30 And today we're gonna be talking about Instagram stories for churches. I think this is gonna be a good conversation to dig in a little bit to this, uh, area that I find a lot of churches don't take full advantage of on Instagram. I think that, uh, Instagram stories, of course was Instagram's response, uh, to other platforms out there, specifically Snapchat, trying to make some temporary type content. Um, it took it from Instagram posts, uh, to Instagram stories, uh, which has been out for, gosh, like three or four years at this point, I guess now. But, uh, now we've kind of moved on. This is what Instagram does is they take other platforms and they meld it into what they're doing. So right now, obviously reels is what TikTok was doing, and they have incorporated that into the Instagram platform, but today we're focusing a little bit more on stories and how churches can be using it. So I think it should be a good conversation.
Speaker 2 00:01:23 Yeah, absolutely. So, and I guess maybe the first question a pastor or ministry leader would have is how to create in something that's engaging, uh, with story content. So yeah, I think that you definitely want people engaged
Speaker 0 00:01:36 <laugh>. Yeah, no, definitely. I I think that the trick here, and I think you have to understand how stories are different from other, like from posts or from reels, right? Really stories are the most casual of all the content that you would put onto Instagram. I think think of it this way, like your posts and your feed, that's usually gonna be more curated content, right? But people are looking for more organic kind of content that feels like it's more spur of the moment. And then it's also really the best content for engagement. So it's for trying to get some back and forth with people or start conversations. People are much more likely to respond to something on your stories Yeah. Than they are to a post or in your feed or in an Instagram reel or a TikTok or anything like that. Yeah. So that really is the strength of the platform.
Speaker 2 00:02:26 Yeah, I found that when you, you said casual, I think that's a good word because, uh, I posted, uh, you know, a meal over spring break, just a, I was at having a meal and, and I, I posted that and I got questions based on what I was eating and it was just a very, Hey, here's, I'm eating. I didn't say anything else <laugh>, it was just a picture of my meal.
Speaker 0 00:02:46 Yep. No, that's it. And, and what happened? You get comments, right? So you people comments
Speaker 2 00:02:50 And, and questions and even someone trying to start a conversation out of that. Um, so yes.
Speaker 0 00:02:55 Yeah, and I think that's a great thing. So what what'll happen for churches a lot is a, a conversation will kind of start, yeah, they'll say, oh, that's such a good word. Or, you know, whatever they say in response to your story. And then what you should do is you could actually take that off the actual, the public forum and try and go deeper with those conversations. So yeah, um, go into the, the chat system there with an Instagram or the Messenger and you can start to send messages back and forth and uh, try to engage with people that way. So it's a really good method.
Speaker 2 00:03:20 That's good. We want to engage. And this next one I like cuz these are specific features you can use to, to even make something more engaging. Uh, you know, in addition to what we just covered. So stickers, poles, there's other interactive features that, you know, Instagram has.
Speaker 0 00:03:36 Well, I know you love stickers, right? Ian?
Speaker 2 00:03:38 Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah. Not a
Speaker 0 00:03:39 Big sticker guy. Not a big sticker guy. No. If you followed the podcast, you'd know that I'm kind of an, uh, I am on a personal level, an anti emote. I don't really use a lot of, uh, emojis and stickers and those things, but I see their value from a marketing perspective. So you better believe when it's trying to engage with other people, uh, in a, in a marketing sense, stickers and those things are great. You mentioned polls, uh, all the other interactive features that are on there, I think polls are really great cuz they're so good for getting engagement on there. So if you can get people from your church and, and think about this, it doesn't have to be like a, a deep spiritual poll. Like, yeah, what do you think? Who do you think the writer of Hebrews was? Was it Paul or somebody else? It doesn't have to be that kind of stuff, right? Yeah. It could be something like, what is the best topping on a pizza? And people will go back and forth and it's just a way to Yeah. Again, create engagement and relationship within your church there.
Speaker 2 00:04:31 Yeah. Good. That's good stuff. So another thing I guess we should, you know, cover and that someone should do is highlighting and organizing stories on your profile.
Speaker 0 00:04:41 Yeah. So they release some functionality within stories that lets you put your stories into different categories that then shows up on your profile. When someone clicks on your image there, you'll have kind of like, almost like a website navigation in a way. And you could have different categories of stories that you kind of keep there permanently. And it's something that if someone, uh, a lot of times if someone's digging into you and wants to know more about your church, for instance, they'll click on your profile, take a look at that and try and dig into a little bit more of what you're about. And the first thing that they'll see is some of these categories and they can dig into some of your best stories. And it's a, it's a way for you to take something that's meant to be casual and add a little bit of curation to it that way.
Speaker 2 00:05:22 That's good. That's good. So other thing to do is cross promoting stories and I think this is really cool and something to hit, you know, hit on because you know, a lot of people use multiple different social media platforms. Yeah. And so when you're sharing on your story, you can have, uh, what you share there, also share on Facebook or Twitter and it just obviously makes that more visible and catches people that, uh, may not be looking on Instagram.
Speaker 0 00:05:46 Yeah, it's true. The thing to remember about stories is they last for 24 hours. So the story you put on there, unless you actually save it and want it to show up on your feed, it will be gone forever from everybody else's view in 24 hours. So if you feel like it was valuable, got a lot of traction, that's something that would be really good to move back that 24 hour timeframe, put it onto your Facebook account, your Twitter account, if it's video, you could possibly turn it into some kind of a, a reel or a TikTok. But there's lots of opportunities to take this content and repurpose it on other platforms there. So that's a good idea.
Speaker 2 00:06:21 Good. One thing we always cover with almost about everything, maybe everything is how to measure success and results through, uh, your stories. And that's with Instagram insights, right?
Speaker 0 00:06:33 Yeah. See the thing about measuring success and measuring things, yeah. So Instagram Insights, that's the built in native program there, but the thing about measuring it is it helps you to figure out what to do next time. So if it's kind of like that passage in James where if you just look into a mirror and forget what you look like, that's kind of throwing your time away with that. Same thing goes with looking at your insights on these things. If you don't, if you take a look at your, your metrics, how many people viewed it or interacted with it, and then you don't do anything with it, it's just, it's just vanity. There's no point in any of those metrics there. So what we should be doing is taking a look at, okay, this kind of content, this performed well, it got a lot of engagement, a lot of views, and it kind of lets you double down on some of those things that you find are already working there. So you gotta take a look at that. I'd say at least once a month. You don't wanna get bogged in. Don't make that part of your daily routine as opening up your Instagram insights and seeing that that's, that's a way for you to kind of make it an idle in your life. But if you have some respect for it and kind of keep it at a distance, but do look at it, it'll help inform your future decisions on the kind of content that you're making there.
Speaker 2 00:07:42 Yeah, that's good. That's good. Another thing is to look at other examples of what other churches are doing and, and I I would say other churches that are effectively using it and, and seeing good results, right?
Speaker 0 00:07:53 Yeah. What is every church like, they, they all come to us nowadays and say, Hey, I really love what Elevation Churches doing. I love what they're doing here. Yeah. Because they really are the king of social, uh, life church. They're really good out of, uh, Oklahoma City there. Those two guys are kind of the, the kingpins there. Now, keep in mind though, the average church in this country is between 60 and 80 people in the United States here. And so you will not be able to do what those kinds of churches do because those churches have teams dedicated to social media that are literally dozens of people. So you, with a couple of hours a week working on your social media, will not be able to do this. Uh, so I think they're a good place to look for inspiration and ideas, but don't kind of do your best to resist that copying temptation there. Yeah. You want to do exactly what they're doing and especially resist the temptation to compare yourself and your results to what some of these other churches are doing there.
Speaker 2 00:08:51 That's, that's a good point. Yeah. Definitely don't want to compare, especially those with those big guys. Right. So, but uh, good. And last but not least, we gotta have some tips for how to maintain a consistent schedule of posting of stories. Because as we've talked about with everything, whether or not it's email marketing, social media, whatever you're doing online, there needs to be consistency and it's good to stay organized with, you know, a schedule in most cases. At least in most cases. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:09:20 Yeah, I think this is really true here. Um, I would say the maximum on stories is daily. You don't wanna do more than daily because then you're just kind of getting in your own way and you're competing with yourself for attention on those kinds of things. Right. Um, I would say it, it's not bad to do it once a week to have one or two a week. I think that's also an appropriate number. I think that you could probably oversaturate people if you're doing one a day, that might be too much. Uh, but I think if you have relevant content that again, the key to it is it has to be something that drives engagement. Do not make the mistake of just using stories as an event promotion tool for your church. There. You can do that a couple of times a year for really big things, but in general it should be more about engaging and interacting with people. Yeah. And I think the right number is probably two or three would be an ideal number, but if you're doing one a week, that's great. If you're doing seven, that might be a little bit too much. I would kind of shoot for that two to three.
Speaker 2 00:10:19 That's good. That's good. Yep.
Speaker 0 00:10:21 Yeah. Good stuff. Well, I hope this has been helpful to everybody. I know Instagram stories, I was just talking to my, my kids these days, uh, just the other day and they were telling me how they primarily use stories on Instagram. They very rarely go through their feed, but part of their daily routine is clicking into the stories, uh, looking at what their friends are doing. It's a way that they stay connected. Really. I think it's the closest thing we have to what Facebook used to be. The way that you kind of stayed connected with your friends before it became a, a wasteland of all kinds of promotion. Right. And curated content. It was, it's the most organic thing that's left really in social media now. I I like that. Yeah. Hopefully this has been helpful for your church to utilize these kinds of organic mediums on Instagram there. So if it has, uh, it would mean a lot to us if you would rate, review, subscribe, if you made it to the end of this video, let us know in the comments what you see working for your church's Instagram stories. What kind of posts are you doing, do you have a post example? We'd love to hear about that. Uh, thanks for watching and we'll catch you guys next week. See.
