Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 In today's episode, we discuss seven social media scheduling tips that will help your church stay consistent. You know, a lot of churches, when they think about social media, their plan is I'm just going to post whatever I think of something good to post. And what typically happens is nothing ever gets posted. So today we're going to give you seven ideas. One for each day of the week of things you can be posting on your church's social media account. We hope this conversation helps you reach more people and grow. This is the read-write podcast.
Speaker 1 00:00:43 You're listening to the read-write podcast. The show dedicated to helping pastors and church leaders reach people the right way, hosted by me, Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my cohost Ian Hyatt. We're here to help your church see more visitors and grow.
Speaker 0 00:01:11 Hey guys. Welcome. We'll do the read-write podcast episode number 60. I am your host Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my cohost
Speaker 2 00:01:20 In Hyatt. Hey Thomas 60 hum. We're officially a senior citizen podcast.
Speaker 0 00:01:25 It'll be a good, a good one today for people to, we're talking about seven social media schedule ideas to help your church stay consistent. This is kind of a continuation of last week's episode, where we talked about social media strategies. And one of those strategies was for us to build a really consistent schedule because I think that's one of the things I hear the most from churches as they're looking at their, their social media, uh, kind of their processes that they, they forget to post, or they don't know what to post. And I just think having a schedule, some of that'll help you kind of, uh, keep consistent that way is really helpful for people. What do you think?
Speaker 2 00:02:03 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, we've, we've consulted with a lot of churches that are just struggling as to, uh, you know, what to post and when and all of that. So, uh, following a schedule will keep you on track.
Speaker 0 00:02:15 Yeah. I think that some people go into, into social media for their church and they, they think that the right way to do it is that whenever I think of something interesting, that's when we'll post, uh, or maybe, you know, if you followed our advice last week and you have a champion and maybe their idea is that whenever I think of something interesting, or we have some good pictures from an event, or we have something interesting to post that's when we'll do it. So, um, I have just found that my life and the life of churches, oftentimes isn't interesting enough for that kind of a strategy to work. You'll just find that a lot of times you, you forget to post or you'll, you'll get to the end of the day and say, Hey, I don't really know what, what thing I should post today.
Speaker 0 00:02:57 Right? So that's why we want to give people, I guess, for each day of the week, as we talk today, it's, these are posts that you could put really, they work on most channels. Uh, so I think we, if you're going to use one social media channel, it probably ought to be Facebook because that's still is the most widely used channel. Although, um, you know, they also own Instagram, that's kind of the millennial channel and then there's Tik TOK for the gen Z channel. And these will work on multiple channels, but you know, we're going to approach it mostly as if these are things you could post on Facebook. It makes a lot of sense on there. Uh, but yeah, understand that this could be posted on any channel, but what we want to do is give people a, a post for each day of the week.
Speaker 0 00:03:40 Um, you see these sometimes where they'll have a post that, um, they kind of go, they do the same post every week at a church. And I'm not saying that every church should use these titles when they do the post. Uh, but you know, you don't have to let everybody know. It can be kind of something just that, you know, on this day of the week, we always post this kind of content. Uh, and I just think it'll really help churches out. So why don't you go ahead and kick us off with the first one today? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:04:05 First one is of course, Sunday, and we'll call this sermon Sunday, naturally, obviously most churches preach on on Sunday. And if you can pull it off, this is a good data post your sermon on social media. And obviously when we say, if you can pull it off, there is, I mean, some work to be done and getting it all edited and uploaded and all of that. But it's, I think it's good to do that on. Even if you weren't posting a sermon on social media, you should probably try to do that anyway and get it on your website and everywhere else. So, um, yeah, I think it's natural to post that on there and yeah, and get some good feedback on it. And just some buzz generators,
Speaker 0 00:04:45 Oh, every pastor loves Serban feedback, especially online. That's the best place to get it. You know, usually when people are leaving the church and shaking your hands or giving you hugs, whenever your church culture is the servant feedback is generally positive people. Aren't very bold when they're face-to-face with somebody, but, uh, feedback on sermons online. That's a whole nother story there. So yeah, I don't know. That's, that's part of the reason, I guess, but yeah, I think this is just the perfect thing to do on Sundays. People have come to expect it and I find that most churches are actually doing this already. They're taking whether they're doing a live stream or they're recording each week, they try to get that up there on Sunday. So that, that is the post for the day there. Yeah. So this is what to me is kind of a no brainer.
Speaker 0 00:05:29 I think that that's something, if there is one day that churches consistently post it's on Sunday. Uh, so I think that your, your sermon is a really good thing for that. Uh, I think the thing to keep in mind though, is it's important that we talked about this last week too, is that being social is important on social media. So don't think you can just post your sermon. Uh, you probably ought to have people like your, your commenting army ready to get in there to, to kind of give feedback on it. If someone comments or says, Hey, that was a good point. Or, Hey, I need prayer about this, or I need to work in this, have people there to kind of be social with them and kind of engage with them
Speaker 2 00:06:07 Or have them be ready to delete something that you don't want there. So whatever I said, whatever I said, feedback, I more probably meant a comment and, but to be ready for comments. And, uh, and I think most churches can expect something positive, but yeah, there will, like you said, there might be some, uh, there's a little more bravery out there for the negative Nancy's, uh, to be able to post on there. So yeah, you definitely want someone monitoring it and moderating it. They have to be on
Speaker 0 00:06:33 The troll patrol, patrol, patrol, taking care of them all there. So that's it. Well, good. Let me hit the next day Monday. Uh, we think a good idea for Monday is messaged clip Monday. Uh, so this is a little bit different. Um, it's actually quite a bit different from a sermon. Sunday is usually with a message, some kind of a sermon you give there's something that stands out. Uh, maybe one point you're really trying to drive home, maybe an interaction that happens there. Maybe there was a, an illustration you wanted to call attention to, but this is something that you can, you have a little bit more time from Sunday. And in most cases, churches are recording their Sunday services. And now there are so many great tools to, in a matter of a few minutes, you can take a clip from that message that you recorded or the sermon from Sunday.
Speaker 0 00:07:21 And you could maybe add some background music, uh, maybe, uh, maybe even some little graphics that kind of come over the top of it, that kind of stuff, and make a short little clip of the sermon from Sunday. That is a really good post. There are a lot of churches that are really good at this now days where you see kind of that, you know, you think of pastors like Steven Furtick and elevation church and how they really are good. Yeah. He's the king of the one-liner right. He's so good at, at getting that one point. You can remember it and keep it in your head and have it with you all week. So maybe that's the kind of point you have, like a 62nd video that really drives home your highlight from that sermon the day before there. So that's what we're thinking with this.
Speaker 2 00:08:01 Yeah. My church does that too. Um, so, uh, our church is known for having a great preaching pastor. He's very well known and probably not as well known as Steven Furtick, but, uh, he's up there. But, uh, but I guess I say that it not, it just he's known for those one-liners as well. Uh, and, uh, and we have different staff that, that kinda, uh, we've done it a little bit differently. Uh, but we have different staff like pastors that kind of put that one thing that stuck out to them on social media, like that one line or point that was made. Um, so it's a bit of a variation of that, but, uh, but it's, it's pretty cool. I always catch it and I'm like, oh yeah, that did stand out to me too. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:08:42 That that's good. Because a lot of times when the church itself, like the church account is putting that out there. I think it feels kind of like the pastor self-promoting sometimes. Right. So if like, so is it you're saying it's from the church account, but it says it's from
Speaker 2 00:08:59 The church account, but it's another pastor
Speaker 0 00:09:01 Or from another pastor talking about the speakers, like what they liked most about the message. That's a really good idea. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:09:10 It would you're right. It would be kind of funny coming from the pastor. Hey, this was, this is my favorite part. My favorite part.
Speaker 0 00:09:16 Say it again for you. Yeah. That's it. Exactly. So cool. Hit the next one for us.
Speaker 2 00:09:22 Yeah. The next one's testimony Tuesday. Um, and I think this is kind of cool. Uh, it's a good transition. We just talked about sermon Sunday and message clip, which is more about what the pastor said. Now you get someone else like a member, you shift gears and, and testimonies are great on social media because it, first of all, it backing back up to what I was saying. It's good to have someone other than the pastor share something that God did in their life, how they were impacted at your church, right. Um, something like that. And, uh, and it shifts gears from the message and more about the members. Um, and so that's a great thing to have. And then the, also a good thing about it as well is just that people get to when it's a testimony and that resonates that spurs on a lot of comments and then a lot. And it makes that testimony viral, uh, people get to apply it to themselves. You get to, someone gets to say, Hey, that's awesome. You know, God did this in my life too. So testimonies are really, for years now have been a really good thing that they just, they fit really well with, uh, social media and Facebook. Well, for a lot
Speaker 0 00:10:27 Of years, they've been a really good thing. Testimonies. They've always been social on Facebook specifically. Yeah. I think there's a few reasons why they're really, they're really powerful. Cause I think like you were saying, it's, it takes it from like, you know, for lack of better, like the clergy, everybody expects the clergy to have a really good experience. Like their, their pastor is always going to tell them, you know, their, their testimonies and good things are happening. But when it's coming from the mouth of somebody else that maybe they relate to more, maybe pastors, I know that's one of our challenges is, or sometimes we're hard to relate to for people. So if it's coming from someone that is like them or has had a similar kind of experience, it really goes a long way. So a couple of things to say about this too, is that I think that it is great if these can be video, but they don't necessarily have to be videos.
Speaker 0 00:11:19 So I think sometimes you could have just a really short testimony. I wouldn't recommend like a, like a, you know, seven paragraph kind of a testimony written, but I think maybe, you know, three or four sentences with a picture, it has to have something graphic in it. But with a picture of the person sharing the story, that that can be also very powerful. And a lot of times it's easier than doing the filming and doing that kind of stuff that goes with actually filming a testimony. Another thing too is I want to broaden it. It's so when we say testimony, it doesn't necessarily mean how came to faith in Jesus. Right? Like a lot of times we think of testimony is that's my testimony. That's how I made the decision to follow Jesus. That's what I was before. Here's what I have now. And those elements are important kind of a before and after story, I think testimonies are important for all of your ministries that happen.
Speaker 0 00:12:10 Yeah. So like, if someone is on your prayer team, them saying how, Hey, I've been going to prayer team for all these weeks and you know, it's great to pray for other people, but God's doing something new in me or your children's ministry. I know that there's always a shortage of children's ministry workers, having someone get up there. Yeah. All these things. So this is, this is the impact I have on others. This is what it's done in my heart. Those are really powerful testimonies too. So just to broaden it a little bit, I think that's a, a way people can be thinking. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:43 The thing I'll say about the small groups too, that's something in my church does really often because we, I think most churches want to grow their small group ministry. That's where deeper relationships are formed and community and all of that. So those are really good because I think that's, that's something to where, you know, people have a lot of people show up church on Sunday, but that they're not quite ready to make that step to join a small group. And so when they see other people like them, that kind of share the before and after and what they've experienced there, I know that's been a big growth tool for our small groups. Yeah. It's such a great
Speaker 0 00:13:15 Idea. Helps helps people get over that hump of saying, you know what, this person did it. I think I can too. So I think that's good. Well, good. Let me get the next one. It is the what's up Wednesday. So this is where you take the chance to share what we would call announcements or events that are coming up or what's happening at the church. And I want to make a real strong, uh, I want to really be clear about this. This is only happening once a week, we waited until the fourth one, let's say once a week, kind of an occurrence. And this is one of the biggest mistakes I see churches make on their social accounts is they do their message on Sunday and then seven other days they do what's up Wednesday. Basically. They just talked about, Hey, get involved with this and come to this.
Speaker 0 00:14:01 And so it's your social media platforms must be different from what's in your church bulletin. That's not the exact same thing. It's, it's not the same as your calendar, right? This is, it is a tool you can use for that. And I think appropriately to do it once a week, that seems to make the most sense to me. So for instance, even for our business, you know, so we have active social media platforms. We don't put out like, you know, buy our stuff, buy our stuff, come to our, you don't submit a leave, that kind of stuff all the time and all of our social media posts because people start to just tune you out. So if you're just talking about, Hey, get involved, get involved, come to this, do this, everything you're doing on social media is making someone go to something in person it's not really social media. It's more of just like an advertising board there. So what's up Wednesday, I think a really good tool, uh, to remind you that I'm only supposed to do this once a week. Right. So let's think of what is that super important thing that we need to highlight this week and not try to highlight seven things on seven different days. Yeah. What do you have to add?
Speaker 2 00:15:05 It's midweek, you know, that's a good time for it, right? Because I mean, that's a lot of churches, uh, that's a good that's when people are kind of in the middle of their work week or whatever, they're kind of starting to think more towards the weekend or whatever. And, uh, it's just a good time to, to update people on what's going
Speaker 0 00:15:21 On. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. So yeah, what's up Wednesday, that's your once a week opportunity.
Speaker 2 00:15:26 It's a fun one. I'll tackle the next one. It's throwback Thursday. So, uh, and there are a lot of people who've been doing this on their own social media accounts, whether or not it's an old, uh, picture of yourself or, um, you know, some old song or something way back in the day. You know, I know on Spotify, they have throwback Thursday, old songs and those things. So, uh, but this could be really fun because this is where you can really, uh, make it fun for the staff and members alike. Um, you know, where it could be, you know, a picture of your pastor seven years ago before his hair was gray or when he was, uh, uh, I know for our pastor is pretty funny. He's, uh, he was ex LSU football player, uh, and, uh, he's a big guy, but he used to be really overweight.
Speaker 2 00:16:07 So everyone gets a kid and he's lost a ton of weight and he's gotten in shape. And it's pretty funny. Often they'll throw a picture, we'll throw a picture throwback picture of back when he was like, you know, 200 pounds heavier than he is now, uh, or him in a church potluck, uh, during that time. And there's always some chuckles in the audience cause, uh, and it's okay to chuckle now because he's in a lot better shape. So stuff like that can be fun. Uh, you know, it's fun to, to throw back in, it just kind of reminds you of where your church has come from too, right?
Speaker 0 00:16:36 Yeah, absolutely. So I have to see some of those pictures of your pastor. I want to, you have to send me one of those from 200 pounds ago. I'd love to see it. Um, so I think that the key word in what you were saying, Ian is the fun part is that so often we tend to try to be really serious with our social media platforms. And I think these are really good. These next couple are a really good reminders. I guess that social media is supposed to be something that's enjoyable and that people would want. And like, not to say that like your messages aren't enjoyable and you know, testimonies, aren't enjoyable. They're not, I don't think like we usually aren't fun with those, right. So I want to just put everybody at ease. It is okay to have fun on social media, not everything has to be hyper spiritual and so social.
Speaker 0 00:17:27 It can be social. Yeah. It's and again, you know, I love an encounter with the holy spirit like everybody else does. I love to be, you know, I don't know that like conviction, I wouldn't call it fun, but I appreciate it when I get it into my life. Like the next guy guests. But man, I think this is such a good reminder that your social media platforms can be fun. And that's what throwback Thursday is. So I think throwback stuff from the life of the church, uh, maybe, uh, if your church's historic showing, uh, pictures of what even the building used to look like, but I think more than anything people, I think we really enjoy seeing people, uh, before, and not just your lead pastor, it's not all about your lead pastor. You have other members of the church, maybe what the youth group looked like 15 years ago. And now all these youth group members have kids and they're married and you know, they, it's really cool to see some of these kinds of things for people. So it's fun and people will connect with it. People will really are. They're very likely to share it if they find themselves in one of those kinds of throwback images there. So yeah. I love the idea of throwback Thursday.
Speaker 2 00:18:34 It's good stuff. Let's just talk on the next one.
Speaker 0 00:18:36 Yep. We'll do it is fun. Question Friday. Hey, another fun item, fun question Friday. Uh, this one is a little bit different for a lot of churches, but this is one where you can actually, and I want to give you permission to do this. As you have permission to just post something that has nothing to do with your church at all whatsoever. Like, so some examples that we came up with were like, it's okay to post something like, what is your favorite flavor of ice cream, right? That that's an, and in fact, if I were doing it, I'd probably write what is the best flavor of ice cream or just that way. It's like a little bit more controversial people kind of think, well, it's not a, my favorite. It says, I can, I can defend that this is the best or even better. You can say, what is, uh, what is the best flavor of ice cream and why is it chocolate peanut butter? Like why you can say kind of put it out there, kind of tempt people to get in there and comment
Speaker 2 00:19:37 Like the other one we came up with who is the best superhero. And then I would say, why is Superman the best superhero? That's what I would say. And then I would hear from all the people that don't like Superman and why they
Speaker 0 00:19:48 Don't think he is, it's about getting a it's about getting conversation. And this brings up for something really important. It's just that the main goal of social media again, is to be social and to start conversations. And this has a lot of reasons. There's a lot of reasons why this is, I think what it does is if you have a track record of consistently seeing lots of comments, lots of interaction with your posts, Facebook and the other algorithms are more likely to show your posts in the future for your what's up Wednesday or your sermon Sunday, they'll show these other posts that are much more likely to do that because they'll say, oh, this guy, well, he was commenting about his favorite superhero a couple of days ago. He'll probably want to see what these guys are posting on Sunday. We'll be giving a gospel message, you know, those. So it really, it helps to build in other areas, but I don't know. What else do you have to add to this one on fun question Friday?
Speaker 2 00:20:40 Oh, much. I think it's just a good point. I mean, I think a lot of social media has gotten away from being social, right. Especially in our, so I mean, your church can be, uh, just kind of reverse that curse if you will. And, uh, and, and be social, be fun. And it just, I think, you know, people have just the impression that a lot of people, especially like the unchurched or those that maybe have not been in church for a while. And, and I'm, I'm consulting with so many pastors right now that, uh, you know, before the pandemic had a lot more people than are showing up now, and a lot of people have fallen away from church after that. And so, and a lot of that is just, you know, you want to be less serious, make it fun again for them, you know? And, and, and so I think it's just a good thing for, uh, in, during these times, uh, a good reminder of churches to just make it fun and lighthearted people need more light heart. They need more lightheartedness these days.
Speaker 0 00:21:34 So it's absolutely it. So we'll tackle
Speaker 2 00:21:36 The next one, uh, Saturday last but not least is at least is scripture graphic Saturday. So I think that this is a, this is a really good thing you're gearing up for Sunday. Right. And so it's a good thing to put out a good scripture graphics, something that's going to catch the eye, maybe, um, kind of preview what's to come. Um, so that's a good thing to do.
Speaker 0 00:21:59 Yep. No, it definitely is. So I think having, uh, a scripture graphic, just for those that don't know, it's usually a square kind of an image. These are great on Facebook, but even better on Instagram and those kinds of channels that are more image-based, but it is a graphic, usually some kind of an engaging photo with a scripture written in a creative way, uh, maybe a unique font or a set of fonts there. Uh, and these are not hard to do, uh, with a site like Canva. Uh, you can pop something like this out in a matter of, uh, two or three minutes. In most cases, they have hundreds of templates. They're not called scripture graphics, but they're called quote graphics usually. So you would take a quote graphic template. There are hundreds of them. You can combine them with photos, you could put photos from your church, you can use stock photos, but just something that would grab someone's attention with the photography and draw them into the scripture.
Speaker 0 00:22:52 And the great thing about these is that people love sharing scripture graphics. Sometimes it feels kind of, uh, you know, it's, it feels like if you're doing this once a week, it feels like it's kind of excessive, or maybe you're not personally inspired by them, but I can tell you, even as not, we, we don't run a church social media account, but even at the retried account, scripture graphics are some of our most shared content that we have out there. So they are really, really important, I think. Good to do. Uh, besides that, I would say that they are, um, they really can kind of grease the wheels a little bit for what's going to happen on Sunday, like you were saying. So if you're going to be talking on the prodigal son, maybe you find one scripture from that passage that really you're going to hit home on the next day. And it starts to get people ready to, to kind of hear that word that next day there, or remind
Speaker 2 00:23:41 Them that, Hey, oh yeah, I do need to go to church. I need to hear the message. So yeah,
Speaker 0 00:23:45 It is a good reminder to maybe not in the scripture graphic, but in the text that goes around it, you're getting every post, you have the graphic, but you also get to put some body text in there. You know, we're going to be talking more about this tomorrow. Can't wait to see you there. Something to that effect. That goes a long way. Yeah. Good stuff, man. Awesome. Well, good. I hope this has been helpful. I think there's a few things that really we need to, uh, we need to remember as we look at this, is that having a schedule, uh, is one of the most important things you can do. So, uh, we talked last week. If you haven't listened to that episode already go back to last week, episode 59, we talked about building the whole strategy. This is just one part of that overall strategy.
Speaker 0 00:24:25 Um, the other great thing about a schedule though, too, is you can use a tool like a buffer or something like that to help you consistently get this content out. So if you have your content ready a week in advance, you could spend an hour or two on Sunday, maybe when you're posting the message and you get that, that message clip ready. You can get your entire week lined up with posts and ready to go and kind of get that done there once and for all. So anyway, that's all we have for this week, though. We really appreciate you guys. If this has been helpful to you, please rate review, subscribe. Thank you so much for being a part of our retried family. And we hope to catch you guys next week.
Speaker 3 00:25:06 <inaudible> thanks
Speaker 1 00:25:09 For listening to the reach right podcast. We hope this episode will help you reach people the right way, looking for more resources for your church. Check us out online and reach right studios.com. If this episode has been helpful to you, it would mean the world to us. If you would rate, review and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening. And we'll see you next week.
Speaker 3 00:25:37 Ready to get <inaudible>.
