Social media is a necessity when it comes to communication for modern churches. But how do you brainstorm new church social media post ideas seven days a week, every month of the year?
Are you worried that your social media team is burning out? (Or maybe you are the team and are concerned about your personal wellbeing!)
We know that it can be tough to keep up with your content strategy with constantly changing trends, algorithm updates, and new platforms. So in this blog, we have a 31-day plan that provides a month’s worth of church social media post ideas. This post also covers staying ahead of the game, creating a winning social strategy, and engaging your online community.
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Table of contents
How to Create Your Church Social Media Post Strategy
Over time, it’s draining to come up with church social media post ideas on the fly. That makes it challenging to stay on top of your game strategically and creatively.
The solution is to create a social media content plan. Planning won’t fence you in – it allows you to be more creative.
Here are a few quick steps to formulating your strategy.
- Define your church’s social media goals. Knowing your leadership team’s priorities and expectations will help you determine what kind of content to focus on.
- Understand your audience. Know who you are talking to, what platforms they utilize, and when they’re engaging.
- Research what other churches are doing on social media. You don’t want to be a copycat, but it can be helpful to see what’s working for others and gather new ideas.
- Determine who will be creating social media content. In most cases, you will need help with photos, graphic design, videos, writing captions, posting, and monitoring engagement (i.e., responding to comments. Do you have enough staff members and volunteers to cover, or do you need to outsource?
- Create your content calendar. This is where you’ll map out what kind of content will go on which platform and when. You can check out the 31-day plan below to help you get started with a month’s worth of ideas!
Once you have a solid social media strategy, it’s time to fill in your content. But first, let’s have a quick word on navigating social media trends as a church.
Keeping Up with Social Media Trends
Rest assured, somebody out there is busy developing the next greatest social media platform as you read this. That may excite you . . . or make you feel even more overwhelmed.
Staying up to date with social media changes, up-and coming platforms (hello TikTok), and the ever-increasing content you need to produce can be tons of pressure, but it doesn’t have to be if you maintain the right mindset.Â
So, keep the following thoughts in mind:
- You don’t have to be on every platform all the time. Figure out where your target audience is most active, and concentrate on the 2-3 most popular media (or even one) for your church to get momentum.
- Most social media platforms are copying each other. That’s good news because it means the same short video will work for Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts (and possibly others). Simply customize your video to fit the size requirements and specifications and post it on different platforms.
- You can repurpose content. Take a blog post, turn it into an infographic or short video, and share that across multiple platforms. Or you can also take a recorded sermon and create social media posts with quotes or critical points to continue the conversation online.
- Be consistent. This also means you should be realistic about the amount of content you can post regularly while maintaining a high level of quality.
- It’s not always what you say; sometimes, it’s how you say it. Posting an inspiring quote from last weekend’s sermon isn’t an innovative idea, but people still love it. Instead of trying to come up with off-the-wall ideas 24/7, focus your creative energies on fresh ways to present standard content people enjoy (memes aren’t going anywhere!). For example, design an edgy new graphic or use a trending reel format.
- Video is essential right now. Although you can mix it up, video will get the most views.
A further note on videos: you don’t need full-scale video production and professional editing for every social media post. Video can be simply a reel with phone footage, a series of photos strung together as a video, or an informal recording of someone talking into a phone.
Remember that people crave authentic connection. And videos give a complete picture with verbal and non-verbal layers of communication. Also, they’re more entertaining and engaging.
31-Day Plan of Church Social Media Post Ideas
The outline below will help you map out a month’s worth of content. Be flexible with this plan, however. First, adapt it to work for you, depending on the day of the week the month starts and your specific events and ministries.
A 31-Day Social Media Plan for Churches
- Weekend service video recap
- Notes/outline from weekend message for further study
- Highlight a church serve/volunteer team
- Graphic of upcoming events for the week/month
- Teaser video for your upcoming sermon series
- Showcase children’s ministry and what kids experience each weekend
- Time for church! Show people arriving for service
- Share a powerful sermon clip
- A reminder of the church’s mission, vision, values
- Highlight a small group and encourage people to join one
- Scripture on prayer + ask how you can pray for people
- Selfie video from the upcoming weekend speaker about what they’re excited to share
- Highlight youth ministry events, services, etc.
- Sunday service worship set list + worship highlights
- Quote from a weekend sermon
- Testimony from a volunteer or Small Group member
- Upcoming service/outreach/missions project
- Funny meme: find something applicable to a sermon series or upcoming event
- Invite post: encourage members to bring someone to church + graphic invite
- Behind-the-scenes weekend prep (kids, auditorium, worship, etc.)
- Video of someone sharing their biggest service takeaway
- Outreach service project recap + highlight wins
- Share a corporate prayer request (government, education, crisis, etc.)
- Inspiring quote
- Throwback: vintage photos or videos from early on in your church
- Service promo: Looking forward to the weekend because…
- Generations/family focus: Highlight different age groups as part of one church family
- Weekend live “man on the street” POV during church service
- Practical tips: how to apply sermon series/faith principles to daily life
- Post a funny Christian comedy clip/sermon clip
- Baptism highlight + info on upcoming baptisms
You may also substitute or add in reminders for events your church does weekly or monthly, such as:
- Mid-week adult or youth service
- Prayer meetings
- Serve projects
- Monthly or quarterly baptism
- Women’s/Men’s night or Bible study
- Special events and holidays
- Guest speakers
Content Pillar Topics for Church Social Media Post Ideas
Content pillars are commonly used in digital marketing and are the topics you feature regularly. First off, they provide an easy way to come up with social media post ideas that are relevant and engaging.
However, content pillars do more than help you brainstorm and organize your church’s social media post ideas. They also help you build a consistent message and recognizable church brand. Your “brand” isn’t just your graphic design; it’s your identity and mission.
Focusing on a few key content pillars will help you tell the story of who you are, what you value, and what you do as a church.
Your content pillars may be event-based like
- Weekend service
- Small groups
- Youth events
- Outreach projects
Or, they may be more topical or value-based. You might focus on prayer, community, the gospel, and discipleship. Then, you take events, services, and ministries and focus on how they relate to the overarching values.
Ideas for a Discipleship Content Pillar
For example, if discipleship is a content pillar, you might share:
- A post about how to study the Bible effectively
- A testimony from someone who has recently been discipled by another church member
- Highlights from a new small group that is starting up
- A video clip on what it looks like to be a disciple of Christ
- The definition of discipleship from Church leaders
- Tips on how to be a good disciple
- The benefits of discipleship
- How church members can get involved in discipleship
Ideas for a Community Content Pillar
Below are a few more church social media post ideas. For example, if community is one of your pillars, you might share:
- Testimonies from people who have found community at your Church
- Quotes about the importance of community
- Scriptures on relationship and community
- How to get plugged into a small group or ministry team
- Highlights from a Church-wide event
- A behind-the-scenes look at what volunteers do as part of a team
- Photos focused on people interacting with each other at services and events
These are just some examples of how you can expand on a topic. Let’s cover one final lens you can use when creating your social media content pillars.
How Do You Serve Your Social Media Community?
Here’s another way to view content pillars: how do you serve your audience with your social media content? This is an essential question because it’s easy to get caught up in promoting your Church and forget that social media is a two-way street.
Your content should be 80% informative, helpful, or entertaining and 20% promotional. That means for every ten posts; eight should be focused on something other than asking your audience to do something for you (like serve, sign up, or attend).
According to Oberlo, the top reason people use social media is to stay in touch with family and friends (47.6% of users). So, do followers perceive your church as “family and friends” or as a business trying to promote something to them?
The type of content you release will determine how they perceive your church, so consider how you can create content that serves. Here are five principles.
Inspiration
Your content should be inspirational. This means giving people hope, a reason to believe, and a way to see the world differently.
One church started a social media campaign called “I Believe.” Every day, they would post an inspirational message or story on their social media channels with the hashtag #ibelieve. This was an excellent way for them to serve their community and inspire hope.
Engagement
Your content should also be engaging. This means creating content people want to interact with, share, and comment on.
You can ask questions, post polls, and release quizzes. You could also create interactive graphics or videos. For example, you could ask people to submit their requests for weekend worship songs.
Entertainment
Your content doesn’t always have to be serious. In fact, it shouldn’t be! You should also release content that makes people laugh, smile, or feel good.
One church created a series of short, funny videos called ” Church Fails.” Each video would show a clip of something going wrong during a church service or event. This was a great way to engage their social media community and make them laugh.
Connection
Finally, your content should connect with people personally and help them communicate in real life (or IRL). Not only are you creating content that resonates with their emotions and speaks to their personal needs, but you should also focus on how they can connect with other people in the church.
You could do this by featuring personal stories from Church members, sharing tips on how to get involved in the Church community, or releasing graphics that show the different ways people can get involved.
Information
Although inspiration and entertainment are fun, people rely on social media for news and updates. So, you can use social media to let people know what events are coming up or direct them to sign-ups or web pages with more information.
While you don’t want your social media to be a non-stop event promotion billboard, updates are helpful for your members.
In Conclusion
So, how do you put all these principles into practice? It starts by looking at your Church’s mission and goals, creating a plan, and establishing your content pillars. Then, the sky is the limit regarding church social media post ideas! Use the 31-day social media calendar to help you start planning.
We’d love to hear your thoughts; share your favorite creative social media idea below!
