Social Media Guide For Ministry

Whether you like it or not, social media is not a fad. It's here to stay. Social media has rapidly changed the way we communicate with each other, consume knowledge, and make decisions. One of the easiest and cost effective ways for your church to remain relevant and expand its reach is to establish its social media presence.

Our friend Nils Smith is the Web Pastor atCommunity Bible Church in San Antonio, TX. He has become an expert in creating a social media guide for ministry as churches engage their community online. What I appreciate most about Nils is that his knowledge comes from his hard work building Community Bible Church's online community, whichWilliam and Nils discussed in this interview. He's able to guide ministry leaders in building their own online presence because he's built one from the ground up.

Nils' first book Social Media Guide for Ministry will be released to the public soon, but Nils was kind enough to send me a pre-release edition of Social Media Guide for Ministry a couple weeks ago to review. It's the most thorough, practical, and insightful guides to social media for churches that I know of, and I wanted to share some of it with you.

Here are 5 of my favorite insights from Social Media Guide for Ministry:

• Social media allows the messages we communicate to go farther faster.
• A church or ministry's Facebook page is just as important if not more important than their website.
• One of the biggest mistakes churches make on their websites is not making it clear what time they meet/gather. This is true also for your Facebook page.
• When you post something on a social network, you are initiating a conversation. Use inspiration, information, and conversation to guide your posts to social media.
• When planning a strategy, set aside 15 minutes a week to review social insights from the past week and one hour a month to analyze the past month and restructure your strategy and goals for the coming month.

In anticipation of Nils' book release, he is hosting a virtual social media book tour beginning on Monday, March 4th, where he'll provide free social media training, best practices, and interviews with other ministry social media experts. You can read more about the Social Media Guide for Ministry book tour and register here.