Connect with Your Audiences on Social Media

Social media ministers use social media platforms to communicate with and minister to their desired audiences. If we serve more than one audience we may use more than one platform to reach them.

Facebook is the social media platform used by most U.S. adults of all ages and is also used by teens. Thus it makes sense to have a ministry Facebook Page. However, if we have a special interest in reaching younger adults and teens specifically, we may want to add YouTube and Instagram platforms to our tool chest.

YouTube is a video platform and if we are creating videos for our ministry, it makes sense to have a ministry YouTube channel and post them there.

Instagram is about sharing images and videos created on our mobile devices. It is a “mobile app.” Instagram is owned by Facebook and like Facebook, we can have a personal account and up to five “business” accounts which I translate to “ministry” accounts. I have been slow to use Instagram because I create social media content on my computer for Facebook and Twitter. Creating content on my mobile device which Instagram requires seems like a lot more work to me (probably a “generational thing”). Even so, I am trying to use Instagram more for my parish clients.

There are some good points for Instagram. It is easy to share content on Instagram to a corresponding Facebook Page. It can be done automatically or manually. We have to make the connection in the Instagram Settings and it is seamless. It is also possible to do the reverse with Facebook Ads on a ministry page and its corresponding Instagram account. An Ad that is created on Facebook can be shared on the business Instagram account at the same time if we have connected the two accounts.

Which audiences are you serving on social media? Which platforms are you using? Do you want to expand to others? Which ones?

Click here for the April 2019 Report from the Pew Research Institute identifying various U.S. audiences and the most popular social media platforms.