Digital directions

by Karen Krueger

Looking pretty good, Metro D.C. Synod! Here is a Digital Directory* of what you are doing online and some observations I collected in the process of compiling it which may help you. Using our list of congregations in the current directory:

• 99% of us have a website
• 82% of us are on Facebook (a few use groups, but most use pages)
• 35% of us are on Twitter
• 12% of us are on Instagram
• 15% of us are on YouTube
• Plus a smattering of other placement such as iTunes, Pinterest, SoundCloud and Vimeo.

“Say you pastor a church of 300 attenders. Approximately 87% of American adults use social media, which means 261 of your regular attenders use the Internet. Out of your 261 regular attenders, 193 of them use social media regularly,” is how Chris Martin broke it down in a recent Church Tech Today article.** He continued, “Pastors and ministry leaders, if you and/or your ministry do not have some sort of presence on social media, you are non-existent in a world in which over HALF of your people spend 16 minutes of every hour of their day!”

This all can get overwhelming and annoying as well as appealing. I like the broad rule of thumb that your congregation’s website is generally for people new to the church, and social media is for those who are already engaged with the congregation.***

I also found truth in a quickie list from Pro Church Tools.**** Paraphrased, it said: 1) don’t have to do it all, 2) match your online personality with your congregation’s, 3) think of social media as a conversation and listen, 4) post things useful to people, and 5) let trust build by persistence and consistency.

As for our congregations, these pointers may be ring helpful to you.

• It’s reassuring to see a city and state on a home page. Stumbling onto St. So-and-so Lutheran Church’s site and not realizing it’s actually in Oregon can lead to wasted time and goodwill.
• Obvious links to your social media presence from your homepage invite quick and easy engagement. Very friendly!
• Give your congregation five stars! Notice that section at the right when do a search for your congregation? Positive comments will be free, front and center if someone reviews you.
• Making your handle easy-to-recognize usually takes just a few steps, even if the default username contains lots of numbers and whatnot when first set up. Sometimes this is called a vanity url or custom url.
  • On Facebook – here’s one of many tutorials on choosing your url: https://youtu.be/Sc8ZD2B-r4s?t=30s
  • On YouTube – here’s one of many tutorials on choosing your url: https://youtu.be/HufCV3UhvIY (If this doesn’t make sense to you, keep poking around until you find instructions that are clearer.)
• By the way – the synod used to have varied usernames on our social media accounts (when I first set them up) until someone suggested advantages to using “metrodcelca” consistently. Took some changing, but it did streamline and simplify synod recognition!
• Even if no one is updating a digital presence your congregation established, it is STILL visible to folks searching on your congregation. You may be saying something by saying nothing. Recruit someone comfortable with the format to update it or, if now isn’t the time to contribute content to that account, consider closing it.

Go ahead, snoop around! Let me know if I don’t have accurate info for your congregation. And maybe what someone else has done will inspire you.

*The Digital Directory follows in this blog post and can be found under the “For Congregations” tab.

**”3 Rationales for Using Social Media to Promote Your Church” by Chris Martin, ChurchTechToday.com, 9/28/16.

***”How to Use Social Media Effectively in the Church” by Jay Caruso, ChurchLeaders.com, 5/23/16

****”The Ultimate Social Media Strategy For Smaller Churches,” prochurchtools.com, 2/11/13

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DIGITAL DIRECTORY (also find under the “For Congregations” tab)