Here’s what I’d actually do.
(This one’s for churches. Non-profit subscribers, I’ve got you covered next week.)
If you handed me the keys to your church’s social media accounts tomorrow, I wouldn’t post every day. I wouldn’t chase every platform. And I definitely wouldn’t keep doing whatever you’ve been doing since 2020.
Here’s what I would do instead.
Facebook, three times a week.
One post is a photo-oriented reflection about your community and the life of your church. Faces, relationships, action, emotion. The kind of image that makes someone feel like they’re missing something. One post is an outbound link to a thoughtful written piece on your website. Not a calendar item. Actual content worth reading. And one post is a share from someone else: a mission partner, a local business, a voice you trust.
Facebook is mostly an internal audience at this point. But it also functions as a legitimizing platform for newcomers who are quietly checking you out before they ever show up. And since captions are searchable across platforms now, there’s slow, quiet visibility value accumulating over time whether you’re paying attention to it or not.
Instagram is a different job entirely.
I’d show up in stories regularly, giving people a window into what’s actually happening in the community. And I’d post to the grid twice a week. The first post would be a reel or carousel of what’s happening that week. Not an invitation. A reflection of lived identity. You’re not saying “join us.” You’re saying “this is us.”
The second post would be evergreen and high(er) production value. No mediocre photos, no filler. Either encouraging something, teaching something, or making a clear statement about what you believe and why it matters.
One thing worth saying: the number of posts I’m suggesting matters less than the balance of content. If you’re spending time and resources on social media, spend them on things that actually move people.
But honestly? I’d push you toward video.
Over the past couple of years I’ve become increasingly convinced that a platform-appropriate YouTube strategy supports congregational growth far more than recycled graphics and event reminders ever will. Most churches are doing roughly the same things on social media, and most of it lands with low impact. That’s not worth your time or your volunteers’ time. If you gave me a budget and some flexibility, I’d be advocating hard for investment in video content that lives on YouTube and flows out to other platforms from there.
Social media evolves. The playbook from 2020 is not the playbook for now. If what you’re doing looks roughly the same as it did five years ago, it’s probably not helping. It might actually be working against you.
The move right now is less quantity, better quality. That’s where the real value is.
Go disrupt something,
Christen
