social ministry

SUMMARY In this episode, Nick sits down and fleshes out a weekly social media posting calendar. How often do you post? What types of content and ideas can you post? How frequently? Where and what? This is your FREE 2023 posting guide! To gain access to the FREE "Have I already RUINED my TikTok account? - A guide to posting TikToks from start to finish" next week, subscribe to Nick's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9pjecCnd8FVFCenWharf2g ShowNotes and Transcripts available at http://www.hybridministry.xyz Or come hangout on TikTok at: https://www.tiktok.com/@clasonnick SHOWNOTES Previous Episodes Mentioned: TIKTOK POSTING IDEAS https://www.hybridministry.xyz/023 ROB'S INTERVIEW https://www.hybridministry.xyz/024 TIMECODES 00:00-01:22 Intro 01:22-02:48 YouTube and Podcast Strategy 02:48-11:33 TikTok, Reels and Shorts Strategy 11:33-15:10 Instagram Feed and Facebook Page Strategy 15:10-16:30 Instagram and Facebook Stories Strategy 16:30-17:42 Facebook Groups Strategy 17:42-18:49 Outro TRANSCRIPT Nick Clason (00:01): Hey, what is up everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hybrid Ministry podcast. I am your host, as always, Nick Clason. Excited to be with you. And in today's episode, I wanted to give you your custom 2023 social media framework for your ministry, whatever style ministry you lead. Uh, I am pulling this directly from, um, the ministry that I am a part of. And just so you know, I am a youth pastor, and so it may be a little bit different for you, and you may make a few tweaks based on the area of ministry that you lead or if you're navigating an entire church, uh, social media. But honestly, like, I think, um, some of the things I might say, if you're leading your entire church student minister or your entire church social media, you might think that's a little bit too silly. Can't be whatever. Nick Clason (00:56): Um, I'll just encourage you, like, I think people jump on social media to be entertained. And so, um, even if it feels a little bit, uh, student ministry esque, like, I think people are gonna find it fun, especially if you're incorporating your pastor or other, like church people, parishioners members, like, uh, it can be fun. So, uh, hang with me, but here's my recommended 2023 social media strategy for you. All right, so the first thing I would recommend is post all of your sermon content to YouTube. If you don't have a YouTube channel, create one. Um, if you live stream already, just use that. If you're not live streaming, um, and you, and, or you don't wanna pay for the, uh, the equipment that it takes, then I would recommend pre-filing your talks, your message content. You can shave the content down from, you know, typically a sermon's 25 to 45 minutes on the longer end, maybe even longer in some of your cases, if you can shave your message down to somewhere between 12 and 17 minutes, that's the sweet spot for YouTube's videos. Nick Clason (02:03): It also lets you have whoever your primary communicator in is speak directly to camera, which is another thing that YouTube is gonna prioritize and promote, um, and make more. You know, uh, he help you index better, uh, in your, uh, in your YouTube search. Um, and so then if you pre film all of your stuff, you can post that to YouTube, um, as well as it gives you the option to rip off just the audio and save your mp3, uh, out as a podcast, which, um, I would a hundred percent recommend your church starting an audio sermon podcast. And that can come from your custom YouTube channel or, uh, uh, shorter form video content, right? For, uh, like the pre-filed thing, all right? Once you have the bedrock of your weekly messages on some sort of rhythm, uh, then from there you're going to be looking at your TikTok, Instagram, Facebook reels, and YouTube shorts strategy. Nick Clason (03:05): Here's the thing that's unique. In the past, uh, social media would ding you if you posted something, um, for Instagram on Facebook because they're built differently. Or if you posted something for Twitter on, uh, TikTok, right? Like, they're not, they're not the same social media platforms. However, we now live in a world where every single platform is trying to catch up and keep up with TikTok. And so here, soon I'm going to be releasing a video and an ebook. You can head to the show notes, or you can go to, uh, my YouTube channel, my TikTok, um, or hybrid ministry.xyz to grab a copy of that. I believe that's going to be launching a week from today. When this episode drops, it is your custom how to build a TikTok from scratch 2023 guide. So if you've never started on TikTok yet, uh, create an account, and then this will help you walk step by step through filming, editing, posting all on your phone, uh, so that you can make it, um, you can make it happen from there. Nick Clason (04:06): But everything in 2023 is going to be all in on short form video content. Facebook is, Instagram is YouTube, shorts is back, and so is TikTok. So in all of these platforms, you get the unique privilege to be able to record vertical video, short form video content, and post it in, in four places all at the same time. And so you really have a unique opportunity as a content creator, as a church social media manager that you've maybe never had before in the past. Now leading into 2023, it's all about short form videos. So go all in on it. And here's the thing, if you are pre-filing or live streaming your videos, it only gives you a base of content. You can go there and you can start from there to start pulling out sermon nuggets and content that you can post out to these short form video algorithms. Nick Clason (05:00): So here is what your, uh, posting strategy is gonna be. I'm going to recommend that you post five, uh, or I'm sorry, three times a day, five days a week. All right? So pick two days to be your quote unquote weekend. Um, I make my weekend Friday and Saturday. And church, I, I typically am off Fridays and Saturdays. So I post three times on Sundays, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Okay, pick whatever that is that the, someone out there like Gary Veer or something might tell you that that's a bad, uh, strategy. You should be posting every single day. And if you want to and have the margin bandwidth to do it, do it, but honestly, don't like take your days off, right? Like, that's that I, my boss challenged me. He's like, stop working on Fridays, bro. And I was like, you know what? You're right. Nick Clason (05:42): I'm not gonna do that. So I'm not gonna worry about it. Sometimes I post if I'm on TikTok and having fun just myself, um, to my ministry page, but more often than not, I'm not, all right. So, um, you're gonna be posting three times a day, five days a week. You figure out what your, your week is as a social media church ministry manager. Um, but you're gonna be posting, uh, Monday or whatever your day is, right? In the morning, afternoon, evening, morning, afternoon, evening. And the way that I notify myself is I just put it in Google Calendar. I'm sure there's a social media app up there, base camp, or some like project management software that can work. The only thing that really like alerts me to something that I'm paying attention to, i e my phone, um, is a Google Calendar, uh, invite. Nick Clason (06:23): So I just, I set that in there, it notifies me, and boom, off I go. So, um, you're gonna be shooting for 15 pieces of short form video content. If you're pre-filing, or if you've been live streaming, I want you to get three sermon clips, two of your pastor or whoever talking a short 32nd to one minute clip, go into whatever video software you have and shave it down. So it's 16 by nine. And, uh, find a good application piece of content. One way I do that is I like to, I like to go towards the end, um, and go more towards the application side of things that find better, um, more maybe applicable pieces of of sermon content to, to pull out there. Another option you can do is you can take like a stock video, um, with like a mountain landscape or something like that, and then some nice music behind it, and then put the quote, a quote from your pastor, uh, on there. Nick Clason (07:13): Uh, and you, I'm sure you've seen this before, but like, uh, tweet screenshots, they perform really well for whatever reason. Um, then I'm also gonna have you do a ministry recap. So if you're a youth group, for example, uh, get some short videos on Wednesday night, throw it in a TikTok, do an auto cut, and create a recap of whatever the night is. I post that every single Wednesday night. If you meet on Sunday nights, do that, uh, if you're a children's pastor or whatever, like do that on Sunday afternoons, okay? Whatever, whatever works in the rhythm of your thing. If you're overall church, uh, social media manager gets some clips from Sunday morning and post that Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening, um, as just a recap of great week today, loves hanging out, love seeing all the people, all the smiling faces, all that type of stuff. Nick Clason (07:55): Do three games. Um, couple episodes ago we dropped nine ideas for TikTok, short form video content that is, uh, there was all kinds of different things in there. Also, my most recent interview with Rob Shepherd, I'll drop both of those links in the show notes so that you can find those. But those are just full of ideas. You can follow him, uh, to get some great ideas of things that you can do. But three games, challenges, competitions, things that you're asking your audience. Who do you think, what do you think? How's this gonna end? Right? Like, give them a chance to interact with your algorithm, with your content, have them start commenting in on those videos and stuff like that. Um, I want you to do a one blind ranking a week. I'm sure if you've ever been on TikTok, you've seen those things where they'll put a filter on your forehead and it'll just filter through. Um, they have, I, I literally, I went into TikTok just a minute ago in the search, and I, I searched blind ranking. And so in that, you can find like restaurant blind rankings, movie blind rankings, shoe blind rank, like all kinds of different, like brands Nick Clason (08:54): Of things. And what you do is you just do one through five, um, on your screen, and as they come through, you try and rank where it's gonna be, not knowing what's gonna come next. That's where the fun kind of falls into it, right? So like, if you're doing fast food, you start with subway, where are you gonna put it? One through five mm, 3, 4, 2. You don't wanna give it to one. There's gotta be something better, right? Like that's kind of the whole thing. And then people can just laugh and have a fun time watching you interacting with it and whatever the case may be. Um, so do one blind ranking a week. Do two DeVos, two DeVos that are either attached to the message, but not exactly like clips from the message. So this is your pastor sitting down and talking directly to the camera, expounding upon it, or do two standalone devotional contents. Nick Clason (09:36): Find something about prayer. Find something about idols in your heart. Find something about rest and boundaries, and just do two, uh, DeVos and make 'em like a mini-series. That part one, part two. Um, I want you to do two spiritual practice videos. You can do like a, Hey, read scripture with me. You can do a guided prayer, you can do a meditation thing. Uh, you can do a verse memory type of challenge and all of that. Just find creative ways to do that into the camera. Um, that right there, if you add all those up. So three sermon clips, a ministry recap video, three different games, one blind ranking, two DeVos, two spiritual practice. That, that's 12 right there. You're looking for 15 total pieces of content. What that leaves you with is three trends, trending audio, trending dances, things like that. Um, and attach those to just funny things. Nick Clason (10:22): Invites come to church, right? Um, you can do p o v point of view type videos, um, or you can do, uh, those can also be things that you're going to be promoting towards future events. And in student ministry world, uh, d nows winter weekends, camps, like those types of things. I'm, I'm hitting stuff on camp, basically all summer long or leading up into it, right about like missing out on camp or point of view. Middle school boys cabinet smells like poop in here. Like, uh, all, you know, meeting someone in a small group for the first time, and there's, I don't know if you've ever heard that audio, but it's like, I do cuss a little. Oh yeah, what's your favorite word? Mm, probably crap. Or now there's a, a Christmas one, right? It's like probably cotton head and any moins, right? And so you could like, play around with something funny like that, like POV joining a new small group. Nick Clason (11:07): And if you're a church, uh, a church-wide social media manager in your fall launch, big push into getting people into small groups or connect groups or Sunday school classes, whatever the case may be. Just use something like that as a silly thing. You can be the primary person on camera. You can get your pastor, you can get some volunteers, you can get students, you can get teenagers. They can help especially help you find some of those trends. Uh, also, so then that's all of your short form video content. That's TikTok, Facebook, Instagram reels, YouTube shorts. All right? So then beyond that, what are you gonna do on your Instagram feed? Okay? So on your Instagram feed and your Facebook page, if you're a church-wide social media manager, um, if you are a youth pastor, uh, Facebook page I would say is optional. If you're, uh, running it for a whole whole church, you probably want to do it and just let it be duplicate of what's going on on your Instagram. Nick Clason (11:57): Um, Mondays, do a meme Monday, curate memes all throughout the week. Save them in a Google Drive or share Dropbox folder. Put a bunch of people on it. Like, Hey, you, when you're on social media and you find funny things, post a meme, um, screenshot it and drop it in here for me. You can have a cover thing that just says me Monday, or you can just post 10, um, in a carousel post. And they're just a funny way to engage and get people laughing and all kinds of fun stuff. Tuesday, post a message recap clip from whatever your most recent thing is. If you preach last Wednesday, post on Tuesday, preach on Sunday, all right? Or you can maybe flip flop. What I'm gonna suggest for Thursday, if you're a Wednesday, uh, youth, youth ministry, um, but post your, uh, uh, your reel, um, to your profile grid, okay? Nick Clason (12:42): When you're posting reels, I recommend not posting everything to your profile grid. You don't wanna flood it too much, and I'm gonna tell you why here in just a minute. But for this one, I do want you to post it to your profile grid. So crop it ice, maybe get another photo of your pastor preaching as your, uh, cover. So people look on your profile. It looks like a, a photo, but then they click it and it's actually a video. Put captions into it. Um, follow my, my ebook that I'm gonna drop next week, um, and go, you know, go make that happen Wednesday. Um, if you're a youth ministry, I would do a recap video right there of your night. If not, um, if you're a church, maybe make that, uh, your Sunday post. Um, and then reserve, you know, some of the other things that I'm doing, uh, here later, like you could do, um, like a worship Wednesday or something like that on an Instagram reel, uh, Thursday, that was, that's where I would put a spiritual practice post again. Nick Clason (13:32): So this is a Rio. So all the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, all reels. Okay? So the rest of the reels that you're posting those days, they're not posted to your profile grid, but your message recap, your Wednesday night recap, and now your spiritual practice post all those select on, which I think Instagram, when you're posting it in the post feature, um, it automatically selects post profile grid. So you're gonna have to select those off as you do those. Um, so go ahead, drop that in on Thursday, spiritual practice, read scripture with me, guided prayer, meditation, scripture, memory accountability, journaling, some type of thing there. Um, just challenging your people. Hey, pause for a minute, take 60 seconds, meditate on this first. The last thing I would do there, um, is on Saturday or Sunday morning, do some sort of, uh, invitation post invite to church. Like, Hey, I'm saving a seat for you. Nick Clason (14:21): Or tag someone who you want to come to church with you, or Sunday is the best day of the week, or something like that. Some sort of reminder like, Hey, we got a big event coming. It's church we did every week, right? But we got a thing coming up. Wanna see you wanna see you. So all that can be done on your Instagram feed and your Facebook feed. Um, and if you'll notice, most of your real content is going to help supply your feed stuff as well. Okay? So, uh, you're making 15 pieces of content back on the, the TikTok, Instagram real shorts and stuff like that. You're like, I don't know if I can keep up with it. You're kind of, you're probably dropping a lot of the static image stuff that you've been doing and you've been posting. And if you already have a framework for that, like a photographer or a graphics person or whatever, making those things, keep some of those going and filter those in and just pull them back a little bit more and then push forward more of the short form video type content. Nick Clason (15:12): Finally, um, on your stories in Instagram, I would, uh, I would say post reels, right? So you post reels and then go to your reel and click the share button. Share the story. So for example, if you're doing like a competition, like, um, whip cream or sour cream, who got the sour cream? Post that, and then just do a poll sticker on top of it, who do you think got it? Was it this person, this person, or this person? That's a way to use story framework while also letting the real content supplement what's going on in the stories. And it's going to keep, um, your story stuff fresh, but you're, again, you're not creating more or additional content, right? Another thing I do, me, Monday I post it and I do a slider and I say, which one was your favorite? 1, 2, 3, professors command nine, 10. Nick Clason (15:55): And they can slide it there to say, which of the memes is your favorite? If they're a story, first person, they're gonna find your thing on stories. But then like that one, right? It's gonna say, Hey, which was your favorite? And it's gonna cause them, if they're gonna want to interact with it, they have to click on the post to go see, swipe on the carousel, go back into your story and then slide. It's a lot of interaction with your account that's gonna index you higher in your story ranking for people who are, uh, looking for your stuff or see your stuff, if they're interacting fully, all of that's gonna be beneficial for their algorithm as they're trying to find, or as they're seeing you, as you post more and more stuff. Finally, Facebook groups, what do you do with those? Um, I would recommend sending a churchwide email or a ministry wide email. Nick Clason (16:38): If you're like a youth pastor, children's pastor, one time a week, whatever day you're sending that, I would post that exact same email into the group with some sort of photo to go along with it. Um, like if it's for camp registration, post a graphic of camp or a photo of students at camp or whatever, um, on Wednesday, I would share that recap reel, um, or some sort of recap reel from your Facebook reel account, share it into the group. Um, and then finally on Friday, I would do some sort of like fun Friday question. Just like, Hey, post a picture of, you know, we just got a Christmas season post a picture of a Christmas tree. Hey, Thanksgiving, hammer, Turkey. Hey, new Year's. What's your New Year's resolution? Okay, just some sort of fun question. One time a week. So you just need to queue up four of those. Nick Clason (17:21): And really, you just need to copy and paste a question. Um, you can put it into the Facebook thing that like builds the kind of like graphic looking picture post thing. Um, and post that in there. Um, do all that type of stuff. And, uh, then let, let the people supply the rest of the content in a Facebook group. You're just keeping some stuff kind of active, minuscule announcements, types of things. Hey guys, that's it for today. That is your 2023, uh, social media posting framework. I hope you find that helpful. Take that copy and paste it, implement it into your church social media framework and strategy. If you hear people talking, it's cuz it's Christmas Day. I'm recording this, uh, in, in my spare bedroom. Um, and so there's people on FaceTime calls and stuff out there. So thanks for muddling through that. Appreciate you guys and we will talk to you, uh, again next time. Nick Clason (18:08): Oh, hey, don't forget if you found this helpful, share it like it, rate it, be super helpful for us, and head to hybrid ministry.xyz. We're gonna be posting that ebook next week. Get on the list for that. Uh, subscribe to my YouTube channel, like me on, on TikTok so that you'll see that one it drops. Um, and just so you know, this message or this podcast is gonna be, uh, transcribed, uh, a hundred percent free for you hybridministry.xyz. I'll go to the episodes tab and you'll get the free, uh, complete transcript. Um, hope that that is helpful and beneficial for you. Blessings on your ministry, and we will talk to you again next time. Happy posting here in the new year.