Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X, Bluesky, TikTok and YouTube have opened up new and important opportunities for church communications.
On this page
Getting started with social media for your church
Social media is a great way of reaching people ‘where they are’. However, different social media channels are best used for different purposes and to reach different audiences. Social media helps us to share news immediately (X and Bluesky), build networks (Facebook), share visual content (Instagram), share video content (TikTok and YouTube) and in all cases encourage social conversations with, and between, your audiences.
Social media companies regulary update their platforms and The Church of England's Digital Labs Blog continually publishes new blog posts with the latest advice and updates for churches.
The blog posts below offer advice on how to get started with social media for your church:
Social media platforms
Facebook is a free social networking site that allows users to create profiles, upload videos and pictures and send messages to connect with family, friends and colleagues. Churches can have a presence on Facebook by setting up a Page which users can like, follow and interact with.
Instagram is a social media platform with more emphasis on visual media - photo and video. This is a great opportunity for you to showcase the life and culture of your church online. The audience on Instagram is younger with 69% of users being under the age of 35. If your church is looking to reach a younger audience, Instagram would be a useful platform.
X
X, formerly known as Twitter, is a social networking platform that enables users to send messages or ‘tweets’. Tweets are seen by a user’s ‘followers’ - people signed up to receive your tweets, and new audiences determined by the platforms algorithm. X can be useful way of letting people know something quickly. Tweets are limited to 280 characters (including spaces) so being succinct is important.
Bluesky
Bluesky is a social app for short text-based posting (up to 300 words), similar to that of a tweet on the platform X. It has it's own ethos and unique struture.
Below is a Digital Labs Blog which dives into the social media platform Bluesky, what it is and how churches could make use of it.
TikTok
TikTok is a social media platform for creating, sharing and discovering short videos. It creates a video stream of user generated content for you to scroll through and users can follow content creators. Teenagers and young adults are the largest audience on the platform. People close to your geographical location are more likely to see your posts and some churches have been using this as an evangelistic tool and seeing young people come to church.
YouTube
YouTube is powerful public video hosting website that enables users to share their videos with anyone visiting the site. The majority of videos on YouTube have been uploaded by individuals and can vary from the professionally produced to videos made by beginners. YouTube also enables individuals to embed videos onto their social media sites and websites.
Social media scheduling tools
If you decide as part of your digital strategy to have multiple social media platforms for your church, a social media scheduling tool is useful to help those running social media channels to plan posts in advance.
Social media content
Social media graphics
Including images with social media posts is good way to improve engagement. Posts which include images perform better than those without.
Our 'Design tools, images and digital resources' webpage contains information on where churches can find free resources to help them create eye catching visuals for social media posts.
The Church of England's social media guidelines and digital charter
The Church of England has published social media advice aimed at tackling online abuse, misleading content and encouraging a positive atmosphere for online conversations.
The guidelines encourage positive engagement across all Church of England related social media accounts..
At the same time the Church is urging Christians and others to sign up to a voluntary digital charter aimed at fostering a more positive atmosphere online. The Diocese of Chelmsford has signed up to the charter.
Further information on social media guidlines, and signing up to the charter can be found below.
Creating a social media policy for your church
Here’s some guidelines to help you make a social media policy for your church, to help cultivate a positive and safe environment online.
Creating a social media policy for your church is a good way to support and protect your clergy, staff and volunteers as they use social media, while communicating to them the standards you’d like for them to uphold in their online engagement – whether that is while using your church’s social media accounts or in their own personal online activity.
The Church of England has put together some pointers for creating a social media policy that will help you clarify expectations, create an online environment where people are treated with dignity, and encourage people to think carefully about the impact online engagement can have.
The Charity Commission has a useful checklist for developing a social media policy. This can be viewed on the link below:
