If you have worked with a church or ministry and their social media campaign in any capacity, you have to think about using hashtags for your ministry. A hashtag is a necessary component of any ministry’s social media strategy that can improve conversations and help you capture what is happening within your congregation.
The question is, does your church stay united and push for one hashtag that every church leader should use or one specific hashtag for each ministry in your church that is made specifically for that program? Do you have a church hashtag?
Now, every church is different and so we are not going to say that one is right and one is wrong, but we will share with you who should be using which one. If it fits your church, go for it.
One Hashtag For Your Whole Church
This hashtag should focus on the ministry as a whole and how you service everyone. This means that you are not creating a hashtag for the Sunday service and then expecting everyone else to follow with it as it devalues the other parts of the church. Let the whole church speak into the decision of this ministry.
Here are some points that you should consider if you want to use this hashtag strategy:
- Every ministry can use it online
- This hashtag describes the mission of the church
- The hashtag can stand the test of time
- It is concise but describes the whole heart of the ministry
- You may only have one staff that is using social media, but one hashtag is better manageable.
One Hashtag For Each Ministry
- A specific hashtag means more purposeful tweets
- You have multiple people per ministry that will use the hashtag to its fullest.
- The hashtag describes the whole part of the ministry and can be used year round.
- People will understand your specific ministry just by reading it
- Staff and volunteers a like can use it.
What route will you take and what hashtag will you choose?
Curtis says
Interesting. I hadn’t considered one for each ministry. I think we may look into that…
Jeremy Smith says
What are you currently doing and what could you be doing?
ThatGuyKC says
We use a primary church hashtag across all platforms (#nlchurch), but will use others for sermon series and events.