Social media is an easy concept to grasp as an individual that wants to engage online. Create an account, follow or friend a few people, add a group, circle a page, and subscribe to a channel. All of a sudden you can find yourself spending hours online.
But as a professional for a ministry or church, the ability to engage online can quickly become chaotic. Mike Allton of TheSocialMediaHat.com highlights one of the best tools out there for churches to use, Hootsuite, in his new eBook The Unofficial Book On HootSuite: The #1 Tool for Social Media Management. We will take a look at what he shares and how churches can best use it, but my end thought is you need to check this out if you want to capitalize on using this web app for your church.
So Many Voices
What if several voices want to use this platform for their own piece of the ministry? Hootsuite can help you schedule out all the posts and Mike does a great job of explaining how.
- Advertise the church luncheon.
- Announce the dates for the marriage conference.
- Show off the youth group at camp.
- Share the next Sunday’s sermon topic.
- Highlight great volunteers and staff.
All done in Hootsuite and can be managed by a single person.
Tweet Chats
Beyond what many web apps can do with scheduling posts, Hootsuite can monitor hashtags and Twitter feeds/lists for you as well. Doing so can help you be part of great conversations online that you might want to be apart of! That includes making your own church hashtag and then monitoring Twitter for people that begin to use it! This is exactly what I did when I was a social media specialist for YFC/USA.
Optimize and Capitalize
With Hootsuite, you can actually track the best time to post online because it sees when people are posting and therefore on the platforms to actually see your content.
Why is this important? The more eyes you get your content in front of with feeds that are endlessly flowing, the more reach and engagement you may get! And it’s built into Hootsuite!
Even better, you can have an archive of old articles to continue to share content in the future and thus continue to engage with people even when you have a presentation to show off and have not scheduled any posts.
My Thoughts On The Book
Honestly, this eBook makes me want to consider switching to Hootsuite instantly. If I did, I probably would not invest in the Hootsuite University because of this eBook.
As with all books, time has already made some of the data outdated like the cost of adding a team member, but is to be expected. The book covers the service more thoroughly then any blog I have ever seen and the fact that it is compacted into one source is spectacular!
So if you have not yet done it, go buy the eBook now here.
[You’ve just read ChurchMag’s Saturday Morning Review. We hoped it was helpful in choosing your next book to read.]
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