1. Reach a wider audience: Pinterest has over 400 million active users, making it a great platform to reach new people and potential members of your church.
2. Visual storytelling: Pinterest is all about visual content, making it a great platform to share your church's story and mission through images and graphics.
3. Promote events: You can create boards specifically for events at your church and share them on Pinterest to attract more attendees.
4. Share sermons: You can share your church's sermons and other teachings on Pinterest, making them easily accessible to members and non-members alike.
5. Encourage engagement: Pinterest allows users to save and share content they find interesting, which can encourage engagement with your church's content.
6. Collaborate with others: You can collaborate with other churches and organizations on Pinterest by creating group boards, which can help you reach new audiences and share ideas.
7. Build a community: Pinterest can help you build a community around your church by sharing images and content that resonate with your audience.
8. Showcase your church's personality: Through images, graphics, and boards, you can showcase the personality and values of your church to potential members.
9. Drive traffic to your website: You can use Pinterest to drive traffic to your church's website by sharing links to your blog posts, sermons, and other content.
10. Easy to use: Pinterest is user-friendly and easy to use, even for those who may not be familiar with social media. This makes it a great platform to use for churches looking to expand their online presence.

You ARE using Facebook for your church, right? I have created a list of 10 things that we and should be doing as churches to get the most out of Facebook. It truly is a fantastic tool to communicate with our church family and reach those in our surrounding communities.

Learn more about using Facebook for your church.

Why should you be using social media for your parish? What good is it? Is it just a waste of time?

We’re not talking about you spending hours perusing folks feeds and liking photos of babies, etc. But what we are talking about is a few main reasons that your parish should be using Facebook to more easily communicate and uplift your parishioners.

1. Discovery (helping people find what they are looking for). Assuming you want to be very accessible for folks to find your parish, what time your services are at, what other ministries you offer and due to the fact that a majority of the population is on Facebook - having information and being active on the platform will continue to be important. 
2. First Impressions - Facebook is fantastic opportunity to show the local community who you are and what you stand for. When you don’t put effort into your online channels, being totally honest here, it gives them an impression that not much is going on at the parish.
3. Reach Local Community. By creating content that engages with your parishioners and hopefully even your local community - you are able to reach into the community in ways you maybe couldn’t do traditionally. Additionally, with things like events, Facebook is a fantastic tool to target (with only a small amount of budget) people right where they are at in the community. 
4. Facebook is a great way to build a relationship with your parishioners. Facebook groups are a fantastic way to build an online community where your parishioners can have conversations, discuss homilies, etc and really give you as the church the ability to engage with your people outside of mass. Folks love seeing behind the scenes, and even being a part of the conversation with Q&A’s and more.

Want to learn more about how to use Facebook and other social media for your church? Let's Chat

Is your church doing things that are worthy of a press release?

Shouldn't the church being doing amazing things in the community all the time, that the news would be begging to know what's coming next so they have that heart warming cover story?

I'm not saying the church should be doing things for the sake of press coverage. I'm saying the church should be upholding its mission, and really impacting its immediate community in such a way that people are talking about it.

Think about how the word spread when Jesus performed miracles. People were so excited just to see these things that they traveled for days for a chance to catch a glimpse of Jesus. Word of mouth is a powerful and sought after medium for spreading the word about a product, service or even person. Since our goal is showing love to people, helping the sick and needy, uplifting the widowed and broken, what are we doing to reach out to this community of people?

Handing out water bottles with our church website on it at a community event? That's great and all but how are you using that to leave a lasting impact on people's lives in our community. You want press coverage? You want people talking about how great your church is? You want to shed the negative feeling people have about Christians? You want people to learn about Christ's love? Then do it.

The words "marketing" and "branding" are being tossed around during staff meetings at churches across America, and we're glad. Church staffs are for the most part understanding that marketing does have a place in the church and is an important aspect in church growth. Pastors know it, and jump right in feet first. But... many churches miss the mark when creating marketing goals. Lack of education, resources, and support many times end up with ineffective efforts and a waste of money. Mostly, though, its the lack of a plan.

Part of effective marketing is creating something that people love and are excited about. Something timeless and people are proud of. A place that people want to invite their unchurched friends to.

When creating your marketing plan, be sure to capture the personality of your church. Don't try to create a personality that is deceiving and will be giving people the wrong impression.Think about your church. Talk to the people. Live life with the your church and you'll understand it's personality and character. Bring that personality to all your marketing pieces, environments, your website, and everything the public eye will ever see. People in your community will begin to recognize your church and will know what to expect when they come to visit. In a nutshell... be honest and be real.