by Josh Burns

What do you expect?

What do you expect to get from your church’s social media?

What do you expect to happen when your church posts something on Facebook?

The reality is that I didn’t expect much from my church’s social media.

The reality is that you probably don’t expect much either.

The reality is that you probably don’t expect much more than communicating some information.

You probably don’t expect much more than some Likes, Comments, or Retweets.

Should you expect more, though?
For a long time I didn’t know how to get any tangible results from social media, so my expectations were pretty low. When I adjusted my expectations for my church’s social media, there was a shift in my thinking.

At first, I was only expecting to get some Likes or Shares or Retweets, but not much beyond that. If something tangible did result from our social media presence, I didn’t know how exactly it happened, and I definitely didn’t know how to measure those results.

But then I started to expect more.
I started to expect new people to attend our church from our social media presence.

I began to expect the faith of our congregation to grow as a result of our social media presence.

I began to expect the generosity in our church to grow as a result of our social media presence.

The reason I started to expect these things is because I started to implement a social media strategy that could produce these results.

I began to align our social media content with our church’s Big Idea.
I began to engage with people on our social media channels.
I began to evaluate the needs of our audience on each social media channel.
I began to measure results for each social media channel.

It wasn’t until I started to implement this strategy that I could begin to expect more out of our church’s social media presence.

So I ask again: What are you expecting?
If you’re expecting no more than some fluffy results, then that’s what you’ll get. But if you expect growth, if you expect people to come to know Jesus, and if you expect more generous hearts as a result of your church’s social media presence, then you’ll have to put in the time, intentionality and engagement to make that a reality.

Josh is the marketing manager of Social Church Academy, an online resource designed to help churches grow their social media presence. Each month, members receive the resources, tools and access to expert interviews they need in order to grow their church with social media. For our Orange friends, get a discount on the already discounted charter offer by using the code: ORANGE (case sensitive) through January 2, 2015. Click here to become a member today.