Social media. Two words you hear a lot about on this blog. And for good reason. We believe in the importance of effective social strategy and leveraging these tools to make a difference in your ministries and in the lives of the families in your church. So, we’re going to keep talking about it—as should you! But if we’re not careful, it can become a lot of talk . . . and that’s it. At some point, we have to take a calculated step back and determine how we are measuring our success on social media. (And if you aren’t measuring your success on social media, then that’s a whole other problem! Time to start.)
Now, there’s no perfect way to look at this, but there are a few places for you to start looking at your success with your social media presence:
Numbers
The most obvious way to view success is by looking at the numbers—specifically, follower count. This is the default for many of us. If we aren’t experiencing growth in this area, we immediately see failure. And while we can’t rule out these numbers entirely when we measure our success, we do need to make sure they aren’t our ONLY means of measurement. Sure, growing our follower count is important. The more people that see our content on social media, the better! There is no social media without eyes on the posts. That’s crucial. It’s a necessary part of the process. So yes, look at numbers. Grow those numbers. Track those numbers. But don’t give them too much of your time. There’s more that we need to see.
Engagement
An even more effective way of measuring social media success is through engagement. Engagement means paying attention to anything from likes to comments and even video views. These statistics matter much more than follower count. For example, if we have 500 followers and 2 likes on our Instagram account, those aren’t good odds! If only 2 people liked a post, that means we have next-to-no indication that anyone even saw it. 500 followers means nothing when there isn’t much engagement. A goal with social media should be to inform our people, but we also need to involve them—it is SOCIAL media, after all. Don’t forget that part! We need to talk with people not at them. So, posting with the goal of growing our following is not enough. And all of this needs to be taken into consideration as we consider our social media success.
[bctt tweet=”A goal with social media should be to inform our people, but we also need to involve them—it is SOCIAL media, after all. Don’t forget that part!” username=”orangeleaders”]
Stories
Perhaps the most difficult to track, yet most effective way of measuring our success on social media, is through stories. Who is talking about what you’re sharing? Is anyone noticing, let alone talking about, the content you are putting out into the world? And most importantly, how is it changing your people? How is it shaping your families, your congregation, and these circles? If you don’t have answers to these questions, it’s time to start reevaluating your strategy for social media—measure your success, and start now.
READ MORE LIKE THIS:
https://orangeblogs.org/orangeleaders/2017/06/23/boosting-your-churchs-reach-on-social-media/
