As a team of one in church communications, I’ve found myself needing to repeat what works and not try to reinvent the wheel too many times.

Here are five post types that have worked well and gotten great engagement for us, a mid-size (200ish), mainline, protestant church. I hope they help you, too! 

Post #1: No Wrong Answer

This is a post where you give someone a question for which there is no wrong answer. Ideas could be “Yay or Nay: Pineapple on Pizza” or “Today’s Bible lesson is taught by the characters of the last show you watched. Who’s teaching?” For the pineapple example, we usually use a slice of pizza as an image. (We snapped ours using an iPhone on a youth pizza night.) 

In this style of post, you’re working on two key functions. First, you’re getting people comfortable engaging with your content. There’s no deeply intimate information being shared. You don’t have to be vulnerable. It’s just simple fodder back and forth.  When people engage with your content and have a good experience (hopefully no trolls!), it makes them more comfortable engaging again in the future. 

Second, when people engage in comments (and even reply to other people’s comments) it tells Facebook that each person wants to see more of your posts. Then, Facebook shows more of what you create to those people. 

A bonus perk to a question like this is finding ways to embrace the hybrid lives we live by making connections in-person or in your groups.  An example would be seeing a church-goer comment that the cast of The Office will be teaching her Bible lesson; if you like The Office, make it your goal to ask her about it next time.  Ask about her favorite episode or giggle about your favorite The Office prank (stapler in the Jello, anyone?).   Then, you’ve bridged online to in-person and made a real-life connection from it. 

Post #2: Church in Action

Church in action is just that. Find a way to capture the real people in your church doing real things. People like to see the faces of real people. It gives them a sneak peek into your church.  Which in turn, creates two opportunities for outsiders looking in. First, this church is doing things and I see real people doing it. Second, I look like that person (age, race, clothing choices, type of work, etc) and can see myself serving in that way. 

Highlight real participants in worship, the praise band or choir using their musical talents, show the door greeters greeting with big smiles on their faces. Craft a post celebrating what is happening in the photo you select and what action you want people to take when they engage in your post. 

In our church, we have one of the most amazing door greeters. She opens the door and shakes hands and greets people with the biggest smile on her face.  I have a photo of her doing just that. My text might read “Deb greets everyone coming in the main entrance with big smiles and warm greetings. She found her niche to serve where she can shine! How can we help you find your place to serve? Message us to get started”

Many people will simply comment on the photo about Deb always holding the door for them, or the time their hands were full and Deb helped carry something. Others will answer the question or send messages to us.  Deb and her family will likely share the post with their friends and followers to tell how humbled they are to have someone so great in their family. 

Ideas for church in action:

• Youth serving on a mission trip
• Family meal at the church
• Sunday school volunteer teaching a lesson
• Someone making coffee with a smile on their face
• A communion steward preparing the elements
• An altar steward putting water in the baptismal font
• Door greeters or ushers in action
• Parking lot attendants directing traffic
• Outreach at a local community partner
• Office volunteers stuffing envelopes
• Anything your church does with real people 

Post #3: Local Business/Community Connection Shoutout 

I grew up in a very small town where everyone knew each other. In that context a community connection post would play very well.  Could be as simple as posting a photo of the local ice cream place and saying something like “Pastor Joe loves ice cream from Cups & Cones. What’s your favorite Cups & Cones sundae?”  Make sure you tag them (because they’ll love the free interaction/free press) and then it shows the content to a larger audience. 

I minister now in a smaller metro area, the Quad Cities, a region of Iowa and Illinois that are nestled quaintly on the Mississippi River (in the only place where the river runs east to west).  It’s got roughly 300,000 people in the metro area. So, not like the town of 715 that I grew up in.  One of the best types of posts that we do is when we’re getting ready for an event or a special occasion, we’ll ask our followers for local businesses to support. 

Examples: 

• This year for Mother’s day, where are you going for brunch?  Tag your spot in the comments with your favorite thing to get!
• VBS is upon us and we want to spoil our servants. What local cookie shop should we grab treats from? 
• We’re hosting a mission team on a stopover as they drive to Chicago– what must-see places should we recommend to take their crew of middle schoolers? 

Post #4: Image or Video with Tips & Tricks

I love a good life hack. And my socials are filled with them. I also love lists (I mean, this blog post is a list, so point proven!).  Those two things together make for a great one-two-punch kind of post. 

One way we do it is through a carousel-style post, where we have multiple graphics sharing one thing on each graphic. Another way to do it is a simple video or a single image. There are lots of right ways to do a tips and tricks video.  To determine what to post, I start off with our current sermon series: what lesson is our pastor trying to drive home for us? What is a recurring theme? How can I simplify this so anyone could get the cliff’s note?  Maybe it’s a single line from each message in a series.  The goal for this post is a digestible nugget in list form or life-hack form. 

I favor lists, even in my life hacks, so ideas could be: 

• Three ways to start your day in prayer
• Two ways to get your teens to read the Bible
• Five ways you can disciple your family this week
• Improve your prayer life in six easy steps
• Four ways to worship when you’re on a family vacation

Post #5: Testimonial/Life Change

God is doing amazing things in the lives of people in your church. Keep your ears and eyes out for moments that you can (with permission) share. What milestones does your church celebrate? Think of those as times you’ll want to be purposeful in gathering testimonies and life change stories. 

We usually gather stories at confirmation, baptism, and after mission trips. Then, I ask “what are you celebrating?” ever week during staff meeting and make notes of stories I see coming out of individual ministries.  One of the biggest moments we capture is students who have just accepted Jesus at our summer camp.  Work to connect the story of the individuals life change with an action. 

For camp, our call to action is usually asking for scholarship money. So our post might have a picture of a high school student praying at camp with a leader. It might read: Casey accepted Jesus this week at summer camp. He was able to go because people like you gave generously to our camp scholarship fund. Thank you for making a difference in Casey’s life and the lives of every student that the scholarship fund helped attend. 

Another testimonial we captured was by video, it was a young lady who just returned from a mission trip to Haiti. She wept seeing hungry children gnaw on bones. It made her so grateful for how God has provided for her kid. Now she works to make sure nobody is hungry at all. Her testimony was simply a story of God showing her what she was called to do. We used that testimony to invite people to participate in our next missions trip. 

Examples include: 

• Rights of passage (confirmation, baptism, weddings, joining the church)
• Spiritual disciplines (my life changed because I started tithing; I committed to prayer and fasting one day a week during Lent and here’s what happened)
• Mission Moments (why someone feels called to serve; the fullfilment in serving)

That was five types of posts that can help you get great engagment. Which one will you try first?