Health & Fitness
Local Church Uses Social Media to Reach More, Do More
Still unsure about using social media to reach out? See how one Douglasville church is using it with great success.
Social media is a powerful tool, not just for marketing or advertising, but for all kinds of communications. It’s also a great way to enhance your outreach through traditional channels you might already be using. So why have some non-profits, and especially houses of worship, been slow to embrace it?
“We were hesitant at first,” says Scott Hughes, Associate Pastor at Douglasville First United Methodist Church, “simply from being unfamiliar with social media.”
When church leaders realized how much communication methods had changed, and how fast they were continuing to change, they decided to take the plunge.
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“Today, many people are living on Facebook, “ Rev. Hughes says. “ We wanted to be able to connect with people, where people are.”
A Nielsen report conducted in the third quarter of 2011 confirms what Hughes and others have observed. Some 80% of us, or over 800 million Americans, now use social media, with Facebook leading the pack. More than 40% of social media users connect via their smartphones and other mobile devices, and that figure keeps rising. [1]
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Douglasville FUMC focused on two goals: spreading the word about church activities and events to members and the community, and reaching out to others, to share the church’s mission of serving beyond its physical walls.
The social media work started with revamping of the church website.
“The look, feel, and interaction of our website has been vastly improved,” Rev. Hughes says. “We’re doing online registration for Bible studies, which is new for us. Our members can also give online now.” Later this year, the church hopes to add a registration link for its Vacation Bible School.
The website includes a link to Douglasville FUMC's Facebook page, which Rev. Hughes says is active and growing. “We get stats that tell us how many users have posted each week, and that’s gone way up.” There are also links to the church’s Twitter and YouTube accounts, which are slowly coming online. Future podcasts are also planned.
“We’ve been very pleased with our social media outreach so far,” Rev. Hughes says. "We are a growing and thriving church, so engaging with the community in every way possible continues to be a focus for us."
[1] http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-promising-social-media-stats-for-small-businesses/
