Social media is changing again. In an increasingly digital age, our collective consciousness is captured by infinite scrolling, short-form videos, and internet personalities. A church's social media presence has gone from an optional nicety to a key lever for engaging newcomers to church.
How can pastors and ministry teams best capture the opportunities that can come with social media? How can a church's resources be best assigned to this new space? What if our gifts and skills don't line up?
Hannah Thiem and Liz Fong discuss best practice and minimum dose for churches and pastors on social media.
They highlight some of the biggest church wins on social media.Hannah Thiem works at leading social media company Hello Social working with major corporates, and on the side does social media for Sydney Anglicans and Dubbo Presbyterian Church.
Liz Fong runs social media for Reach Australia and advises churches on best practice in social media.
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Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.
Social media is changing again. In an increasingly digital age, our collective consciousness is captured by infinite scrolling, short-form videos, and internet personalities. A church's social media presence has gone from an optional nicety to a key lever for engaging newcomers to church.
How can pastors and ministry teams best capture the opportunities that can come with social media? How can a church's resources be best assigned to this new space? What if our gifts and skills don't line up?
Hannah Thiem and Liz Fong discuss best practice and minimum dose for churches and pastors on social media.
They highlight some of the biggest church wins on social media.Hannah Thiem works at leading social media company Hello Social working with major corporates, and on the side does social media for Sydney Anglicans and Dubbo Presbyterian Church.
Liz Fong runs social media for Reach Australia and advises churches on best practice in social media.
--
Become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart via Patreon.
It is the pastor's heart in Dominic Steele. And how do we, as pastors and churches, make the most of social media with the appropriate amount of effort? Liz Fong and Hannah Thiem are our guests. Social media is changing again just when we thought we had a handle. There is more disruption, but how much effort should we put in as churches? What is the minimum effective dose? What sort of effort? What is going to bring the best results and where are we getting it wrong? Liz Fong runs social media for Reach Australia and also advises churches on best practice. Hannah Thiem works at the major social media agency, hello Social, working with major corporates and, on the side, does social media for Sydney Anglicans and also Dubbo Presbyterian Church. Well, liz, if we could start with you, I'm thinking pastors, and my suspicion is quite a few pastors see social media as a well, a necessary evil or an unnecessary evil. But what do you wish our pastors' hearts would be toward?
Liz Fong:social media. I feel like you can't change how people feel about socials that much, but I wish they would know and understand that it's a really important way to be reaching people in their community and to be helping people come to church, and I wish they cared about it more or at least empowered someone in a church to care about it and encourage them.
Dominic Steele:Hannah.
Hannah Thiem:Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I think obviously every senior pastor has a long to do list and lots of priorities.
Dominic Steele:You've got to do all these things or the kingdom will fall.
Hannah Thiem:Exactly, and I think it's easy for social media to be that oh, it would be nice to do, but kind of falls to the bottom of the list. But I think when we're really looking at mission priorities and what can we do to bring new people into the church, social media actually has a really vital role to play there, and so ideally that should be every pastor's number one. Number two priority is how do we see more people saved, and I think social media has a massive role to play in that funnel.
Dominic Steele:And I think you're saying social media for many people is the front porch for the church.
Hannah Thiem:Yeah, 100%. I think 30 years ago you would think of a big banner or you'd think of an ad in the yellow pages or something like that, and we started going guys, it's your website. You need to think about having a great website so people can find you. I think social media is now plays that role. I know for myself if I'm where am I going to eat on Friday night? I'm looking at Instagram, I'm looking at TikTok. When I was planning my vivid trip around Sydney, I was looking at other people's TikToks to see what they had done when they explored vivid around the city. Same way when I'm looking for a new church, I actually default to social media first.
Dominic Steele:So yeah, Now you've talked about TikTok. Lots of churches I'd say 90% of churches is that my friends lead have Facebook accounts. Perhaps 70, 80% have Instagram accounts and next to none have TikTok accounts. Does that mean we are just not connecting with the generation of the future?
Liz Fong:Yeah, pretty much.
Hannah Thiem:Look, I think when you look at who's on different platforms obviously something like Meta the average age is getting a lot older. So that's your Facebook and your.
Dominic Steele:Instagram. What's the average age for?
Hannah Thiem:Meta. So for Facebook it does sort of sit to that like 45 plus, spanning up to that 65 kind of age group, whereas Instagram is a lot younger. Lots of teenagers today have Instagram. Tiktok and YouTube are probably the ones where that younger teenage demographic are most active. That being said, there's pros and cons of all of these platforms, strengths and weaknesses, and so it might not be that getting your church a TikTok account is the first step in social media, but it's definitely something to think about because it is a way to reach that younger generation.
Dominic Steele:Who's doing it well, Liz? And what are they doing?
Liz Fong:The only church I know of that's in this space is MBM Church in Rooty Hill and they are mostly focusing on youth group, like quick little updates about what fun things are up to a youth group and it makes me really, really, really want to join their youth group. I have never wanted to join a youth group.
Dominic Steele:I mean you are not in the demographic group.
Liz Fong:I wish I was a 15 year old again so I could go to their youth group because I've made it seem like the most fun, like inclusive, like beautiful space, by watching their socials and I feel like you know people in the area of Rudy Hill are going to get shown those videos because TikTok knows where you're watching from and they're going to see all of these kids having the best time ever learning that Jesus on their TikTok account, and I would. I'm keen to see what impact that's going to have in their youth group.
Hannah Thiem:I was just going to say, just picking up on some of the things that you're saying, mbm is doing really well, like they're not using their TikTok to kind of lecture people or tell kids you should be at church. They're actually using it to create a sense of this is the kind of environment. Can you see yourself here? These are the kind of people just like you that you would see at youth group. They're having fun. They are really diverse, like it's an inclusive environment, like he said. So they're pushing, I guess, along that show don't tell sort of message they're showing. Here's what to expect. Here's a really great time at church rather than going here's a Bible lesson or here's a guilt trip or anything like that.
Dominic Steele:How has TikTok changed the other mediums and changed algorithms, and I mean it is a significant disruptor for social media.
Hannah Thiem:Yeah, definitely. Great question. I think the first thing we'll all have noticed is that short form video style content is much more prolific across every platform. Whether you're on Facebook or Instagram or even YouTube, they've all got that equivalent of short form video, which does make it harder from a church perspective, because it's one step to go oh, I need to take a nice photo and I can post that and I can caption that but another step to go what can actually film here? What can I video? But, that being said, it also gives so much opportunity, because what you can show in a photo, you can show so much more in a video.
Hannah Thiem:Whether it is that people like you are here, this is a fun time. This is what the vibe is like, even though sort of like day in the life style videos like you could easily imagine doing. Come to church with me for the first time. Here's what it was like. Here's me walking through the foyer, like for someone who maybe hasn't been to church for a long time, that could give a lot of confidence that you wouldn't get in a still photo or something like that.
Liz Fong:People are so much more authentic and vulnerable and exposed until they talk to camera completely differently and they talk about their anxieties about life and just are so much more like I don't know vulnerable, I would say on socials, on the art, and they just talk to camera very, very differently. So I feel like any people in ministry who want to be filming content on camera, they need to talk to camera differently.
Dominic Steele:Okay, how?
Liz Fong:So I Millennials and Boomers like . As they talk to camera like a TV presenter, they're like hi, so glad, really excited about Sunday. They're kind of a really like put together. They're smiling, they're looking at camera nice whereas if you're an 18 year old on tiktok or someone who's talking to that generation, your camera is slightly shaky. It's like right here and you're talking about like I'm really really anxious. This morning I'm going to my job interview. They talk like they're having a one-on-one conversation with someone on a video call. It's a very different style.
Hannah Thiem:Yeah, and I think it really is that sense of authenticity and connection. It's not I'm speaking to the masses here's a formal presentation but it's like here I am speaking to you, letting you know how I'm feeling, what I'm doing. That's where you get that like relatable style content and I think there's so much opportunity for Christians for it to go well. I'm someone just like you. Here's what I'm thinking. Here's what I'm worried about. Here's how church is helping me, like I know for me. I try and think about that when I'm going to work, talking to people you know in the office, and go, oh, what did you do on Sunday? Not just saying, oh, I went to church, but I went to church and they spoke about anxiety, and it's actually really helping me think through this aspect of my job, so that it is quite relatable. That's what you're seeing on tiktok that same level of personal relation.
Dominic Steele:But that, then, is trickling into the other platforms as well, and so it is disrupting what's happening everywhere.
Liz Fong:Yeah, definitely. Content is getting much sharper and tighter. People are explaining very complex concepts in less than 60 seconds, and so that's affected all the other platforms, and so everyone's content is getting more entertaining and sharper.
Dominic Steele:So I'll just be vulnerable then.
Hannah Thiem:Go ahead, it's a safe space.
Dominic Steele:I deleted my tiktok account. I had one for I don't know a week or something, and I deleted it because I just don't like the Chinese government spying on me. Sure, I should just get over that, for the sake of the gospel.
Liz Fong:Based on the last news article I read, because I googled this this week there doesn't seem to be any proof that that's happening, so I would just say keep an eye on it.
Hannah Thiem:Look, I think obviously that's part of the necessary evil of all social media, whether it's the Chinese government or Max Zuckerberg.
Hannah Thiem:Exactly whether it's the multipacks in America. You know we have free access to these platforms, and so that means that we are the product. Our data is being sold, so there is a question of being smart about that. However, the gospel potential of these platforms is so high, so I think it's going okay. We accept that necessary evil or necessary risk. We're not going to give TikTok every piece of information about us, we're not going to do anything to put ourselves at risk, but alongside with that, we've got this potential to reach people in our local suburb, but much further beyond that as well.
Dominic Steele:Okay, average church under 200,. How much effort should I, either myself or my team, put into social media? What's minimum effective dose and what would you do within the minimum effective dose?
Hannah Thiem:Yes, for sure. I think this is a great question because if you speak to kind of social media experts, they might say something crazy like three days a week of a consultant like yourself.
Hannah Thiem:Exactly. Well, they might go. Oh, the platform. The best number of things you can post is three times a day. Well, that might be technically true, but that's unreasonable for the average church, most churches. That level of content you're just going to go. Well, I'm better off not even trying. The way I like to think about it is, first off, if someone is searching for my profile and they see my Instagram, my Facebook, my TikTok, how much do I need to post for them to go like, yes, there's activity at this church, so that might be once a week. If I look at a church's Instagram page and I go, I can see they posted this week. I can see they posted last week. That's all I need to go. This is they're alive.
Dominic Steele:they're viable, Exactly.
Hannah Thiem:Something's happening here and more important than kind of looking at those quantity marks is looking at well, what's the quality of the content that I'm posting? What are the messages that are coming through?
Liz Fong:Yeah, I would say bare minimum. If I would say for a tiny, tiny church, take 26 photos and then schedule them once a fortnight for a year and that would be, I would say, bare minimum. If it's a church that no one really likes social media, I would say that's absolute bare minimum. I would say most churches are on the platform posting like two, three times a week, but what they're posting is so boring and they're often posting graphics of, like a Bible verse or of their sermon series or whatever it is, but the graphics communicate that they're stuck in 2005, based on their font choices, their colors, the graphics, the illustrations. So I would say don't waste your time doing that, because it's just work smarter, not harder. I would say take a photo at church, post the photo and just write text instead of making a really fancy graphic, because it's hard to do graphics really well in a way that communicates that you are currently relevant.
Hannah Thiem:And I'd probably push harder than that, like I think a lot of those examples that you're talking about, it's quite clear that the audience that whoever's posting has in mind is the people that are already at that church. It's like here's a Bible verse that will encourage you. It's from what we spoke about this week. That's fantastic. If I'm already going to that church and I'm like, oh yeah, we did speak about that on Sunday, that is a great reminder.
Hannah Thiem:But if I'm a non-Christian and I'm just dipping my foot in the water and thinking, should I go along to this local church Seeing a Bible verse where I don't really understand it and it's clearly not speaking to people like me, that's not actually going to help me make that journey of like yes, this is a church I'd like to come through, whereas the examples that you were giving of like well, let's show a photo of what's happening at church, or let's show kids having a great time, or even MBM's TikTok, where the youth group looks so good that you want to go, it's like well, that's clearly they're still talking to the member, but they also got their eye out for the person who's not attending church at the moment, going well, what's going to actually make you think this looks like a welcoming place where you could become a part of it.
Liz Fong:Yeah, churches who take photos like this is the foyer. This is where you park your car. Here's what morning tea looks like, that kind of like the everyday stuff of what looks like to walk into a church building so much more valuable than stuff like Bible verses and yeah, I think as well like so you're seeing your audience as the potential guest, and how to help make the journey work for the pipeline, work for the potential guest.
Dominic Steele:Yeah, exactly.
Hannah Thiem:At the end of the day, you have so many better ways to communicate with your direct congregation. You obviously see them on Sunday. You have your Bible study groups. Most churches have an email list. You might have a private Facebook group. They're the key channels where you want to be talking to the people that are attending church regularly, whereas you do sort of want to see your social media as if someone's looking up my church. If they stumble across this, what's it going to say to the outsider?
Dominic Steele:So I might have in mind the in Anandale, the 33 year old divorced dad overwhelmed by working hours and what is going to help him decide on the fortnight when he has his kid to bring them to church. You know, that's the, that's. Is that what you? I've got that guy as my audience. Yeah, absolutely.
Hannah Thiem:Yeah, exactly, when we speak to like bigger brands, we sort of come away with the statistic of the average person needs to interact with the brand seven to 12 times before they decide to kind of purchase.
Hannah Thiem:Obviously we're thinking about, you know, cleaning products and stuff like that. But if you think about a local church, the average person already has all of these misconceptions about church, whether they're getting them from the media or they're reading news stories. Like there's so many opportunities where churches are negatively portrayed and so the opportunity with social is to kind of balance that out and provide. Well, here's a place where we actually are serving people. We're doing fantastic things in the community, we have some values that align with yours, and so then when they see that post that's like come along to Christmas carols, or maybe they're invited by someone at school, they're like, oh yeah, I know that church and I've sort of seen that they're doing this cool thing, teaching English, so I sort of know that they're, you know, feeding people with a community pantry. Like they've got that positive association with the local church.
Dominic Steele:Rather than just bringing the potential negative associations from like wider media stories, I'd say what about the senior pastor and their own, or anyone in the pastoral staff, or even any Christian? What advice, in terms of my own personal engagement on social media do you have?
Hannah Thiem:Because your non Christian friends are watching you and they know I mean they know they're forming their decision about whether or not to go to church based on the way I engage in all sorts of forums, including my social media engagement 100%, and I think the truth is for most people you obviously have your close family, your close friends who interact with you more in person, but for most people they have that much wider group of friends that may see them once or twice a year, but could see every day what they're doing on social media, and so if they see you picking fights or being rude or what they might be perceived as overreacting, that's what's gonna shape their sense of your character and so they'll go.
Hannah Thiem:Oh, dominic works at a church. I know that about you and I see you picking fights or getting really angry or like getting in the comments and stuff like that, whereas on the plus side you can go. Oh well, they know that I might work at a church and here's a really great photo of something we've done at church or something I'm really proud of or that sort of thing. So I think, just as with your church social media, you've got that mindset of what are the people at church see, but more importantly, what are people who aren't going to church see? That's how you should approach your own private things as well. You know the Christians that you know can be encouraged by certain things but you're wider friendless to most likely aren't Christian.
Dominic Steele:they're gonna be making judgments about church based on how you behave as well, I see some pastors carefully curated in the way you just described on Facebook and yet pretty wild on Twitter. Ha, ha, ha ha. Comments disgusts.
Hannah Thiem:Look, I think we all know Twitter is a bit of that wild wild worst.
Dominic Steele:That's the core of social media.
Hannah Thiem:Exactly, it definitely brings.
Dominic Steele:But I need to reflect on my behavior there too, don't I?
Hannah Thiem:100%. I was going to say it definitely as a platform brings up and encourages those extreme reactions, because that's where you do get response. But Twitter, your Twitter account, still is a representation of you and how you interact with the world. And so I've actually spoken to a friend who was looking for a church in Sydney's West and she decided not to go to that church because of the senior pastors Twitter. And what she said was she was like everything he was posting was true, but I couldn't see any of the loving intent behind it and I just felt she's a strong Christian woman. She ended up in a church, but she just felt that's not who I want as my leader. And so you know, I don't know that particular pastor personally, I don't know how true his Twitter representation is compared to what he's like in real life, but to think, oh, actually that was the key point in the decision making and that's for someone who is always going to end up at a church, like I said, strong Christian.
Dominic Steele:It was just which one.
Hannah Thiem:Exactly, it was just which one Whereas we also want to think about the people who are on the fence. Either way, will I go to church or not? That could be the thing that pushes you to go. Actually, it's not for me.
Dominic Steele:What about paid ads on Instagram and?
Hannah Thiem:Facebook. This is my passion point. I think paid ads are so exciting for the local church, particularly because the barrier to entry is so low. So when you look at other kind of advertising forms, you know whether it's a banner ad or some sort of magazine. The kind of cost to even start can be quite high, whereas on Facebook, on Instagram, you could be spending $2 a day or something like that and still see some impact and see some reach. What I would say.
Hannah Thiem:I noticed lots of pastors going oh, we tried paid ads once spent $200, didn't see anyone come to church, never did it again, which I think is the wrong way to think about it. What I would really encourage people to think is similar to leafletting, where you might do it every you know season. This is an opportunity to let people know what's happening at church, what kind of values we have, and really, if we go back to those brands where we're saying, oh, you need seven to 12 interactions, a paid ad is a way to guarantee that we're getting those interactions, but then it might be supplemented by someone in the local playground saying, hey, do you want to come to our play group? Or something like that. So we've had a really exciting season with Dubbo Presbyterian, where every summer and every winter they run a whole bunch of kind of, I'd say, pre-missional events where they do things like you know how to strip your car or how to do baked sourdough bread, like really up that that pre-evangelism Exactly.
Hannah Thiem:They would typically put $500 behind advertising maybe seven or eight of those events. They'd get people coming along, but more than that they'd get that interest in awareness of this is an active church. They're getting involved and then after that period they'd run a smaller budget of, say, $100 going. We've got a course starting where you can ask questions about Jesus or you can come to learn about Jesus and what they saw, almost with that funnel approach of like. Here's information about things going on at our church, things you could get involved with, things you might agree with, and then running that offer of hey, actually, if you're interested in church, come along and ask your questions.
Hannah Thiem:In their last round they had 15 people come to that course and seven of them said I came because I saw a Facebook ad which were made. That's $600 and you've got seven people who otherwise didn't have that connection with the church in the door and I think it's a really cool one, because I know lots of churches where they put a lot of effort into those pre-evangelism events but then often kind of go oh, we're not. Actually we're seeing people come to those, whether it's gingerbread or whether it's a clothes swap, whatever it is, but then we don't actually see them make their way to church or make their way to an evangelistic course, and that was really cool to go. Oh, by advertising, both through social media, with a relatively low ad investment, we actually did see those people come along to the course, have that more potential for deep conversations and to get to meet Jesus.
Dominic Steele:Liz.
Liz Fong:Yeah, I think it's good to remember that if you're not putting money behind your Facebook and Instagram posts, maybe five 10% of your lucky of your followers will actually see your content. Facebook and Instagram. They have thousands of options of what they could show you on your social media feed, and for you to even get on the top of that list is pretty unlikely unless you're posting extremely engaging content. So, yeah, I would say don't even rely on just posting like people to even see it if you're just posting content without putting money behind it.
Hannah Thiem:Yeah, exactly. And again, I think it's what's that? Bare minimum effectiveness. So it could be that you've got two or three posts where you're like well, this shows a really nice diverse range of people. Or this is an event that I know people are going to get really excited about. Or my local church, they do a lot.
Hannah Thiem:We're in Surrey Hills so they do a lot to kind of help with, like homeless people around there. So it could literally be like well, this is a message of we care about our community. That's worth putting a little bit of budget behind, because we know the other people that live in Surrey Hills will see that, yes, my values align with you. I also we have to do something to support homeless people. It's such a clear problem when you walk down the street, and so by putting a little bit of budget just behind that post, you're getting in people's attention, you're getting in their feed and the subconscious thought is like oh yeah, I actually agree with that church, we have values aligned. And so then when they're invited to scripture, when they're invited to a service, it's like, oh yeah, I already know about that church and they actually I know they're doing great things.
Dominic Steele:YouTube shorts Please.
Liz Fong:It's not something I'm prioritizing. It's not. There's limited resources. Instagram and Facebook's my priority than Instagram, and then TikTok is like a little side project and then YouTube shorts. I'll just repost stuff, but I'm not worrying about it. To be honest, I've got limited time.
Hannah Thiem:That's really interesting because it almost contradicts what we were sort of saying about different age groups and stuff. What leads you to push Facebook first?
Liz Fong:Because for reach Australia, our main audience are senior pastors.
Dominic Steele:So you're pitching it to the 45 plus senior pastor, whereas if I want the, I mean, it seems to me that I keep getting older. But I need to be working towards an audience that is more and more distant from me, and so I need to be thinking what is the younger audience connecting with? And somebody said to me the other day YouTube is pitched even lower than TikTok because the kids are on YouTube and yet there's an age limit, a younger age limit, on TikTok, and I had never thought about that. But tell me you know.
Hannah Thiem:I think that's definitely right. I think parents, whether it's true or not, feel more secure knowing their kids are on YouTube than on TikTok, because there is obviously some of those more parental controls. I think that's definitely right. The pressure relief that I'd want to give you is it's not necessarily that you, dominic, need to have an account on TikTok or on YouTube, just like you would get staff to kind of run the youth group I assume you're not running the youth group for Village Church. It's an opportunity to go or who's someone who uses that platform and fits on that platform.
Hannah Thiem:What I would say is you don't want to be a blocker. So I know in the corporate space will come and suggest ideas for brands and go. This will do really well on TikTok and some executive who is in that you know, 45 trending towards 65 age group will be. I don't understand it. I don't think it will work. Yes, it's not going to work for you, but that doesn't mean that it's not going to work for the young people, for your children or your grandchildren, exactly, yeah, thank you so much for coming in.
Dominic Steele:My guests on the Pastors Heart Liz Fong. She works at Reach Australia in social media and advises churches on best practice there. And Hannah team works at Hello Social, major social media agency and on the side, does social media for Sydney Anglican's and Dubbo Presbyterian Church and is my daughter and you've been with us on the Pastors Heart and my name is Dominic Steele. We'll look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.