Although digital can’t replace the effectiveness of in-person connection, it can be an incredible marketing tool for reaching more followers than ever before. One of the best ways to do that is through a church blog.
A church blog comes with a variety of benefits, including a place where you can continue the conversation with your congregation every single day; not just on Sunday mornings. You can take time to expand on the things happening in your ministry, as well as future events and announcements that are to come. You can connect with members of your congregation and enable them to donate over the Internet, not just in person. Lastly, you can create a brand for your church that will make it alluring to those considering taking a first step of faith in Christianity.
What’s even better is that: developing a blog for your church doesn’t have to be hard or difficult; it can actually be fun! With the right planning and support, your blog can be the place where you really connect with your congregation on a personal level.
Here are 5 tips for starting an effective church blog:
Too many times, churches will launch blogs and tell no one. People need to be led to your new church blog, which means you need to market it. One great way to do that is through your social media channels. Post your new blogs to these channels every week, ask followers to share the links, and encourage discussions below the posts. Ask questions in your posts to let your followers know you value their opinions and want to learn more about them in the process. You will have to continuously do this while managing the blog, just to ensure everyone knows it exists. Make it part of your daily social media management task.
Do you want your blog to be a first-person blog in which you connect with your congregation? Or do you want it to be a third-person styled informational place where you discuss a new verse from the Bible each week? Although you don’t necessarily need to “niche” your blog, determining its overall theme will make it easier for your followers to digest your posts and what you have to offer them. By providing an element of predictability, your readers will start tuning in each week to see what the new post has in store.
Once you start a blog, if you fail to post to it for 6-months, people who were once interested are going to forget about it. Consistency is very important with effective blogging, which is why you need to build out your team now. It doesn’t take a lot to manage a blog. You need a writer/editor and someone who manages the posting and comments. This person can be just 1 person, or 2. If you don’t feel like anyone you know is good at writing, there are cheap freelancing sites that will provide editing services before posting.
Now that you have your team, you need to plan your posts ahead. Things get busy, and you won’t have time every single week to break down a blog topic. Think about topics that line up with your sermons or the particular Scriptures you are covering on Sunday. Add it to a massive editorial calendar that extends months in advance. That way, each week when it’s time to churn one out, all of the “hard thinking” will have already been done for you!
You want this blog to feel like a community tool, which means opening it up to other staff, as well as congregational members, is a great idea. Enable guest posts, comments, and other kinds of interaction. The more open it feels, the more important the blog will feel to your church.
And that’s it! If you feel like marketing the church blog, writing the blogs, and planning the editorial calendar is out of your wheelhouse, we are happy to provide support here at Worship Times.
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