célula.in Podcast
Churches on social networks

What does a church need to do to have many followers?

This question of followers and everything that is important for a social network goes a long way in line with what the social network itself is looking for: what it means to be a community. It doesn't really matter your number of followers if you don't have their engagement, their attention.

What happens on the internet and on any social network is to have inflated numbers for the profile owner's ego and that doesn't mean anything, so not necessarily a page with a lot of followers is a good page or generates good content or has a good community for interaction.

Numbers really aren't what matters most. So if you don't have interaction with your community, the number really only serves to inflate the ego of the page owner.

One phenomenon that we noticed is the purchase of profiles. Is this a valid strategy to start working on a social network?

It's not a good strategy. So much so that social networks identified this problem and created some mechanisms to prevent it from happening. Facebook itself, if you need to change the name of your page you will have to send a text explaining why you are doing it.

In the past, there was a boom in websites. Every company, no matter how small, had a website. Today we see this with social networks, every company has its own profile, but it often seems that it's just to mark territory. Is that valid?

Nowadays it has much more to do with the company's reputation and credibility, so the fact that a company is not present on social networks is a closed door for interaction with its customers.

People seek to know if that company is serious, if it has satisfied customers first via the social network. So, at first, people always search for companies on the internet. This has become more important than having a website that is just for information.

It is very worthwhile for a church to be on social networks for many reasons, the first of which is that the social network itself may be the first place where a person sees the name of the church. People spend so much time on social media that the chance of you discovering a church there is even faster than the testimony of someone who went to church.

It's just that the church doesn't offer a product, so because of that it has several things it can work on, and I think that the churches have the most chance of making excellent content and finding people they like and creating an incredible community. Because they have everything you need to have for any issue in life.

And Brazil is the country with the most people on social networks in Latin America. Social networks are a success because people are needy, human beings need relationships.

And the church has the role of offering the best connection of all, which is the kingdom. So, the church has a powerful tool and I don't think it has yet a dimension of what it can do with it, so I believe that social networks are an open, and almost unexplored, path for churches.

It meets everything that the person is looking for on the social network, and it can indeed create a totally organic community, it doesn't have to sell anything, it doesn't have to promote miracles or anything like that because the very content that we have in our hands gives a lot of topic, gives a lot of feed, gives a lot of posts, so engagement can be very rich.

But people follow so many profiles, so many notifications that they end up getting lost in the midst of so much noise.
How to be relevant and engaged in the face of a sea of posts?

I believe that people really don't know how to consume content, they don't know how to differentiate what's good and what's not because it's a swipe of the finger there, it's been 3 posts and sometimes the person didn't give credit, didn't stop to see, didn't stop to pay attention.

This is about an education that people don't have, and a desperation to consume a lot of things, a lot of information, and no matter how much you make content for a profile all the time, it will never be enough for you to be remembered every day because everyone is doing it.

But I think it's fundamental for the church to know where it is entering and how it is entering and who it wants to reach. Because there's one thing we talk about a lot on social media: niche!

Who is the church's niche? It's the church itself, so the social network is an extension of the church, the contact that the person will make there to see that post, to interact with that message, will be the same as the one they had in the cell group inside the church everywhere.

I think that if the person is disconnected from the church on social networks, they will probably be disconnected at other times as well, because it's all one thing.

We don't think so, but when I really like something I always dedicate myself to something, so if the person is beaten through the church feed it's a problem, because they are probably being beaten by anything the church does, regardless of the form of distribution, because that is a reflection of their life.

Could it also be that that person has so much stuff, so much information that the church post doesn't stand out enough for them to notice?

More or less. Mind you, I follow a lot of accounts and I have accounts that I activate the notification so that I can see whenever something new is posted. People aren't such a layman as to let the feed roll without even knowing what they're going through.

Of course, the competitiveness within the social network is very great, but you create an engaged audience from the pulpit, from within the cell group meeting, so it's completely natural for me to see a pastor arrive during a preaching and tell people to follow the church's Instagram that they are going to be built.

The very creation of the community is through interactivity, so when the person interacts more with the church's profile, when they seek more information, that information from the feed will always be highlighted to them. So this is already an organic thing and this is again reflected in how the person sees the church, even though they have millions of other profiles, they will be connected plus that account because that account is part of their life.

The church's concern to create content that stands out isn't just in the feed. The same zeal that the pastor has to prepare the message, the same zeal that the cell group leader has to prepare the lesson, must be the same as that of the person who is making the posts. The church needs to be interested in providing relevant content, this may highlight.

Recently, the Instagram algorithm changed, it seems that it now works like this: I made a post, a very low percentage of my audience will view this content and if there is no engagement it is not displayed to my followers.
So what does this situation look like?

Look, first of all, if the church is making informational content only, it seriously risks the church's profile until it dies.

Regarding the Instagram algorithm, as well as Facebook, it is very curious because I believe that although it is a problem for most Instagram accounts, it has actually greatly reduced visibility that is no longer organic.

In the past, if I followed 80 people and all of them posted photos I would see the 80 photos in the chronological order in which they were posted. I miss that time, nowadays we will see what is relevant and this will go through several filters there and the algorithm will only give me what it thinks I need, that I want to see.

And at the same time, that's not at all wrong because in some ways this way Instagram works is almost biblical, you know, it's real relationships, it wants real relationships.

It's how we work in the language of the church, we want a true relationship with God, Instagram wants people who truly relate, so it will pose obstacles, it will pose difficulties and those who generate content without engagement because they will say: “that person doesn't even have to be here because no one will want to comment on this photo that they published”.

And what is engagement? It's like, comment, chat, direct, is what?

That's exactly the point, like isn't engagement. Not that it isn't, it's an engagement. But for us to be able to see better, the like is as if it were a good morning that you give to someone, if you pass by the person and say good morning the person says good morning, have you had a relationship with that person? In a way, you greeted, you looked, you said good morning.

The very superficial like, then, the like doesn't represent much.

Engagement is when the topic comes back and forth, when you have an answer that's not just a like, sometimes it's a question, sometimes it's a question, sometimes it's a call someone, they call someone to see a certain topic and say: “Look here, let's go with me at that event” or then mark and say “look, that's what we were talking about that day”.

When the subject pays off, back and forth is engagement. We can't measure how much you're reaching your audience per like because it's almost automatic even for everyone.

Are social networks the best channels for this engagement with the church to happen?

Always the channel that the audience is using is the best channel.

At another time, at the time of TV, I remember that there were some similar questions about churches wondering if they should have a TV show, if they should have a TV schedule, and that was the question of the moment because that was where the people were.

And the radio went through that, the magazine went through that, the newspaper went through that, the news outlet was always a concern for the church. Should the church take a stand there or not? That's what I always say, some churches do, some churches don't.

It is essential that the church is always on the channel that the person is using. If my church today hosts a program on RedeTV on Saturday at 3 in the afternoon, what are the chances of me scheduling myself to record and watch that program? None!

If my church posts a video on YouTube, I will receive a notification on my cell phone, the chance of me consuming the content that my church did or the preaching that it posted or anything it produced is much greater.

What does a church need to do to be successful or to at least start to walk successfully on social networks?

Well, I don't think it would be a kickoff, it would be a set of moves at the beginning because it's more than one thing you can do when you're starting a social network and they're things that have to happen simultaneously, I can't worry about doing one thing and not doing the others because it doesn't work out.

In principle, the ideal is to worry about your feed, your content, even if your idea is just to inform people about what is going to happen at the church or what happened, plan this content in an interesting way, in a way that the person can see and like.

Taking time to think about your content is essential and, even if it's once a week, to make a post that has the sole intention of being positive, of being something that people will see without being tied to any worship time, to do something with content.

And yes, the church has a lot of content to show wherever it is, so the Bible itself there, the sermon itself, the cell group lesson itself, whatever campaign the church is launching at the moment, all of this is a matter for social networks as well.

But for her to be relevant and for her to have a greater interaction, there are other things she can and must do, one of them is to respond to people, whenever a person asks something to the church, whenever someone interacts with the church, answers.

If the person posted a photo and tagged the church like the photo, see who posted it in the location where the church is, because all this creates this idea of a relationship with the church.

Whenever possible, from the church, create contact with the public, and not wait for the person to just like the page. If the person mentioned the church, if the person asked the church, answer, answer quickly, be efficient, or do your best in the answers.

Another very good tool that is available on all social networks is story, so you can make videos that link to the feed. This tool is being little explored, it can be more explored by churches and it is also very efficient to inform, so suddenly you just have to say something about the event time, you can use Instagram stories.

One thing that's very important: the church doesn't speak in believers either. Don't use only jargon that only believers understand because otherwise that audience that can go through the feed, who may enter the church page, may often even be offended.

I know churches that use terms like “this is the month to rescue the lost”. If I'm not part of the church and I read a text like that, it doesn't work out well.

It is a series of care that the church must take to become a way to inspire people, to attract people, to bless people and not just to be present.

Ronis, a person who has no technical knowledge, other than training in social networks, is able to do relevant work on social media.

No (laughs), definitely not. The person may not have studied social networks, but they probably already use it. So, we already know some things, we already understand a bit about how it uses it, how it makes the content there, how it responds, etc.

But it's not enough when we're talking about the church's profile and it's also not enough when we're talking about the pastor's own profile.

It's very important that he knows how to put himself, that he knows what to post. Because there is the figure that represents the church, which is communicating with the church. So, the question of someone who is totally oblivious, or who is just starting out on social networks, starting from that point alone is very risky.

There are several places on the internet, several sites, with various texts and articles, and there is even a book about this, which the person can study and research before starting a job on social networks.

I think it's very important because sometimes in the heat of the moment, and we forget that we're responding as a church.

When I worked in communication at Central, we often read a post that someone made and one answered in one way and another answered in another and we were looking for ways in which the church would position itself on that issue, because for the church to actually put itself in a complicated situation is very easy.

So, all this content issue cannot be asked only to someone who thinks they can answer for the church and this also goes into several aspects, neither in the comments nor in the posts, and all this communication has to be done in a strategic way, and to do something strategic it has to be done by someone who understands Instagram itself, Facebook itself.

Give reports about what time your audience enters and what time your audience is not on the internet, what is the best time for you to publish.

Today we have data that says that the first 20 minutes of a publication defines whether it will be successful or not because if it is shot in the first 20 minutes and it already burns itself there in the first 20 minutes, no one saw it, posted it at a time when there was no one accessing it, posted it in the middle of the service, everyone was at church, the first 20 minutes passed there without interaction, it probably won't appear to anyone else.