If you haven’t heard of Twitter before… where have you been?! Maybe taking a very long nap… Anyway I’m sure most of you will be aware of Twitter, tweeting, the ‘twittersphere’, retweets, DMs etc etc etc. The world of twitter has become part of most people’s every day lives and most people tweet from their phones, tablets and laptops. With such a huge audience on twitter, it is important that the church engages with this form of social media and looks at ways that it can reach people (both christian and non christian).
Due to the nature of a tweet being short and snappy, it’s easy to send out lots and lots of tweets that quickly become meaningless and spammy. This can result in your audience becoming disengaged. Keep your tweets frequent but not overpowering; 2 or 3 tweets a day is a good way to start.
It’s also a good idea to vary the content of your tweets. Here’s just a few ideas about what you could tweet about:
- Encouraging bible verses
- News announcements about church members
- Quotes from books
- Prayer requests
- Notices about meetings
- Links to your facebook page
- Worship songs that your team is learning
Something else to bear in mind when tweeting is to use #hashtags that people can also use if they want to talk about the same subject. This encourages engagement with your followers and enables them to join in the conversation.
Think about who you follow on Twitter. In order to increase your audience and engagement, you need followers. A lot of the time, if you follow someone, they will follow you back. Follow people that are going to be relevant to the things you tweet about. Follow church members, other church twitter accounts, well-known Christian leaders, Christian blogs etc.
Keep checking your Twitter analytics and reports. Have a look at the tweets that got the most engagement. This will give you an insight in to the type of content that your audience find most useful, interesting and entertaining. Monitor how many retweets a tweet gets. See which twitter users are most proactive in replying to your tweets. See the demographics of your audience. There are lots of ways that you can keep informed about your followers that can benefit your future tweeting.
What are your top tips for tweeting on behalf of your church? What sorts of tweets do you find gets the most attention from your followers? Let us know by commenting below!