Try these 4 Thanksgiving social media tips

Thanksgiving social media posts could get lost in the flurry of advertisements around Black Friday and early Christmas. How can a church’s social media break through?

Try this: Create Thanksgiving social media posts that speak directly to your followers. But how do you know what they’re thinking or wanting? Can you know what your community is thankful for? Yes, you can!

Here are 4 easy social media tips any church can use (and your posts will be shareable and supportive of what the community is desiring):

1. Find out what your community is thinking. Go to google.com and search for “I’m thankful for … ” or “I’m grateful for … ” then stop before you hit return. Google will complete your sentence in a dropdown list of things in your community people have said they’re thankful for. It’s what they’re typing into Google! And Google gladly shares this information with you, so use it! You may be surprised at some of the searches.
2. Choose from the list. Go through the Google list and pull ideas that fit your church’s message. You may have to hit return and go to the search results page to finish, but use those near the top of any listing. And use the wording Google suggests.
3. Create a campaign. Make a simple graphic using a design program like Canva. Keep it very simple, with few words, but use your church’s fonts and colors, maybe a small logo in the corner. A good size that can be used on both Facebook and Instagram is 1200 x 1200 pixels. Then use the same design but change the picture and words for other graphics. Decide how many you need (1/week for 4 weeks? 1/day for Thanksgiving week?) and create them all. Ensure they are from the same “design family.” Then write a simple post that expands on the message of the graphic (i.e., “I’m grateful for my family”) and maybe ask a question (i.e., “What are you grateful for this Thanksgiving?”). Decide when they’ll post and schedule them (or create a calendar reminder).
4. Have a call to action. Be sure to add a Web link on each post to motivate someone to a next step. That can be watching a Thanksgiving video about what church members are thankful for, or a sermon about gratitude, or maybe invite them to a special Thanksgiving service. Keep the “ask” to a minimum and remove as many barriers as possible (make it easy for them).

Remember, great social media connects to your website so make sure your site is ready to attract and lead them to visiting or watching online. The more you create a similarity between your Thanksgiving social media posts (colors, fonts, logo, message) and the Web page you lead them to, the more it will connect them to your church. They liked your post so much they clicked on a link! Now connect them to your church.

NOTE: I’m thankful for all you who create and maintain social media for your church. No one fully understands how difficult that can be (especially during the holiday season)! Happy Thanksgiving!

EDITOR’S NOTE — Mark MacDonald is a communication pastor, speaker, consultant, bestselling author, church branding strategist for BeKnownforSomething.com and executive director of Center for Church Communication, empowering 10,000+ churches to become known for something relevant (a communication thread) throughout their ministries, websites, & social media. His book, Be Known for Something, is available at BeKnownBook.com.