4 Photos your Church should be Posting to increase Engagement

I love posting images on social media. It always gets more engagement than regular text and it just looks cleaner and more appealing to the eye. But one thing I have noticed more recently is that those same images that were getting a good amount of engagement a while back were not getting as much as they used to. Sure, those Bible verse images seem to always do well but just not as well as before.

So, in an effort to spice things up and change things around, I decided to start posting different kinds of images. I started posting actual photos of what was happening at our Church on Sunday mornings. Go figure! Post actually photos of people doing things and what people were experiencing on Sunday morning. My hope was that people would see themselves and like the picture. After all, most people like and want to see themselves in a photo. But I also thought it would be a great way to promote the church to others. If they saw themselves or something great happening at church maybe they would share it.

What ended up happening was that we got a ton more engagement each and every Monday morning since I have been posting these pictures. It has been really exciting!

This made me think of other actual photos that I have posted over the years that have gotten a lot of engagement from our community. Why I didn’t piece it together sooner that people liked to see people, I have no idea haha. But what I realized through this discovery was that I actually needed to be posting more photos of people in our social media accounts.

Below are 4 types of photos I have found to be really engaging our community.

1. Sunday morning. As I mentioned above, taking pictures of what is happening on Sunday morning is a great way to encourage and inspire people on Monday morning and beyond, especially if there is a baptism or other life-changing moment that you happen to get on camera.
2. Volunteers. When you snap pictures of volunteers and post them on social media it does 2 things. It honors them and lets them know how much you appreciate them. But it also is a great way to promote the great opportunities your church has for people to serve. Anytime we post about volunteers and what they do it always gets a great amount of engagement.
3. Events. This is a great way to promote what is happening at your church by simply sharing the cool event that you are having. Create an Album on Facebook and put them all in there so people can see all the cool things you all are doing in your church or ministry.
4. Staff. I have always thought it be a little cheesy sharing picture of our staff, but honestly, people want to hear about the staff working at the Church and what they do during the week. So I have done a few different things over the years to introduce who the staff are to the community. It has been really cool and it does get a lot of engagement.

The great news is that you don’t have to have a team of actual photographers take these pictures. Anyone with a smartphone can do it. Sure, high quality photos would be ideal, but you aren’t going for an award winning photo, you are going for engagement. You are wanting to communicate the values of your church and that great stuff IS happening at your Church. So whether it is just you, or you have a team of people snapping picture, all you have to have to participate is your smartphone.

One last bit of encouragement. Create and use a hashtag every time you post pictures on your social media accounts. It may not be as effective on Facebook, but it crushes on Twitter and Instagram. We created #nlccgreatstuff because “It’s just great stuff” is one of our slogans we’ve said over the years. When we post pictures we tag that so that anytime a person clicks on that hashtag they will see a ton of photos of what your church or ministry has done over the years.

Social media changes all the time. What works well some months go out of style quickly. That is why you have to continue to adapt and change with what is working. Photos seem to be a regular constant in what works on social media. So if you haven’t started already, get on it now and start taking pictures on your phones or cameras and share them all over your social media channels. I have a strong feeling, it will get you a lot more engagement.

What about you? What photos have you shared on social media that has gotten the most engagement? Share below or use Twitter to share by using @tapounder when you tweet.