How to engage and inspire students on social media
Are you personally on social media? Is your student ministry on social media? Hopefully you responded with some sort of eye roll from those questions because you can’t believe someone in this day and age would ask such a question. After all, if you or your ministry are not on social media you are missing a huge opportunity to minister to students. Why?!? Because students live on social media. Whether it is Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube or Facebook, students are very active on social media.
The beautiful thing about the fact that all these students are on some sort of social media platform, as a student minister, you have a tremendous opportunity to reach countless numbers of students each and every day. So what can you do to engage and inspire students? In particular, how can you use social media to encourage your students daily?
Share challenges. A few years ago my friend Cory Sullivan created a 30 day challenge called “Love Riot”. The purpose was to love God and others daily. What Cory did to hone in on the challenge was to share social media images and post a new challenge for the day. It was a very impactful way to reach students and encourage them on a daily basis.
Share Bible verses. In a world full of negativity and trolls, offer hope! One great way to do that is by sharing Bible verses that are full of hope. You can use apps like YouVersion or Adobe Spark Post to share Bible verse with creative designs with students.
Do video devotionals. Students LOVE YouTube and videos in general. Instead of doing an image or text share of a verse or challenge, make a video devotional. Then post it on your personal or student ministry account to share with those in your group and possibly reach those in your community who aren’t yet in your group. The more video devotional content you can post on your channels the more likely you can encourage students on platforms they are most likely to see it.
Make them laugh. Life is hard. Help students smile, laugh and have those healthy endorphins going by posting fun images, thoughts or a gif. The more they can laugh and have fun with stuff you or your student ministry accounts share, the more they are going to come back to be encouraged and have fun.
Simply encourage them to follow Christ. This could be in the form of verses, quotes, an article or a point or 2 from a recent message. Whatever it is that points students to Christ would be acceptable. Look for ways to encourage them.
Social media is a great tool for you to use to reach students in your ministry. Honestly, it can be overwhelming at times because it is constantly changing and there is so much that students do with social media. Don’t try to do it all. Take your time and focus on the primary and secondary platforms your students are on and excel there. Don’t worry if “X” student ministry is doing great stuff on YouTube or Twitter. If your students aren’t there don’t waste your time. Go where they are and do well there.
Teens live in a very inconsistent, up and down world. The more you can consistently engage and inspire students on social media the more positive influences they will have on a daily basis, which will help them grow to become more like the person Christ created them to be.
What do you think? How do you use social media to engage and inspire students? Share your thoughts below or social media using #ymsidekick when you post.
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