Church Marketing Sucks

This is part two in our series on guerrilla church marketing, Power to the Pews.

The first step in guerrilla church marketing is to start creating content. You’re already tweeting/blogging/picturing (!?), just do it about your church. It’s not rocket science. But more than likely you need to be more intentional about talking up your church. Here are some ways you can get started:

Blog/Tweet the Service
Every week your church has a worship service and is creating all kinds of related content. That’s an opportunity. You can blog or tweet about the service and spread the word simply, naturally and effectively. Talk about the songs you’re singing, how the sermon impacts your life or just what you get out of the service. Your church staff puts a lot of effort into creating this stuff every week. Give it more legs by talking it about it online. You can take notes with pen and paper and do your blogging later, or whip out your laptop, tablet or smart phone and live tweet the service. Side effect: Listening for something worth sharing helps me to pay attention.

#LoveMyChurch Hashtag
If you love your church you should be talking about it. Use the #LoveMyChurch hashtag to share what keeps bringing you back to your church each week. It’s a simple exercise but doing it consistently is a powerful testimonial for your church.

Many of your Twitter followers might not even get why you’d want to go to church. If you can tell them in a loving, friendly, non-snarky way, then you’re doing reputation management for the worldwide church.

Share Photos
Nowadays everyone is a photographer, snapping cell phone pics and sharing with Facebook/Instagram, Flickr and more. Take pics at church, whether it’s a special event or a cool service and share them. Let your network see what happens at church. It’s probably not the boring church service they expect or remember.

You could even get creative and make a project out of it. Stand in the back and take a picture every week—a year’s worth of back-of-the-church photos would be pretty awesome. People have been doing it with their faces for years, why not do it with your church’s sanctuary?

Documentary
Video is exploding these days and what would be more fun than a video about your church? It’s a project only the most well-staffed and funded communication teams will ever get to, so it’s perfect for a free agent like yourself. Give us an honest-to-goodness documentary—just walk around the church office getting some off-the-cuff remarks from staff. Spend Sunday morning set up in a corner and asking folks about church. Avoid the awkward and overdone Office mockumentary vibe and make it real.

What’s Your Story?
Go even deeper: Collect and share stories from your church. Talk to people and get their faith story, whether it’s how they came to Christ or how they came to your church or some momentous spiritual milestone in their life. Collect these stories in whatever medium works (text, video, audio, etc.) and start sharing them (blog, book, podcast, YouTube, etc.).

This might be a communication team’s dream project, but they’re too busy with the day-to-day to ever make it happen. You could be the hero that finally brings it to life.

What Are Your Ideas?
How would you start creating content for your church as a church marketing civilian?