Power to the Pews: Create Content

Power to the Pews: Create Content

May 8, 2012 by

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?

Post By:

Kevin D. Hendricks


When Kevin isn't busy as the editor of Church Marketing Sucks, he runs his own writing and editing company, Monkey Outta Nowhere. Kevin has been blogging since 1998, runs the hyperlocal site West St. Paul Reader, and has published several books, including 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading, The Stephanies and all of our church communication books.
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4 Responses to “Power to the Pews: Create Content”

  • Matt
    May 8, 2012

    What about a foursquare location? Mayor of the first baptist?


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  • Greg Kamback
    May 10, 2012

    Sharing photos seems to be an easy and powerful sharing tool. Someone recently posted a photo on their Facebook page of people in our sanctuary during a Sunday afternoon concert. It was grainy and out of focus, but really got my attention, and I suspect that of others. It made me wish I’d been there!


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  • Audrey Geddes
    May 13, 2012

    The #LoveMyChurch Hashtag is brilliant, thanks for sharing these great tips. Sharing photos is very effective and is more friendly and personal. Another great tip is to share testimonies and videos. You can learn more about this in The iChurch Method: How to Advance Your Ministry Online, by Jason Caston, which offers ideas on how to stream your sermons for free, establish a solid presence through social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and how to develop a mobile website for free. This is a simple, yet effective book, and I highly recommend it for all ministries. You can find the author’s website here: http://www.theichurchmethod.com/


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  • Rick DLR
    May 23, 2012

    Agree thanks great advise


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