Go Make Disciples in the Digital Age

Go Make Disciples

IN THE DIGITAL AGE CSC Social Media Guide

Go Make Disciples For the past two decades, CSC has worked with parishes to help them develop stewardship as a way of life through education, communication, and evangelization. We help our parishes “Go Make Disciples.”

While there are many ways to share stories of stewardship with parishioners, in the modern world, one of the most effective communication vehicles is social media. Since the mid-2000s, social media has transformed how society interacts and disseminates information.

Whether you are a technological trailblazer or a computer neophyte, parishes today must embrace this outstanding opportunity to evangelize.

Bishop Barron, the most followed Catholic figure on social media after Pope Francis, encourages us Catholics to “Just do it. Try it. There is no excuse to not try to make an evangelical difference on social media.”

It’s important to note that although having a Catholic web presence is now the norm, we must always strive to build a culture of encounter. Pope Francis says, “The great challenge facing us today is to learn once again how to talk to one another, not simply how to generate and consume information.” Honest evangelical encounters demand authentic relationships and candid exchanges.

Thus, we aim to use social media encounters to nourish and bear fruit in the lives of parishioners, therefore making disciples in the “Digital Age.” To help foster stewardship education online, CSC offers the following recommendations.

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Preparing your Parish for a Digital Platform Seek Accurate Email Addresses for Parishioners It is critical to gather current email addresses for all households to enable you to share stewardship messages digitally. An accurate email database will allow you to communicate, educate and evangelize via electronic platforms throughout the year without additional printing or mailing costs. Host a drive with a table in the narthex, put a link on your parish website, or have a raffle for parishioners who participate in the information gathering. Plus, remember that StewardshipPro contains all of the recent Renewal data, including parishioner-provided email addresses, so be sure to utilize that as a current resource.

Update Parish Database How well organized is your parish data? Is it current? Are you a good steward of your resources? It’s wise to assess this sooner than later. With the updated and accurate email addresses, you now can email out a digital version of your parish newsletter to complement your traditional printed newsletter and still reach those parishioners on the margins. You can also utilize email blasts for important dates and reminders. These are all quick, easy, and free options.

How Healthy is Your Parish Website?

Do you have a website? If so, how updated is it? Is it easy enough for parishioners to locate your physical address and Mass times within five seconds? Can they do it in one click or less? Can they view your website easily from their phones? If not, the website is likely not a helpful resource. Check to ensure all links work and take users to the intended location. Display any must-have information on the top of the first page for easy reference. Ensure that the site is responsive, is mobilefriendly, and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) optimized. And don’t forget the easy oversights — ensure all content is spell-checked and grammatically correct.

Consider how your website can better serve your parishioners.

Stepping in to Social Media After you have updated the parish database and gathered current email addresses for parishioners, and once your website is polished, you can now focus on additional means of digital communication, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.

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Trends and Options Social Media Trends According to the April 2021 Pew Study on Social Media, the most popular social platforms – in order of U.S. adult usage: • • • • • • •

YouTube (81%) Facebook (69%) Instagram (40%) Pinterest (31%) Snapchat (25%) Twitter (23%) TikTok- (21%)

Churches are often slow to adapt to technology trends, so we encourage you to utilize available technologies to improve communication and social interaction with parishioners and the community.

Social Media Options Do you have a Facebook page? Do you have an Instagram profile? A Twitter Account? Do you use Snapchat?

Do you post videos to YouTube? More importantly, how do you know what to use?

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Demographics If you don’t know what these social media platforms are, here is a brief background on each and the demographic group you will likely reach with each platform.

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

Snapchat & TikTok

Women in their 30s and 40s and an increasing contingent of older users (50+)

Women in their 20s and 30s

Men in their 30s and 40s

Teenagers

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Social Media Platforms Use the Right Platforms Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are the three most well-known social media platforms and the right place to start.

Let’s do a quick review.

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

This is an image-sharing app that is most popular with people in their 20s and 30s — more particularly, women.

While Instagram is not limited to that demographic, it is an important statistic to consider. Since Instagram is all about the image, it is a great spot to share photos from events and promotional graphics. Plus, the popular “Stories” feature allows you to tap through announcements or videos to share your message.

Although Facebook is sort of where it all began, it has changed a lot over the years. It’s definitely the most likely place to find the older folks from your church, as well as young moms. One of the values of Facebook is that it offers more than just a place to post and share information. You can also form individual groups for the individual ministries at your church so that people can join and share posts within their more specific community. Create groups for women, men, small groups, children’s ministry, and so on. You can even push your message out through targeted marketing with Facebook, which is particularly helpful when promoting parish events.

Twitter is known for its limited space – only 280 characters – and of all the social media platforms, it is the one that men will gravitate to the most. Be concise and consistent. Retweeting is also highly popular and allows all of your followers to view.

Download Instagram from the App Store or Google Play and sign up on your device to begin sharing images today!

Get started at the link below: www.facebook.com Click “Sign Up” and follow the easy step-by-step process to begin sharing with your parish community!

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Snapchat

YouTube

Snapchat enables users to post a video or photo that will appear for a limited time before disappearing. This is an incredibly popular social media platform for teens, and if you are looking to reach your youth group via social media, don’t dismiss Snapchat as an option.

YouTube is everywhere. Almost anytime you click on a video on any blog or feed, it takes you to YouTube. Creating a YouTube account for your parish is simple and offers privacy settings you can tailor to your needs (for example, you may only want church members to be able to view videos, and on YouTube, there is a privacy setting that allows this). Videos can be a great way to share personal stories, as well as to use humor to reach people.

This is a great opportunity to video weekly homilies or snippets to inform parishioners about the weekend focus.

TikTok TikTok is a video-sharing platform that allows users to create short videos to share with their followers. It is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the past few years and is a great way to reach the youth in your parish. These days, teenagers are more frequently scrolling TikTok than any other platform, and they are quick to engage with these short videos with their attention-grabbing content.

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Content Collecting Content CSC supplies annual content for use on your website, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts. These posts are shared in six-month packages, so you have content planned well in advance. It’s simple since you know when to post these based on the date of the image. The weekly content complements the Sunday readings, and additional posts for Holy Days, Feast Days, and secular holidays round out the collections.

Spanish Content Hispanics now account for 40 percent of all U.S. Catholics and a solid majority of school-age Catholics, so now more than ever, parishes need to reach the Spanish-speaking members of the community. In response to this, CSC now offers Spanish versions of all our social media content.

CSC Social Media Content Along with the content we provide for your parish, CSC also has a social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to utilize for your parish social platforms. CSC social media accounts post stewardship formation articles, video clips of speakers from our McGread conference, and tips on living a stewardship way of life that you can easily share on your own platforms to further educate parishioners on the message of stewardship. Follow us and take advantage of our content.

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Facebook: Catholic Stewardship Consultants, Inc. Instagram: @catholicstewardship Twitter: @IncStewardship

Sprinkle In Parish Specific Posts In addition to CSC content, it is essential to sprinkle in ongoing additional posts – current events, important dates to remember, and coverage of ministry events, sacraments, and other parish-related news. Don’t forget to place photos on your website, which is a great way to make your site relevant in searches (Google looks at the number of photos on your website and how frequently they are changed). Combining CSC’s general content along with your parish-specific posts will create an ongoing symphony of social media messages that will help spread the message of stewardship.

Create a Content Calendar Ensure that your online presence reflects the parish calendar. Is Easter weekend approaching? Plan for tweets and posts to go out weekly and then daily as you lead up to the Triduum. Are there any Bible studies about to kick off ? Don’t miss the opportunity to make your parishioners — and, by extension, the community — aware. Creating a content calendar will help you keep people in the loop and keep the stewardship message ongoing.

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Online Presence How do Parishioners Know You Have an Online Presence?

If you utilize social media or plan to, ensure parishioners know! List the social media icons on all parish communications, including bulletins, newsletters, renewal materials, posters in the narthex, parish website, etc.

Get the Word Out! Don’t stop with adding the message to printed pieces or websites. Get the word out that you have online platforms by communicating from the pulpit during announcements. Explain WHY using online evangelization is essential. After all, digital communication saves money and puts pertinent parish information right at parishioners’ fingertips. Ask parish leaders to let all of their ministry members know, as well, and encourage them to LIKE and follow the platforms. After all, if you have these online options, but no one knows about them, what’s the point? Don’t forget to use a #hashtag. This “catchphrase” can be used across all platforms and will increase the likelihood that the parish will move up the list on search engines.

Recruit Help Managing your parish’s social media is a perfect gig for a savvy youth or young adult to tackle. Not only is it a great way to share their tech abilities with the parish, but it will look fabulous on their resume for college or a future job.

Having a trustworthy teen help put your parish online is an underutilized gift! There are plenty of teens out there that would love this opportunity! Just ask! Check with your Youth Minister, older Altar Servers, and active families with older kids to locate options. In addition, we recommend creating a Social Media Ministry if you don’t already have one. This will allow additional opportunities to build a team of digital disciples.

Intentionally Reach Out Try to intentionally invite young adults to invest their time and talent in their parish. Consider asking a few young adults to be a part of the Stewardship Committee or Retreat planning. Seek them out to lead a parish ministry!

They can offer a unique perspective on parish life.

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Posting Content Video Homilies or Recaps and Post on Facebook or Website Allow your homily to reach those marginalized parishioners or Catholics who are not at Mass. Whether they are homebound, hospitalized, sick, or haven’t been in the pews, posting videos of your message is a great way to ensure you reach all parishioners.

Find a photographer or videographer in the parish who is willing to share their time and talents by partnering with you regularly.

Video from inside the church and always remember to be welcoming and hospitable.

What to Post Online: Here is a quick list of items you can easily post online to develop stewardship further digitally:

Parish Newsletter Renewal Materials Retreat Information Survey Link (if applicable) CSC Social Media 6-month volumes on dates listed Lay Witness Talks (at Renewal time AND other times) Daily scripture Photos from parish events Videos from parish events or homily clips

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Other Resources In addition to the content we provide for your parish, we also share valuable information on our social media platforms every day.

This content will help educate and inspire your parishioners — you only need to click and share. CSC also offers resources, such as stewardship articles, stewardship reflections, stewardship videos, and more to help your parishioners better understand what it means to live as disciples of Christ! Our content is a bonus on top of the content we send you. Best of all, it is ready to go at no additional cost to you.

Stewardship Articles: Our CSC social media platforms deliver stewardship education articles each morning. We post articles that range from features on sharing our time, talent, and treasure, to special content on holidays, feast days, and more — all while connecting Catholic teachings to stewardship so that we can help your parishioners better live as disciples of Christ. These posts will inspire parishioners and help them better understand the stewardship way of life and engage and connect them to your parish’s social media platforms, newsletter, and website.

Stewardship Reflections: We post Stewardship Reflections for the upcoming Sunday liturgy every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. These reflections dig deep into the Sunday readings and show Catholics how to live as disciples of Christ. These reflections are based on stewardship and aimed at inspiring discipleship in each of us!

Stewardship Videos: These short video clips are from our bi-annual Msgr. McGread Stewardship Conference and feature messages from priests, deacons, and stewardship experts from the CSC staff. The videos are posted several times a week and feature messages designed to help your parishioners learn more about the spirituality of stewardship, including how to develop stewardship and discipleship within the family, the four pillars of parish stewardship, the importance of giving one’s time, talent, and treasure to the parish, and more!

Conclusion As the pervasiveness of social media grows, it would be unwise to ignore your parish social media strategy and presence. And, like any other ministry, social media needs planning, people, and a purpose to be effective. Hopefully, this guide will allow your parish to engage both members and visitors on social media and digitally implement stewardship as a way of life.

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FOLLOW US:

@catholicstewardship

Catholic Stewardship

www.catholicsteward.com

@IncStewardship