Missional Social Media: Content and Strategies for Missions Organizations - Notes

Missional Social Media Thesis Overview

• Kathryn Larson's senior thesis focuses on content and strategies for missions organizations to utilize social media effectively.
• The thesis acknowledges the widespread use of social media and its potential for missions organizations.
• It explores the application of communication theories and provides a practical guide for optimizing social media ministry.

Acceptance and Approval

• This thesis has been accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation from the Honors Program of Liberty University.
• Signatures:
  • Dr. Clark Greer, Ph.D., Thesis Chair
  • Dr. Carmen Navarro, Ph.D., Committee Member
  • Christopher Nelson, M.F.A., Associate Honors Director

Abstract

• Technology, including social media, offers creative ways to spread the gospel and build communities across borders.
• Missions organizations can leverage social media strategies and content to create a viable social media ministry.
• Communication theories, such as the Community Development Theory and reception theories, enhance understanding of two-way communication and engagement.
• A social media strategy involves evaluating audience, platforms, and content for continuous improvement and goal attainment.
• Keywords: Christian missions, social media, communication, ministry

Introduction: The Digital Shift and Social Media

• In 2020, approximately three-quarters of Americans engaged with social media for various purposes.
• Organizations have adapted to the digital shift, utilizing social media for marketing, community building, and audience connection.
• Social media is a primary means of connection, content sharing, and information access.
• Nonprofits use social media to share their impact and inspire action.
• Word-of-mouth marketing is facilitated through social media.
• Social media is a valuable tool for creating community and acting as digital ambassadors for Christ.

Churches and the Great Commission

• Churches have started establishing online faith communities using social media.
• Christians are tasked with being digital ambassadors in a media-saturated world.
• Missions organizations have the opportunity to share the gospel across global platforms.
• The central question is how to create content and strategies to enhance a missions organization’s social media presence.
• The thesis addresses the gap in literature regarding social media use by missions organizations.

Historical Use of Technology for Spreading the Gospel

• Christians have historically used modern communication tools to spread the message of Jesus Christ.
• Examples include:
  • The New Testament letters
  • The printing press

The New Testament Letters

• Paul's letters in the New Testament served as a technology that provided presence and extended reach.
• These letters facilitated communication and contained truths about Jesus, Christianity, and salvation.
• Paul utilized this tool to encourage and instruct churches.
• Humans have an innate desire for connection and communication.
• Technology aims to break barriers of distance and time.

The Printing Press

• The printing press enabled mass production of texts, such as the Bible.
• The Bible became accessible to a wider audience.
• Martin Luther translated the Bible into German in 1521, challenging the Roman Catholic Church's control.
• The printing press allowed common people to read the Bible and experience God independently.
• Both Paul and Luther recognized the value of technology in spreading the Gospel.

Modern Communication Technology: Social Media

• Social media is defined as web-based tools for interaction and content sharing.
  • Gould (2013) emphasized the participatory nature of social media.
• Social media is a tool for creating online communities, defined as fellowship based on shared values.
• Hedt (2013) suggests that social media helps fulfill the desire for community and interconnectedness.
• Online communities can serve as platforms for discipleship and mission by providing encouragement, teaching, and positive reinforcement.

Churches and COVID-19

• Churches adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic by creating virtual meetings and faith communities through livestreaming.
• Pew Research (2020b) found that three-quarters of regular worshippers watched services virtually.
• Churches like Brenthaven Cumberland Presbyterian Church and Waymaker Church established online platforms.
• Half of the respondents who watched services had not done so before the pandemic.
• Churches shared the love of Christ by adjusting meetings and creating virtual experiences.
• It is imperative that the Christian church continues to hone digital strategies.
• Crises like COVID-19 can lead to religious change and transformation.

Missions and the Church

• Bendor-Samuel (2020) describes missions as the church's responsibility, with the goal of establishing a thriving body of disciples.
• Communication strategies from the time of COVID-19 can inform future community-building efforts.

Classical Medium Theory

• Bill Gates (1996) stated, “content is king.”
• McLuhan (1964) proposed that the medium affects the message.
  • “The medium is the message” (Edwards et al., 2017, p. 244).
• Media is the symbolic environment of communication that impacts society.
• Symbols create meaning through association.
• The medium through which a message is communicated changes its meaning.
  • Reading a book versus reading a tweet.
• Evaluate how organizations communicate through social media, platform choice, and effectiveness.

Communication Theories: Relationship and Community Building

• Social media creates opportunities for sharing messages and building community.
• Social media can:
  • Build Christian community beyond church walls
  • Inform newcomers
  • Obtain feedback
  • Share the gospel
  • Share stories and testimonies (Gould, 2013)
• Joseph Walther's Social Information Processing Theory (1995) explains how computer-mediated communication builds relationships.
• New media can establish virtual communities.
• Organizations rely on social media to relate to customers and stakeholders.
• Social media allows users to create and participate in virtual communities (Raja-Yusof et al., 2016).

Community Development Theory

• Community Development Theory:
  • Membership
  • Shared emotional connection
  • Membership influence
  • Needs fulfillment (Mahoney & Tang, 2017).
• Participation and interaction are vital in a social media strategy.
• Mission organizations can foster a shared purpose of creating Christ-centered community and evangelism.
• Membership influence involves seeking members' opinions and sharing their stories.
• Needs fulfillment involves addressing spiritual and relational needs.

Reception Theories

• Understanding how audiences receive messages is essential for effective communication.
• Van Ruler (2018) identified three main categories of communication theory:
  • One-way
  • Two-way
  • Omnidirectional diachronic process (continuous development of meaning).

One-Way Communication: Mathematical Communication Theory

• Shannon's 1949 mathematical communication theory focuses on the flow of information from sender to receiver.
• Success is determined by whether the communication is received.
• This model is suitable for sharing information and persuasive communication.

Two-Way Communication: Berlo’s Model

• Two-way models emphasize interaction.
• Meanings are continuously created as participants serve as actors.
• Berlo’s 1960 communication model explains communication as a continuous and simultaneous interaction of variables.
• The diachronic aspect involves the ongoing process of meaning-creation.

Social Media Relation

• Active participants create meaning based on context and content.
• The method of communication changes how an audience creates and shares meaning.
• Visuals hold internal storytelling power that can trigger emotional responses (Hoppe, 2018).
• Images can change attitudes and create memories.
• Social media posts with images receive 180% more engagement, and memory recall is 63% compared to 10% for text-only posts (Hoppe, 2018).

Social Media Strategy

• Social media strategy should align with an organization's needs and platform.
• Churches should optimize social media around a central idea (Wise, 2014).
• The core should communicate involvement and participation benefits.
• A content strategy should focus on events or campaigns.
• Each content strategy should include:
  • Platform
  • Target audience
  • Estimated cost
  • Information (Wise, 2014).

Storytelling and Biblical Integration

• Storytelling can reach people and bridge cultural gaps.
• Stories from the field can inspire prayer and giving.
• Storytelling cultivates community (Mahoney and Tang, 2017).
• The Bible tells stories of hope and restoration, which can be shared on social media (Lazarus, 2020).
• Testimonies provide hope and inspiration.

The Great Commission

• The Great Commission provides a framework for a gospel-centered social media strategy.
• Matthew 28:18b-20:

$\text{All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.}$

• Believers have been given authority to spread the good news.
• Social media enables reaching people worldwide.
• Discipleship requires ongoing effort to empower new believers.
• Teaching is a primary element of Christian ministry (Lazarus, 2020).
• Christ promises His presence and the Holy Spirit to guide social media ministry.

Audience Analysis

• A message must be tailored to a specific audience to have maximum impact (Hoppe, 2018).
• Consider:
  • Religious practice
  • Spiritual openness
  • Emotional response to Christianity
  • Geographics
  • Demographics
  • Psychographics
  • Behavioral patterns.
• Geographics: Location (country, city, culture).
• Demographics: Age, gender, occupation, education.
• Psychographics: Attitudes, faiths, beliefs.
• Behaviors: Content consumption, time spent, preferences.
• The goal of missions organizations is to cultivate local communities of believers (McKinley, 2017).
• The target audience of a missions organization aligns with the local church.
• Social media can connect individuals through events and storytelling.

Platforms

• The medium is the message.
• Consider the target audience and platform characteristics.
• YouTube: Best for video.
• Twitter: Best for short information.
• Instagram: Best for images.

Facebook

• Most-used platform: 2.4 billion monthly active users (Kemp, 2020).
• Uses:
  • Pages for establishing a presence.
  • Photos, videos, and text posts.
  • Live streaming.
  • Private groups for smaller groups (Hoppe, 2018).

YouTube

• Second most-used platform: 2 billion monthly active users (Kemp, 2020).
• Positives:
  • Reaches audio-visual learners.
  • Shareable across generations (Gould, 2013).
• Videos are entertaining and informative.
• High on entertainment, low on social interaction.

Instagram

• 1 billion active monthly users (Kemp, 2020).
• Visual platform with interaction through comments and direct messages (Hoppe, 2018).
• Popular among young people, 90% are under 35 (Allred et al., n.d.).
• Offers interaction, polls, and Q&A stickers.

Twitter

• 340,000 monthly active users in 2020 (Kemp, 2020).
• Status-updating platform: 280-character tweets.
• Uses:
  • Short prayers or motivational quotes.
  • Promoting ministry events.
  • Posting links to web-based content (Gould, 2013).

Creative Portion

Why Social Media Ministry? Let’s Talk Big Idea

• Know the WHY behind your social media ministry (Wise, 2014).
• The big idea should be simple, specific, and motivating.
• It should also communicate participation benefits clearly.
• Lazarus (2020) emphasizes purpose statements flowing from the big idea.
• Key questions to determine the big idea:
  1. What are we passionate about as a ministry?
  2. How can social media impact the community we are serving?
  3. How can social media contribute to the Great Commission?
  4. What do we want to happen as a result of implementing social media into the ministry?

Examples of Big Ideas for Missions Organizations

1.  Minister to the unreached peoples of _____ through connecting them in virtual communities.
2.  Spread the gospel to the people of ______ through sharing of stories of faith and transformation.
3.  Increase awareness of community events in ______ through digital promotion.
4.  Increase engagement and interaction between Christians in ______ through the use of social platforms.

Who Are You Talking To? Let’s Talk Audience

• A missions organization has multiple audiences (Lazarus, 2020).
  • Unreached people, donors, volunteers, local churches, the global church, and more.
• Each content strategy and campaign should have a target audience.
• Considerations for narrowing down a target audience:

Geographics

• Where are they?
• Geographics are the most important aspect.
• Sending country or target country?
• Cultural climate?
• Who needs to hear the message?

Demographics

• What are they all about?
• External and physical factors such as:
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Occupation
  • Marital status
  • Family

Psychographics

• Who are they really?
• Deeper attitudes and motivations.
• Faith and beliefs.
• Vital to knowing how to communicate with them.
• Contextualize your message for them to understand.

Behavioral Patterns

• What are they doing?
• How the audience spends their time.
• Hobbies, activities, media preferences.
• Social media platforms they use.
• These dimensions serve as a template for social media campaigns.

Where Are We Going? Choosing Platforms

• Platforms refer to digital spaces where media are distributed and interaction takes place.
• Different platforms are used for different purposes to reach different audiences.
• Consider the main audience, primary media, and potential opportunities of each platform.

Facebook

• Most widely used platform globally.

Main Audience

• The largest percentage of Facebook audience is individuals aged 25-34.
• 79% of US adults aged 18-29 and 30-49 use Facebook.
• 73% of Americans in Urban environments use Facebook.

Primary Media

• 51% of respondents sent a message on Facebook messenger.
• 45% browse their feed to see posts from friends or pages they follow.
• 37% posted a photo, written status, or video to their feed.

Potential Opportunities

• Written posts like status updates or even short blogs can be successfully used to provide audiences with updates on the organization.
• Photos of events or missionaries can be shared to give the audience an insight into the mission.
• Testimony videos can be shared to show the impact of the ministry.
• Facebook Live can be used to live stream events.
• Private Facebook groups also provide an outlet for community to occur.

Instagram

• Primarily a photo-sharing application on the rise in the recent years.

Main Audience

• The average age of Instagram users is 25-34 years.
• 67% of US adults aged 18-29 use Instagram.
• 46% of urban residents use instagram.

Primary Media

• Instagram is known for its photo-sharing nature.
• The Instagram Story feature allows a user to post a photo or short video that lasts on their story for 24 hours.
• On stories, users have the ability to direct message in response.
• They can also post polls and questions through Instagram Stories for follower response.
• Through Instagram Reels users can post longer videos.

Potential Opportunities

• Instagram can act as a canvas for your organization.
• Provide context for each photo by crafting short but meaningful captions.
• Explore graphic design by creating illustrated texts using inspirational quotes, Scripture verses, or your mission/vision statements.
• Use stories to give real-time updates on the latest news about your organization

YouTube

• Identified as the second ranked most used platform in the world.
• 73% of US adults using it.

Main Audience

• 91% of 18-29-year-old individuals use YouTube followed by 87% for ages 30-49.

Primary Media

• YouTube is known as a video sharing application.

Potential Opportunities

• YouTube can be your organization’s home for all video content.
• A great idea would be to create a promotional video for your organization, letting viewers know who you are, what you do, and your mission.
• From there, testimonial videos of faith change and ministry updates from the field could be created.

Social Media Creation

• You do not need a social media expert to begin your social media ministry.

Creating a Facebook Page

• Go to facebook.com/pages/create
• Insert the name of your organization as the title
• Make your page type ‘Company & Organizations’
• Select the specific page subcategory (‘Religious Organization,’ ‘Nonprofit Organization’)
• Add a profile picture (your logo!)
• Add a cover photo (820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall)
• Insert your ‘About’ information (Inform the public about your mission and programs)

Creating an Instagram Profile

• Go to Instagram.com and click “sign up”
  • If you already created your Facebook page, you could also select ‘log in with Facebook’ to link your social media accounts
• Sign up as a business profile
• Create an Instagram handle that is clear and concise. It should easily identify your organization and be easy to find.
• Insert your profile name (your organization’s name)
• Add a profile picture (your logo)
• Insert your ‘Bio’ information (Inform the public about your mission and programs)
• Link your website at the bottom of the bio section

Creating a YouTube Channel

• Create your YouTube channel through your organization’s Gmail account
• Add your organization’s name
• Add a profile picture (your logo!)
• Add a YouTube banner (2560 x 1440 pixels)
• Request a Google for Nonprofits account
• Look up “YouTube Nonprofit Program,” and click ‘Get Started’
• Follow the steps indicated and wait for your request to be processed

What Are You Saying? Content Creation and Curation

• Companies use content to earn trust, gain attention, increase engagement, and garner a variety of actions from users around the world (Luttrell & Capizzo, 2019).
• The primary goal for this content should be to develop a strong relationship between brand and audience (Luttrell & Capizzo, 2019).
• Content creation encompasses content that is produced by your audience that provides value to the audience in a certain way.
• Content curation is content that is shared from other organizations to enrich the audience experience and create connections to other like-minded organizations (Luttrell & Capizzo, 2019).

Content Categories:

1.  Spoken content: This could include church services, special speaking engagements, conferences and podcasts. It can come in the form of video content, live video streaming, or podcast material.  a. Preferred platforms: YouTube, Spotify Podcasts, Apple Podcasts
2.  Written content: This could include things like blog posts and articles. Written content will also accompany every visual content piece in the form of captions.  a. Preferred platforms: Facebook, Instagram
3.  Graphic visual content: This could include images, graphic designs, visual text posts, and videos. Remember the impact of visual content on viewers (social media posts including images receive 180 percent more engagement (Hoppe, 2018)).  a. Preferred platforms: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook

When to Speak? Content Calendar

• A well-known principle in marketing is referred to as the 80/20 rule or the Pareto
• Principle (Hoppe, 2019).

The Pareto Principle

• Originated, the Pareto Principle referred to the fact that 80% of the wealth of Italy was owned by only 20% of their population (Erridge, 2006).
• Hoppe (2019) suggested that 80% of what you post should inform, entertain or educate your audience.
• The other 20% can contain an “ask” or a promotion of your business/organization (Hoppe, 2019).
• Once you figure out the form of the content that resonates with your audience the most and evaluate which platform it would perform best on, you must actually post it.

Content Calendar Insights:

• According to Elizabeth Arens (2020) and a study done by Sprout Marketing, the best time for nonprofits to post on Facebook is Wednesdays and Fridays from 8-9am.
• Instagram is Tuesday and Wednesday from 1-3pm.
• According to Nicole Ferreira (2021) and a study by Oberlo, YouTube’s primary posting time is Thursday’s and Fridays from 2-4pm.

Sample Content Calendar

• Figure 1.0 provides suggestions for posting days of the week and types of content. See Reference Material Above

Is This Working? Analytics and Metrics

• The success of your organization’s social media ministry should be constantly evaluated and adjusted accordingly.

• There are many tools to utilize to measure analytics and metrics.

  • Page views, interactions, followers, page traffic, etc.

• Built-in programs are:

  • Facebook analytics
  • Instagram insights
  • YouTube studio analytics