​Humanity has been asking existential questions forever. We’re wired for purpose, constantly seeking to answer the big question, “Why?” Although a record-breaking number of believers are leaving brick-and-mortar churches in America, every month, over 100,000 people go on Google and type into the search bar, “Is God Real?” Countless others search for Bible study tools. Our neighbors are asking Siri, not a pastor, “What happens after death?” or profoundly, “What is faith?” The world is going digital, but should the church? The answer is that the gospel should go to all the world, using whatever tools and gifts we have. The eyes of people are on screens, especially the youth. The church must be equipped to go where people’s attention is focused—to be in the world, but not of it. In this free handbook, we’ll demonstrate how to use social media networks for ministry and evangelize to young adults ages 18−30.

​Before subscribing to your channel, most people visit your channel page to get a bird’s-eye-view of what to expect. It is the number-one place where people will decide to subscribe to your channel and, therefore, requires careful thought.

It’s important to understand visitor behavior on the platform. Often, people will watch and like a video that has come up in their suggested videos. Then they click on the name of the creator, which directs them to the channel page. What they find will influence whether they decide to subscribe to the channel to receive that content in their regular feed of videos. Many times, they’re looking for a few specific things, such as: How many videos has this creator uploaded? (after all, what’s the point of subscribing to a channel with only two videos?); how often do they upload? (once a week, twice a week?); what types of videos are they offering? They may also check out your most popular videos. Spend time organizing your channel page to help answer these questions and create a brand look that appeals to the target audience you are trying to reach. Work with a professional designer, if necessary.
 
To start, consider your channel name and how it can tie into your ministry’s branding and goals for being on the platform. Refer to the previous section of this guide on branding to help you identify which direction you would like to go. The name “That Christian Vlogger” immediately communicates to the viewer that they can expect video blogs of Christian content, making the value of the channel instantly apparent. The more common route is to choose the name of a personality or organization. However, this may make it more difficult to communicate purpose and value. Ask, “Does this channel name make a person want to subscribe to the channel?” When an individual uses his or her name, it implies that the channel contains content that is more personal and relatable to the viewer.

Be careful to avoid names that only have internal meaning and don’t convey a clear message or value to the broader public. This is especially important for evangelistic channels seeking to reach people outside the faith who may not be familiar with Christian terms. People may misinterpret your content as not being for them.

Next, develop strong copy for your YouTube channel’s “About” page. The first sentences are the most important, as this copy will pop up in the hovercard for your channel in several places around YouTube, such as the comment and suggested channels sections, as well as the snippet text in the YouTube search results. Therefore, it’s very important that you are intentional with how you craft this copy. These first few sentences should call out your target audience, helping the reader identify that this content is for them. Also, pitch the value of your channel for that target audience. Ask yourself, “Why should they prioritize my content over another similar channel?” or “How will they be affected by my content?” Assume that the reader has never heard about you before and has no idea what your channel is about. Then take the next paragraph to describe what your channel is about and what a person can expect if they were to subscribe to your channel, including your posting schedule. Additionally, weave keywords that are relevant to your channel into the copy and the content you’re creating. Avoid just listing keywords at the end of your “About” page. Finally, you can include links at the bottom of the “About” page that direct to your website and other social media profiles.
 
The channel trailer is a video that is shown very prominently at the top of your channel page for prospective new audience members. Once they hit “subscribe,” they will no longer see that video. Therefore, create a short channel trailer that speaks directly new people, letting them know what your channel is about or what your goal is, how often they can expect new content (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly), and what kind of content they can expect on a regular basis (e.g., vlogs, comedy, inspirational, etc.). Your channel trailer should feature you addressing the camera directly. If possible, give them visual demonstrations of what your channel will show them with quick clips (i.e., your b-roll) while you speak. These elements combined help create an engaging trailer that sets clear expectations, enabling the viewer to better decide if this channel is for them.
 
The channel header is found at the very top of your channel and is an opportunity for you to set your brand apart from other channels. Branding helps communicate a greater perceived value. Make sure your branded look is professional, clean, and modern. Include your upload schedule in your header, and use graphics and text to communicate what the channel is about. Consider including a close-up of your face (if you are the “face” of your ministry) that enables the viewer to see the whites of your eyes on a small screen. Be sure to also include relevant social media links to your ministry’s other platforms.
 
Consider which videos you want people to see first. One strategy is to highlight your most popular videos in a playlist. By featuring your highest-viewed videos, people are more likely to give them a chance because a significant number of other people have already watched them, indicating they are worth your time. This is called social proofing. Another strategy is to feature your highest-converting videos. These can be identified by looking at your channel analytics to see which videos convert viewers into subscribers the most often. Your most-viewed videos may not effectively convert viewers to subscribers.
 
Spend time organizing your videos into additional playlists based on related topics, choosing your best-performing videos for each topic. This can help create a string of binge-worthy content, increasing the time people spend watching and engaging with your content. You may even want to create a playlist dedicated to new subscribers titled something like “New Here?” or “New to the Channel?” This will allow a newcomer to get to know you and your channel through a curated playlist of videos designed to introduce them to your personality and content. Humans connect better with other humans and stories, so share some of your back story here.

​While it is true that content is king, it is also true that marketing is queen. On YouTube, the things that most influence your discovery and channel growth (other than quality of content) are your thumbnails, titles, and tags.
 
Each video that you create should have one focal point or one problem that you’re trying to address. Your thumbnails, title, description, and tags should all work in unison to communicate that message and to optimize the exposure of every piece of content you produce. YouTube’s algorithm weighs all the elements of your video—views, length, titles, tags, etc.—to determine whether to promote that particular video in related search queries, suggested videos, and on the homepage. Most people will find your video through a search query or a related video, so it’s important to have a solid strategy to increase your exposure. Therefore, knowing how to optimize your thumbnails, title, and tags is essential to growing an audience.

• Thumbnails often perform best when they tease a value or a story. Don’t give away the punch line of your video in the thumbnail. Seek to create an emotional response and to give the prospective viewer an incentive to click on the video. Pique their curiosity, giving them a reason to watch.
  
  Use a brief amount of large-font text on your thumbnail that allows easy readability. Help your text stand out by adding a shape behind it. This text can serve to reinforce the video’s connection to a specific topic, increasing the likelihood that a person will select your video among the competition. To interrupt their scrolling, get them to actively think about the thumbnail and how it relates to their search query or topic that interests them. This will better position your video for success.
  
  Keep in mind the average viewer will be watching the video on their mobile phone, so you want to make sure the thumbnail you create is clear and any text is readable on a small screen. Human beings prefer to connect with other human beings. Your viewer will have an easier time relating to the subject matter, and you’re more likely to invoke an emotional response if you include images of people, especially faces, in your thumbnails. Make sure their faces are large enough that you can actually see the whites of their eyes in a small thumbnail. You should also incorporate your overall branding strategy into the design of your thumbnails and your logo. This will help train your audience to easily identify content from your channel.
  
  If you’re not a photo editing pro with tools like Photoshop, no worries. Use free online tools like Canva.com to create your thumbnail from a clear screenshot from the paused video or from a high-quality photo you snapped during the video shoot. Use Canva’s YouTube thumbnail template to make sure you have the correct dimensions: 1,920x1,080 pixels for HD resolution. When taking screenshots, make the video full screen to increase the clarity of the image. Increase the contrast, saturation, and sharpness on your thumbnails to make the image and colors pop, helping you stand out from other videos. Thumbnails perform better when they are about 30% oversaturated and oversharpened, because this helps a small image to pop on a mobile device.
  
  ​In summary
  • Choose an image and/or graphics that stand out and pique curiosity.
  • Include large-font text that teases a value or a story.
  • Include people’s faces, and make sure they are large enough that a viewer can see the whites of their eyes on a small screen.
  • Incorporate your branding and logo.
  • Make sure the thumbnail is easy to understand on a small screen.
  • Add extra contrast, saturation, and sharpness.

• Titles should reflect the vernacular of the platform. Use tools like YouTube auto-fill in the search bar to find out what language people are typing in to search for specific topics. Basically, start typing your question, and let YouTube finish it for you. Look for very specific video ideas, and use the exact wording or variants of the resulting search phrases for your titles. More nuanced titles will help reduce competition and rank your video higher in search queries.
  
  Look at what other popular YouTubers are doing with their titles in videos covering the same type of subjects. Pay attention to the trends and what other creators are doing on the platform. This will help you perform better in related video suggestions. Model your video titles and other elements after popular videos related to your topic. Normally, the typical number of views a video can expect to garner is around 5% to 10% of the total number of subscribers to the channel. When videos exceed this, it’s an indication of strong content, a popular topic, strong title, thumbnail, and keywording. When you model your own videos after competitor’s high-performing videos on a similar topic, you increase the chances that viewers will find your content in the related videos and ultimately subscribe to your channel.
  
  Craft a title that piques the curiosity of the prospective viewer, without giving away the answer. Your title should make them think: “I never really thought of it that way” or “I wonder where they’re going with that.” You goal should be to get them intrigued in the same way your thumbnail hopefully will. Your thumbnail and title work together as complements. Therefore, the text should not be the same in both, but rather work together to give the viewer an incentive to watch.
  
  Avoid including dates, as this may reduce the perceived relevancy of your video, and it takes up valuable space in the title field. Moreover, omit any type of numbering system you may have developed for organizing your videos, as this also does not add value. An exception to this rule may be a series of videos that must be watched in order. In this case, we recommend creating a playlist specific to each series to enable people to binge watch all the videos, if desired.
  
  However, most viewers will not watch your videos in order and will, in fact, stumble across your videos randomly. When choosing your title, consider the perspective of someone completely new to your content. This is the first video they will watch out of your entire collection. Avoid any language that may give the impression this video is not for the prospective viewer or that the content will not be relevant on its own (i.e., leave out the date and sequence number).
  
  ​In summary
  • Model your title after search phrases.
  • Pay attention to trends related to your topic.
  • Craft a title that piques curiosity.
  • Avoid dates and numbering systems.
    
    
• Tags are used to help people find your videos when they type something into the YouTube search bar. The first thing you want to do is make sure you have a common tag used throughout your entire YouTube channel. When all your videos have one common tag, it acts as an indicator to YouTube that each video is related to all the other videos in the library. When someone watches one video, there will be a greater chance that the suggested videos will also be from your channel. For example, Justin Khoe uses “jkhoe” as a tag in all his videos. You’ll want to come up with something unique to your channel that no one else will be using.
  
  Don’t waste any of your tag space with random or one- to two-word tags. These tend to be very ineffective, as competition levels for those tags are too high. “Bible study” will be an incredibly difficult tag to rank for. “How to study the Bible” is a more nuanced tag with less competition and a better chance for your video to stand out. “How to study the Bible for teenagers” will be even more effective. Look for search phrases that are four or five words or more to narrow your competition for searches or related videos. Start with these longer phrases (including the title of the video), then find related permutations of those same tags. For example, “how to study the Bible” can be supported by the following tags: “how to study the Bible for yourself,” “how to study the Bible for beginners,” “how to study the Bible for women,” etc. If there are words that are frequently misspelled by people, such as “Isaiah,” you may also want to include the most common misspellings. The combination of these techniques increases the chances that your video will rank higher in search results and related videos, bringing new people to your channel from other channels and keeping your viewers engaged with your content.
  
  Don’t mislead viewers. Only use keywords that are related to your video content, as disappointed viewers can give feedback such as downvotes and negative comments that can hinder your video’s performance.
  
  Special note: You can only use 500 characters to encompass all of your various tags; if you go over that limit, you can’t upload or save the video. Be sure to prioritize the strongest tags. Use software like tube buddy to help you identify strong keywords and phrases.
  
  ​In summary, follow this model for tags:
  • Your unique channel tag
  • Four- to five-word search phrases related to the video (including the title of the video)
  • Variations on your search phrases (including commonly misspelled keywords)
  • Avoid random tags and one- or two-word tags.
  • Don’t use misleading keywords.
    
    
• Descriptions should not be neglected, as they are factored into YouTube’s and Google’s algorithm for search ranking, increasing discoverability. The first two sentences of your description are the most important regarding ranking, so be sure to reflect the title of your video, and include a call-to-action whenever possible.
  
  Providing description copy (at least 250 words) enables search engines to index your video for search query optimization. In addition, links to your website, specific webpages, resource requests, etc. will also factor into the search engine optimization of both your videos and your website. By providing both calls-to-action and links, you both encourage your viewers toward meaningful action and make it easy for them to take the desired action.
  
  For long videos, make it easy for people to find what they are looking for within the video. For example, a 30-minute video on Bible prophecies may cover many passages. Provide time stamps (lists of relevant timecodes)  for the various sections in the description to allow viewers to skip ahead easily and find the section that most interests them.
  
  ​Checklist
  • Begin your description with the search phrase (or a variation of it) that you used to determine the title.
  • Write your description copy using keywords to optimize search result ranking.
  • Include backlinks to your website, blog, and social media profiles to improve general SEO and visibility.
  • Include calls-to-action where relevant.
  • For long videos, include time stamps for topic-specific sections.

 
If you’ve already established a library of content on YouTube, go back and optimize each of these elements. This will cause YouTube to reevaluate each of your videos and their ranking, helping to better position your existing content.
 
These four elements combined help increase the authority of your channel content, but don’t expect immediate results or for your first video to go viral. YouTube also assesses the quantity of content your channel has produced and gives more authority (and better rankings) to channels that have more content because there is more for people to watch. Expect to put in significant amounts of time to create a wealth of content using these best practices.
 
To be successful on YouTube, you need two pieces. First, you need valuable content that answers people’s questions, meets their needs, makes a difference in people’s lives, and is optimized with proper thumbnails, titles, descriptions, and tags. Second, you need consistency when it comes to putting content out on the platform. Do this, and you will see results.

As odd as it might sound, to reach a large audience, you must stop trying to reach everyone! Think of your YouTube channel as a TV channel. Each channel has a purpose and an intended audience. For example, ESPN focuses on sports, the Cooking Channel on food, etc.
 
What is your channel about, and who is your channel for? Is it for women? If so, how old are these women? Are they single? College-educated? What type of hobbies do they have?
 
The more you can clearly define your target market, the more success you’ll have in breaking through the noise and reaching your audience.
 
Next Step
Refer to the “Understanding Your Target Audience blog” and write a three- to five-paragraph description of your ideal audience member.

One major question that you should ask yourself about any piece of content uploaded to social media is, “Why would anyone care to watch or listen?” While uploading your full worship service will certainly be a blessing to your current church body, think about each online viewer as a first-time guest.
 
Before a prospective viewer can get to the actual message, many ministries force them to sit through 20−30 minutes of content that is irrelevant to them. Why should someone who has never been to your church care about the announcements, special music, or offertory?
 
Instead of uploading your program’s entire livestream to YouTube, a better approach would be to optimize your content for this specific platform once the live event is over. Realize that YouTube is a search engine; it’s a social community with its own subculture and set of social norms. Upload just the individual sermons or messages from your evangelistic series or camp meetings, and optimize the videos to be found via search. 

Break your livestreams and longer videos into smaller segments for distribution and community engagement on YouTube and other social media platforms such as Facebook and IGTV. Consider breaking your videos into two- to three-minute, easy-to-watch clips that highlight the key points of an inspiring message, or pull out the children’s stories into their own dedicated playlist.

Your goal should be to create as much evergreen content as possible to promote your message, church, or ministry to seekers. Capturing the attention of your audience several different times can help build trust and value regarding your ministry. Evergreen content can be shown to new audiences repeatedly while retaining its intrinsic value, meaning it doesn’t become less interesting or less relevant over time. Be sure to avoid including the date in the title of your video or mentioning it in graphics or dialogue during the selected message. Perception is important in outreach. The more dated your content seems, the less relevant it will appear, even if it still carries tremendous value.

Questions to consider before uploading your videos:

1. Will my audience still care about what is covered in this video?
2. How in-demand is the information being presented?
3. If I was a part of my audience, would I spend time watching it?
4. What is the overall replay value of the video(s)?
5. Is the content in easy-to-digest segments that my audience can view on the go?
6. Does this video address a common question or solve a problem?

Follow the guidelines outlined in the How to Start A YouTube Ministry: A Comprehensive Guide.  These guidelines will help position your video in the best possible way, not only to be found, but also get watched. Be sure to follow these steps because your content cannot lead people to Christ unless it is viewed.

Only 20% of Americans regularly attend church, and only 2 in 10 millennials consider regular church attendance important. The Church no longer has the option of embracing change or leaving it to the next generation. The time is now; otherwise, we will become irrelevant. Change is never easy, but anything is possible with the Lord (see Matthew 19:26).

People search online for answers to their problems. They turn to the internet for companionship, understanding, information, anonymity, and more. We must be the voice that answers back, online, to share our message of hope and wholeness. Our digital presence may be the only exposure to the Gospel many people receive. We must recognize that the mission field is online, and just as legitimate as traditional evangelism.

We need an army of digital evangelists dedicated to carrying the gospel to the digital mission field.
Here are 5 steps you can take to become a digital evangelist with resource links:

1. Determine your target audience and platforms. The first step in reaching your audience is to develop a clear picture of who you are talking to. Seek to understand their felt needs and core values. Become a student of their culture. You must go where they spend their time and speak the language they speak. SDAdata.blog/understandingaudiences
2. Develop a strategy. Define your purpose for being on social media and utilizing digital tools. Then frame your strategy accordingly, identifying key performance indicators for success. SDAdata.blog/foundation
3. Research relevant content ideas. When it comes to digital evangelism, content is made to inform, to educate, and inspire. The Church should be the leader in creating content that improves the lives of others, and supports their spiritual growth. SDAdata.blog/contentevangelism
4. Make time for engagement and community building. The church experience should extend beyond the confines of time and space in a building to an involved community that provides 24/7 support not only to members but also to our broader contacts. SDAdata.blog/community
5. Engage in digital door-knocking. Digital door-knocking is when you share spiritual content on your social media profiles or through messaging and email to create an opportunity for people to engage with you about your faith. SDAdata.blog/digitalDK
   
   

​The life, character, and gift of Jesus Christ should be on display in your digital content and interactions. Jesus came not to uplift Himself, but to reveal an accurate picture of God’s character. It’s not about how many followers you have on your digital platforms, but how people can and do discover Jesus through you.
Jesus sought first to fulfill people’s needs; He then invited them to follow. 

We can use social media and digital tools to achieve our mission of spreading the gospel and helping people by creating content that focuses on mental, physical, and spiritual needs first. Once this foundation is established, we can invite our audience to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8, NIV). When used for digital discipleship and evangelism, this shift in focus is a way we can follow Jesus’ example for everyday ministry to real people. We can use social influence for kingdom building while utilizing modern tools and technologies.

For a practical guide to using digital technologies for outreach, community service, growth and evangelism, purchase the North American Division’s Digital Discipleship & Evangelism Guidebook at SDAdata.blog/book.

Available from AdventSource.
Print, Kindle and ePub versions available.

If you can track it, you can measure it. As a result, you can gain a better understanding of your audience and their behavior, helping you adapt your strategies to more effectively reach them. Taking the time to review the performance of your digital communications and platforms enables you to better understand what is working and what needs to be changed, which empowers you to shape your digital communications strategy based on data. In the long run, this will save both time and money while maximizing impact.

Time is valuable. Don’t get so caught up in the details of the data that you respond too late and miss an opportunity. Aim to stay ahead of the curve and be proactive instead of reactive in your strategies.

Most ministries and churches do not have the luxury of a dedicated analytics team, but you don’t need to dive too deep to get valuable information about how your website and campaigns are performing. Since most ministries are new to digital communications and analytics, we’re going to stick to a high-level overview. Go back to those key performance indicators we discussed in the strong foundations section, and use those as a guide for what to track based on your ministry’s goals.

Take the time to familiarize yourself with the terminology of the various data points. Most analytics tools define their terms within the platform. You can usually access these definitions by hovering your cursor over the question mark next to the data category.

The data that is most important to your efforts will be:

• Website performance data
• Social media platform analytics or insights
• Social advertising performance reports

Compare the information you find to the performance goals and metrics you established. Always look for areas of improvement and adjust accordingly.
Communicate with everyone involved by:

• Sharing report summaries with your team (both good and bad)
• Creating summary reports for management, committees or boards; keep detailed reports for yourself
• Problem-solving as a team; sometimes the best solutions are found outside your industry/department/specialty

​UTM codes are segments appended to a URL that enable data platforms like Google Analytics to record information about website visitors and traffic sources. This is vital for social media managers as it enables you to measure and prove social media success or, alternatively, identify problems and adjust your strategies. Creating trackable links is surprisingly easy to do and will give you valuable insights into how well your digital communications and ads are performing.

What is a UTM code?
UTM = Urchin Tracking Module
Example: https://www.SDAdata.org/?&utm_campaign=DigitalGuide-2020&utm_source=Social-Media

UTM codes can be used in links shared via:

• Social media posts
• Email
• Online ads
• Websites
• Any link that drives traffic to your website

 
Creating your own trackable links
A trackable link has five building blocks:

1. The URL you want to direct people to
2. A ? to signify the start of the UTM code
3. & + UTM
4. The name of the promotional campaign the link is related to
5. The source where the link will be used
   

 
Example:

URL – https://www.sdadata.org/digital-discipleship-and-evangelism.html
Campaign – DigitalGuide-2020
Source – Social-Media

Put it all together using this formula:
Regular link + ?&UTM + Campaign (what event, month, where, etc.) + &UTM + Source (channel/platform)

Final result:
https://www.sdadata.org/digital-discipleship-and-evangelism.html?&utm_campaign=DigitalGuide-2020&utm_source=Social-Media

Be sure to always test your links!
After you create your trackable link, be sure to test it to make sure it works. It can be very frustrating for your audience to receive digital content with a broken link.

The most common analytics tool for detailed website performance tracking is Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free tool for monitoring where your visitors come from and understanding how they interact with your website. It’s easy to set up a free Google Analytics account. Most website hosting platforms offer easy-to-follow directions to get you started. Once you are set up, take the time to familiarize yourself with the tool and make it a habit to check your website’s analytics each month.

Terms and definitions

• Session: A visit to the website during which the user is active
• Users: Number of unique people who have visited your website during a specific time frame
• Page views: Total number of pages viewed; repeated views of a page by a single user are counted
• Page/session: Average number of pages viewed during a session
• Average session duration: Average length of a session
• Bounce rate: The percentage of single-page sessions in which there was no interaction with the page

Key metrics to monitor

• Demographics: Age and gender
  Known data about your website visitors.
• Geo: Location
  You can see location by country, city, state, and metro area. You can also look at language if that is relevant to your ministry.
• Behavior: Site content – pages
  Here, you can determine your most popular and least popular pages.
• Behavior: Engagement
  Length of visit/depth of visit.
• Acquisition and traffic sources
  As communicators, we want to know what is working and what is not working to drive people to our website.
  
  

The channel (or traffic sources) breakdown

• Other = UTM codes or campaigns
• Direct (visitors typed in the URL)
• Social media (no tracking code)
• Referral from another website
• Search engine (e.g., Google, Bing, etc.)
• Paid search (results from Google Ads)

When you drill down deeper under campaigns, you can learn what aspects of a campaign performed the best by using unique UTM campaign names for the different components of your communications strategy. Google Analytics automatically picks up the campaign name and source from the tracking links. There is no need to do anything in Google Analytics to make this work! Just be consistent with the UTM codes you use, and be clear with your campaign and source names.

Remember, prioritize. You don’t have time to track everything, nor do you need to!

Once you have determined what you’re going to track to determine whether or not you’re reaching your goals, check performance monthly, and record your results in a way that enables you to see trends over time. Some analytics tools like Google Analytics allow you to create dashboards for easy access, while social media insights may require that you create your own charts and graphs. To learn more about Google Analytics, check out our beginner tutorial on SDAdata.org.

Most social media platforms offer at least basic insights into the performance of a ministry’s account and who their audience is. Take the time to familiarize yourself with the analytics for your social media platforms and regularly check them to understand trends over time.

Pay particular attention to:

• Demographics. Who follows/likes your page by location, age, gender, and language.
• Engagement. This includes comments, likes, shares, messages, video views, etc. If you’re creating content that resonates with your audience, you should expect to see strong engagement rates.  
• Video views. A more reliable metric for gauging success than number of views is how many minutes are spent watching your videos and the number of thru plays. Many platforms count a few seconds of watch time as a view, so the number of views can be misleading. 
  ​
  

Peak visit/engagement periods. Knowing when your profile traffic peaks and when your audience is most likely to engage with your content will enable you to schedule your content strategically. 

After you place your ads, don’t wait until the campaign is over to check performance. Monitor the ads closely to make changes and optimize as needed. Catch problems early on; otherwise, your money may go to waste. The great thing about social advertising is that you can edit campaigns at any time if they are not meeting your expectations. Make sure you understand what the numbers mean; most platforms have descriptions available in pop-ups next to the column head. 
​
Be sure to:

• Understand where your ads are appearing and what locations have the strongest results.
• Determine who you are reaching by age, gender and location. You may find that your ad doesn’t resonate with who you thought it would or that your targeting was off.
• Monitor engagement/response. Are you getting the results you expected?
• Test images, messages, and audiences (A/B testing) to learn what type of ad and messaging performs the best with your target audience.
• Connect performance to Google Analytics and monitor visitor behavior using trackable links.

 
Some basic terminology you should know:

• Results: The number of times your ad achieved an outcome, based on the objective you selected
• Reach: The number of people who saw your ads at least once; reach is different from impressions, which may include multiple views of your ads by the same people
• Impressions: The number of times your ads were viewed
• Frequency: The average number of times each person saw your ad
• Cost per result: The average cost per result from your ads
• Cost per impression: The average cost per impression of your ads
• Relevance: An estimation of how well your target audience is responding to your ad
• Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of times people performed a click after viewing your ad
• Cost per thousand (CPM): The average cost per 1,000 impressions
• Cost per click (CPC): The average cost for each click

​Remember, if you’re going to take the time to put together a campaign strategy, take the time to track its performance so you can be better informed next time. There’s no point in testing strategies without tracking your efforts. If you don’t learn from your campaign, you can’t improve the next one. Social media and digital marketing are both an art and a science. Use data to inform your intuition. 

Simply put, a Facebook pixel is a small snippet of HTML code that is placed on your website for tracking purposes. It’s similar to Google Analytics but specifically for Facebook, enabling advertisers to target and re-target more effectively. Installing a pixel allows Facebook to track visitors and categorize them in custom audience groups. This information can help you develop more effective ads that appeal to a specific audience’s interests while saving money.

It takes time, effort, and money to attract an audience, so once you have people actively engaging with your content, the next most effective step you can take for your ministry is to cultivate your relationship with your audience. Pixels are one way to re-engage your followers/visitors and ensure that your content is reaching them. Pixels can also help you customize the content they receive, taking into consideration their level of engagement and behavior and making sure your organization’s content stays relevant to their needs.

For example, suppose you have a website that tackles multiple difficult topics, and one of the most visited areas focuses on “What happens when we die?” You can re-target visitors to that specific page with Facebook ads for videos, new content, free books, etc., all related to a biblical perspective on death. You can do the same for your prophecy, health, and Sabbath sections as well.  

Custom audience options for pixels include:

• All web visitors
• People who visited specific pages
• Visitors by time spent
• Visitors by date
  
  

Another practical ministry example: Let’s say you are promoting a series of content highlighting health principles; you’re getting a lot of traffic and engagement on your website, but only a few people are taking advantage of the free book offer. A Facebook pixel allows you to re-target these engaged website visitors with a Facebook ad reminder to download or request the free book. This increases your conversion rate (offer downloads) by focusing on people who have already showed interest but who may have gotten distracted by the demands of work, family, and life. Modern life means people are busy. They may be indeed be interested but may need reminders (remember the “Rule of 7”). This is particularly true when it comes to advertisements for events.

Click here for a step-by-step guide from Facebook to learn how to set up a Facebook pixel for tracking.

Once you have your pixel set up, you'll also want to set up custom audiences in your ad account so you can strategically target certain types of people who are more likely to respond to your content and invitations. Once these are set up, Facebook will dynamically build up these audiences for your use in targeting ad campaigns. These audiences are considered warm audiences because of their relationship to your page and are generally more cost efficient. You can also create lookalike audiences and colder or broader audiences for wider outreach efforts. Keep these saved in your Facebook Ads manager for easy access when setting up campaigns.

• Facebook page engagers in the past 90, 180, or 365 days
  • People who have already expressed interest in your church and/or content
• Video engagement audiences
  • For example, you can re-target those who watch church service livestreams or video messages
• Website visitors in the past 90, 180, or 365 days
  • People familiar with you who have taken some interest
• People who have visited specific website pages
  • For example, Bible studies, youth pages, visitor pages, etc.
• Lookalike audience of page engagers
  • This is an easy way to find the top 1% of people similar to those already engaged; this audience is automatically formed at the national level, so you will need to geo-target by address when using this audience
• Lookalike audience of email list
  • People similar to people who have subscribed to your eNewsletters
• Lookalike audiences of those who signed up for events, reserved tickets, downloaded free books, etc., via online forms
  • People similar to those who have attended previous programs or received materials
• Parents with children in the age ranges relevant to your programs
  • Such as VBS and Pathfinders who live within driving distance
• Saved audience by age and/or gender geo-targeted to your community
  • Ideal for men/women's ministries, teen/young adult ministries, etc.
• Everyone within five miles of your church.
  • If you are located in a rural area, the distance can be increased, or the distance can be reduced for more densely populated areas. Aim for an audience of less than 50,000 people for cold ads inviting people to marriage programs, holiday events, etc.
    
    

To learn more about Facebook advertising, visit facebook.com/business

Most local churches and ministries have limited budgets. To make the most of your limited ad dollars, build your advertising on top of your organic distribution mechanism. Paid ads are most successful when they are accompanied by strong digital distribution. They enable you to reach further than you can organically and to target specific groups of people for outreach efforts.

Why spend any money when you can use the platforms for free?
Social media platforms are businesses that need to make money; therefore, they limit unpaid reach. This means less than 5–10% of your fan base (depending on the platform) will naturally receive your posts in their news feed. You can counteract this by promoting key posts to reach more of your fan base and by placing ads to expand your reach to new audiences.

To get started:

• Determine your target audiences (who you want to reach). Refer back to the section on understanding your audience for guidance.
• Determine your budget (how much you can spend).
• Start with a test, and then expand based on results.

A lot of people ask me, “How much does it cost to promote an event online?” But the beauty of social media ads is that the answer depends on what you can afford. Social media works very well for small budgets and non-profits. A little can go a long way, but it’s important to spend some money. As your confidence grows, and your familiarity with reaching your target audiences grows, you can increase your budget as needed. Ultimately, your budget depends on the size of your goals and your purpose. A small, local ministry may need to spend only $300 a year, whereas a nationwide campaign would need to spend at least $3,000 to create impact within a targeted audience. For all organizations, I recommend starting with a small ad budget and a clear objective that is easy to measure. This way you can learn and maximize your results as you grow.

Look for monies that can be redirected. Businesses that must balance their budgets or make a profit put most of their effort behind what is working. We should be just as shrewd. Too often, we pool our best resources and people into efforts with limited potential out of a misguided attempt to be fair or to meet accepted expectations. 

This will be different for every church or ministry, but it’s time to take a critical look at our programs. Determine your church’s strengths, and put all your efforts behind them. The Strength Finder (now CliftonStrengths) program operates on this premise for individuals and teams. We all love underdog or David and Goliath stories, where individuals or organizations overcome their weaknesses and beat the odds, but for most, thriving comes when we embrace what we are naturally good at. The underdog stories are typically outliers, and we should not operate under the assumption that we, too, are the exception to the rule. First, improve the functions required for your church’s operations, and put money behind keystone ministries with the most potential in the context of your membership and community. It might seem unfair to those ministries that don’t get as much support, but like the parable of the talents, you need to invest in the areas that are working the most effectively. Good stewardship means focusing on places where you can make an impact beyond day-to-day operations.

Another option is to find individuals willing to fund social advertising as an outreach initiative or personal ministry. I personally fund and run my local church’s social media advertising and website hosting. Over time, our church leadership has learned the value and potential of using these digital technologies for a variety of purposes. 

​Not every church is blessed with an experienced digital strategist, but this is an opportunity to allow a member with knowledge or interest in digital communications or marketing to develop their skills in a personal ministry that aligns with their abilities. If your church has staff, your communications lead can manage your ad account. This could also be a valuable skill for a younger member of your pastoral team to learn and take responsibility for. Either way, be sure to provide oversight so that expectations are clear, and the budget is respected.

As of 2020, Facebook still has the most sophisticated social media advertising platform for small organizations. It enables detailed targeting for small budgets on Facebook, Instagram, and third-party websites. However, many of these ad types are also relevant to other platforms. The technologies and platforms may change, but these “types” will still be relevant, regardless of the platform. Choose the types of ads that align with the key performance indicators discussed in the strong foundations section of this guide.

Here are the main types of ads that can be placed:

• Promote your page/profile
  • Increase page “likes” and awareness within a targeted community
• Website ads
  • Increase traffic to your website for a specific event/offer/information from members of a particular community
• Posts targeted to members and those who follow or engage with your page
  • Improve internal communication
• Ads targeted to your subscriber email list
  • Improve internal communication/awareness
• Video views to targeted audiences
  • Increase impact/expand the reach of your message
• Event response ads
  • Increase event/program awareness and attendance
• Messenger ads
  • Help facilitate conversation or generate leads for Bible studies
• Lead generation ads
  • Offer free materials and collect outreach lead contact information
• Retargeted messages
  • Based on behaviors such as content engagement and website visits that enable advertisers to follow up with relevant messages

Refer back to the section on understanding your audience, and use this framework to determine who your audience is and how you are going to target them through social advertising. Targeting allows you to maximize your ad dollars by ensuring you reach the right people instead of wasting money on those less likely to respond.

Most platforms allow you to target by:

• Location (e.g., country, state, city, address, or place)
• Age
• Gender
• Language
• Interest: Choose multiple to reach people interested in a specific topic or who are part of a particular group
• Connection: Fans of your page and their friends (or email list)
• Behavior: People who have interacted with specific content on your website
  
  

Optimize the effectiveness of your ads by:

• Limiting text in images and using high quality images
• Providing context but keeping text brief
• Targeting your ads to stretch your advertising dollars
• Including a clear call-to-action
• Being honest—no bait-and-switch marketing
• Including closed captions on videos
• Promoting content or programs that align with the felt needs of your target audience
• Familiarizing yourself with ad terminology and monitoring your campaigns closely
• Using trackable links in ads that direct traffic to your website to monitor performance in Google Analytics
• Setting up Google Analytics on your ministry’s website so you can monitor and understand how visitors interact with your website and where they come from
  
  

Always follow the basic principles for writing a strong social media post, discussed previously in this guide.

The right message is one that resonates with a felt need. When it comes to messaging and programming, make sure you are addressing a pain point or felt need within your target audience. Strive to understand those in your community, and tailor your outreach efforts and messaging accordingly. Remember, show empathy first, validate their experiences, be genuine, and offer practical advice/solutions/resources.
Never assume you know what your audience is interested in. Do the research, and create content and opportunities that meet people where they are in their spiritual journey. You can have the best targeting and the most well-crafted posts, but if the “product” is tone deaf to the real needs of the community you’re trying to reach, your ads will fail.

When crafting your message, follow this formula:
Empathy + Caring + Authentic + Practical Advice/Resources/Solutions

Example message: Marriage is hard; we're here to help. Join us for a free marriage program where you'll learn practical tips for improving your marriage. Click here to register in advance for your free book.

​When placing ads, make sure you’re strategizing for impact. Many of us can get caught up in vanity metrics such as how many followers we have. Remember, it’s not about how many people are following you online. The real question is, are people growing closer to Jesus because of your digital strategy? Perhaps your video received only 200 views, but if 200 people showed up for a Bible study, most of us would be ecstatic. Every view, comment, share, download, etc. represents a real person who has been influenced by your content and messages. 

Active social media partnerships are key to expanding your reach and branding. Social media is designed for community building, so create and cultivate online relationships with other ministries and organizations. Find organizations to build partnerships with either by location or topic. It is likely that you already have partnerships in place for creating events. Magnify their value by partnering for your digital communications campaign for the event. Be sure to make sure your partnerships are mutually beneficial to both parties. Don’t ask for any favors that you’re not willing to grant yourself. People will figure out quickly if it’s a one-sided relationship, and you’ll end up closing the door to future collaborations.

Who can you work with?

• Sponsors/donors
• Organizations and ministries already involved in the event
• Participants/speakers
• Local churches/related organizations
• Conferences and unions

Most of time, events don’t happen in a silo but rather involve several partners. I have found time and time again that active social media partnerships are a key element in successfully promoting events on social media. If you reach out to 10 contacts who each have a “small” social media following of 1,000 people, your message suddenly has the potential to reach up to 10,000 people online. Reach out to more contacts, with bigger fan bases, and you can see how your reach can grow exponentially.

Communicators typically have a lot on their plates, and social media manager may be just one of many hats that they wear throughout the work week. Contacts are often willing to promote partner events through their various digital channels, but time and resources are limited. With this reality in mind, providing your partners with a “promotions packet” is an effective and easy way to equip your contacts with the resources they need to easily become social media ambassadors and share your message.

Normally, when marketers reach out to contacts to ask for promotion on their behalf, there is an assumption that the partner will write the posts and generate the content. As a result, most requests are not prioritized and do not realize their full potential. A promotions packet, on the other hand, provides recommendations, pre-made social media posts, eNewsletter blurbs, tracking links, graphics, branded hashtags, and more. The social media manager needs only to copy and paste from the Word document and schedule. They can of course modify the message for their audience if desired or necessary, but they don’t have the burden of generating content. This approach also has the added benefit of allowing you to control the quality and consistency of your brand’s message as it is distributed through your partner’s channels.

I encourage you to create your own promotions packets following best practices for creating social media posts and to develop digital partnerships to help expand your reach in future campaigns. In a world of limited budgets, this approach costs you only time and effort.
 
One last important note: Make sure that when you reach out for help with promoting your ministry, you are not only willing to reciprocate but also able to follow through with such agreements. Partnerships should be mutually beneficial, and trust can be built and cultivated over time when both parties follow through on their promises.