Gardening All At Once

Love it or hate it, social media is the perfect place to communicate about the life of your church. Your church isn’t a museum and you probably want people to know that. An active social media profile indicates an active church. But posting photos, going live, and answering comments is something that a lot of companies have an entire team for. Thankfully, it’s not as hard as it sounds. Here are two guiding principles for a vibrant, flourishing church social media presence. 1. Consistency over Quantity How often you post is far less important than how regularly you post. Whether it’s once a week or every day - it doesn’t matter! What matters is that you set expectations and then meet those expectations consistently over time. This creates familiar patterns of communication that give people a sense of belonging and connection. I saw a church do this exceptionally well, and their engagement was off the charts! They posted a short video every week with an elder or staff member giving a 5 minute devotional (they’ve been going for 2 years now!). It’s not anything fancy, but it serves to publicly show the church’s long-term focus on discipleship. 2. Substance and Relevance over Aesthetics The truth is, almost no one is scrutinizing your images, videos, and text. While it’s good to pursue excellence, nobody is going to pay much attention to how professional your photos look or how good the lighting is in your videos! They’re giving you a couple seconds of their attention and then they’re back to scrolling. Making your content substantive and relevant is going to give you way more engagement than making it look and sound pretty.

One of the main points of confusion I see in churches is thinking that marketing problems are actually branding problems (and vice versa). "Church members glaze over when I explain our purposes." (Branding Problem) "People in the community don't know we exist." (Marketing Problem) "We don't have enough visitors coming in the door." (Could be both, or neither!) Today I want to clear up the difference with a bite-sized explanation that makes it easy to remember. Branding = Who You Are Branding defines your church's identity through logo, colors, messaging, and overall vibe. It shapes how people feel about your church. A strong church brand has a clear message and consistent visuals that attract people and give them a sense of belonging. Marketing = How You Promote Marketing is different because it promotes your church brand through advertising, social media, and outreach. It focuses on getting attention and driving action. Effective church marketing uses social media, emails, and videos to reach new visitors. How They Work Together Strong branding must come before marketing. Marketing helps spread the word, while branding determines what that word is. Think of branding as the roots and marketing as the branches of a tree—you need strong roots first. This is why I called the blog Tend Your Brand — it's my goal to help you cultivate those roots so they grow deep and wide in the hearts of your people.

Lifting weights has been one of my regular activities since college. I train hard, but I’m under no delusions that I could be a power lifter or body builder. That hasn’t stopped me from getting extra motivated every couple of years and starting to train like an Olympic athlete. Deep down I think I’m secretly hoping for some kind of miracle muscle growth spurt. What happens? Reality kicks in and reminds me that I’m not going to the Olympics - I have other priorities, a job, and family. My goal isn’t to be an elite-level athlete. The thing is, when you’re building a brand, the best approach is the one you can do consistently, week in and week out, over years and decades. You don’t have to be the church with a dedicated media team and a $100,000 logo and website. It all comes down to consistently tending your brand.

People attend your church for a reason. Don’t be afraid to ask your congregation what that reason is. I grew up in the church, but it wasn’t until adulthood that I realized how significant the local church is in God’s plan for his kingdom. Christ meets the spiritual needs of his Church generally, but he also meets our individual needs through individual, unique, local churches with unique identities. Maybe you’re the only reformed church within driving distance. Maybe you’re the most hospitable church with young families. Whatever the reason is, there’s a need that your church uniquely meets for your members. Identify that, and you have the foundation for a galvanizing brand.