How to share content, events, and resources with your diocese and other parishes (for parishes/schools)

Parishes and schools can share social media posts, events, and resources with their diocese and other parishes through Catholic Social Media. This makes it easier to share promotional materials, highlight upcoming events, and provide content other communities can use.

Before You Begin

Your diocese must enable sharing before these options will appear in your account. Your diocese can allow sharing with the diocese, sharing with other parishes, or both.

When creating a post, look for these options:

• My Diocese: Share content with your diocese for review and possible wider distribution.
• Other Parishes: Share content directly with other parishes.

If you do not see the option you need, contact your diocese to ask whether it has been enabled.

Sharing a Social Media Post

1. Log into Catholic Social Media.
2. Click Create Post.
3. Upload your image or video.
4. Write your caption.
5. Add an editor’s note if you want to include context, links, or instructions for the people receiving your post.
6. Select My Diocese, Other Parishes, or both, depending on the options available.
7. If you also want to publish the post to your own social media accounts, select the connected profiles you want to use.
8. Customize the caption for each platform if needed.
9. Click Next.
10. Review the post and complete the usual validation and publishing steps.
11. Click Publish.

When you publish, the selected recipients are notified that new content is available for them to review and use.

Sharing a post makes it available to recipients in Catholic Social Media. They can then choose whether to publish it to their own social media accounts.

Sharing Without Posting to Your Own Accounts

You can share content with your diocese or other parishes without publishing it to your own social media accounts.

1. Create your post and add your image or video and caption.
2. Deselect your own social media profiles.
3. Select My Diocese, Other Parishes, or both.
4. Click Next and complete the publishing process.

For example, select only My Diocese if you want your diocesan team to review a post and consider distributing it more widely.

Using Editor’s Notes

Editor’s notes let you provide additional information for your staff and anyone receiving your shared post.

You can use an editor’s note to include:

• Background information about the content.
• Links recipients may need.
• Instructions for adapting the post.
• Details to review before publishing.

Editor’s notes are for internal use and are separate from the public post caption. If you share the post with your diocese or other parishes, those recipients can also see the note.

Sharing an Event

1. Go to the Calendar.
2. Click the plus icon on the day you want to create the event.
3. Click Create Event.
4. Enter the event name and description.
5. Add a color and content tags if needed.
6. Attach any social media posts you want to include with the event.
7. Attach any related resources.
8. At the end of the event setup, find Distribute To.
9. Select My Diocese, Other Parishes, or both, depending on the options available.
10. Complete the event publishing process.

If you select My Diocese, your diocese receives a notification and can see the event on its calendar. The diocesan team can then review and approve it for distribution to other parishes.

If you select Other Parishes, the event is shared directly to other parishes’ calendars.

Any posts and resources attached to the event are shared along with it.

Sharing Resources

You can create your own resource categories to share documents, PDFs, links, videos, images, and other materials.

1. Go to Resources.
2. Click Create Category.
3. Enter the category name and description.
4. Set the start and end dates.
5. Upload a thumbnail image.
6. Add the files or links you want to include.
7. Click Publish to open the distribution options.
8. Under Distribute To, select My Diocese, Other Parishes, or both.
9. Complete the publishing process.

This makes your resource category available to the selected recipients. Sharing with your diocese allows the diocesan team to review the materials for possible wider distribution.

Finding Content Shared by Other Parishes

When other parishes share content with you, their posts appear in your Planner alongside other available content.

Look for posts labeled Parish. Hover over the label to see which parish shared the post.

You can open the post, review the content, and decide whether to use it on your own social media accounts. Shared events appear on your Calendar.

You may also receive email notifications when other parishes share items with you, depending on your account’s notification settings.

Managing Email Notifications

You can choose which roles on your account receive email notifications about content shared by other parishes.

1. Click your profile image in the top right corner.
2. Select Parish.
3. Find the notification settings for content shared by other parishes.
4. Toggle notifications on or off for the appropriate roles.
5. Click Update.

Use these settings to keep the team members responsible for reviewing shared content informed.

Best Practices

• Check with your diocese if sharing options are missing.
• Review your selected recipients and social media profiles before publishing.
• Use editor’s notes to give recipients helpful context or instructions.
• Include related posts and resources when sharing an event so recipients have the materials they need.
• Give events and resource categories clear names and descriptions.
• Review content from other parishes before publishing it to your own accounts.
• Enable email notifications for the team members who manage shared content.