USE THE 8:1 NOURISHMENT RULE
If you remember the bad old days of parish social media, you remember this cycle:
- Post about Lenten fish fry
- Post about Triduum and Easter Mass times
- Post about Christmas Mass times
- Repeat!
And what happened to the parishes that did this? They saw no engagement or reach, no increase in followers or interest online. (Why? See tip #1.) While parishes have gotten a lot better at social media since the 2010s, there is still a tendency to flood people’s newsfeeds with event after event, as if the parish were no more than a social club.
In contrast, the parishes that see the highest levels of engagement and reach on a consistent basis commit to an entirely different strategy. They surround their event invitations and parishioner requests with beautiful, winsome, uplifting content. And the parishes that do this best post roughly eight pieces of uplifting content for every one time they make an ask.
Follow the 8:1 nourishment rule. For every one “please attend” post, you should have eight uplifting pieces of content. Follow this rule and you’ll see people flocking to your social media presence. All that beautiful, spiritual, joyful content will draw folks in. And, in the end, your requests will do better as a result. A great 8:1 ratio looks like the following:
TAKE ACTION
Scroll back through the last 30 days of your parish’s social media activity. Tally up the number of uplifting, encouraging, spiritually engaging posts and the number of invitations/ requests. What nourishment ratio have you achieved?