Social media trends change so fast. Remember when MySpace was a big deal? That is how fast things change.
It’s important for youth workers to be aware of how marketers are using social media. Social media is a powerful thing that can help you be more effective today as you try to reach students. Have you given much thought to social media marketing? Have you taken on a Facebook ad?
A few years ago in my town, my church decided to take out a radio ad. The radio ad cost a ton of money and was blasted out there into the public for people to hear and hopefully come out to our Christmas event. We also took out a Facebook ad. We could target specific people, and a specific demographic.
What we noticed was the radio ad didn’t work great, but the Facebook ad gave us a ton of exposure in our city. I was amazed at how efficient Facebook was at advertising. I have taken out ads for this website and grown exposure to the 280,000 youth pastors in North America. You need to have a plan for social media marketing in your youth ministry.
Here are a few things that stand out from the infographic, 10 Social Media Marketing Trends To Watch Out For This 2015.
1. By 2018, 2.44 billion people will be using social media networks. Again, why aren’t you thinking strategically when it comes to social networks? Why don’t you have a plan? It’s a great way to reach a ton of people. Just think about how many people in your town are on a social network. Think of all the people who have never heard of your church, or youth ministry. You social network could be a window for a newcomer into your youth ministry or church.
10 years ago people used to stop by the church to check it out, now they google you. Times have changed.
2. You only need 6 hours to be great. According to the stats, most marketers only spend around 6 hours per week working on social media. This probably means they have great tools that can help them organized their accounts. Two tools we recommend are, Hootsuite, and CoSchedule (This is what we personally use).
All you need to do is find the right tools and schedule the accounts to post on the times you want. Great social media marketers plan ahead.
3. Paid ads will get you exposure. According to this infographic, you organic Facebook reach is so low. You probably have noticed that when you post something, only 30 of your 250 people on your Facebook actually sees it. If you take out an ad to promote an event, you will get 90% organic reach, meaning more people will see your post.
The best part of taking out an ad is that you can target the friends of the students who already like your page. I would communicate this with the core students or student leaders so that they know there might be a conversation coming up about the youth ministry. What a great way to show students in the local high schools who actually comes to your youth ministry or church.
With all that said, social media is changing and because of that we need to change the way we communicate through various tools. As we are building our social media plans, I think we need to seriously consider taking out ads through various social networks to promote the ministry. What if you could reach new students all because of a ad. It would definitely be worth it.
