Discussion - The 2nd Level of Digital Engagement

Church engagement, especially in our age of digital media, is a process that flows from our initial design to a real-life experience with Jesus and seeking to make His name known. How engagement occurs is not concrete, but oftentimes people will engage with our online content before they make any decisions in-person.

In our last blog, we discussed the importance of design and how it can either make or break the path to digital engagement. Quality design is the first key in starting a conversation that will hopefully lead to deeper levels of engagement where people go beyond passively consuming and move on to true involvement. That is where level 2 of engagement — discussion — steps on the scene.

Before we dive into what discussion looks like, let’s define the word “engagement” in terms of social media. Understanding how our different streams of digital ministry have a part to play in our churches and organizations will help us to better understand our overall engagement. 

Engagement refers to any actions taken by someone on your social media profiles. This action takes form in likes, comments, shares, reactions, and even gaining new followers. 

Engagement gives you insight to how certain types of content are performing and can help you further optimize the type of content you should share in the future. There are certain calculations you can utilize to better understand the numbers behind your likes and shares. A simple way to do this is divide the number of likes, or retweets + comments, by your follower count. The higher the number, the higher your engagement rate. This equation, plus some built in engagement statistics on your analytics part of your profile, can be really telling of your engagement success.

Engagement is the ultimate desired outcome for any given social media post because it benefits you as a church or organization, and it means a real conversation is happening. The social part of social media is found in active engagement.

Discussion and Engagement

Discussion, especially through engagement on your social media, is something that we should try to facilitate as much as possible for a few reasons. First of all, the more engagement you have, the more likely your content will be favored by the ever-changing algorithms on our current social media platforms. This simply means that your posts could show up higher or more frequently in your followers’ feeds.

Secondly, discussion is where people can actually contribute to the dialogue your church is trying to facilitate among your followers. They move from being observers to participators who actually care about what you have to say. They will show their care and attention for a post by taking action in the direction of it through likes, shares, retweets, or comments. They won’t just scroll past your content if they choose to join the discussion. 

However, social media engagement, as defined above, has different levels of its own. Some people are still just passively engaging, but some are inspired to share your content with everyone they know.

I Like That

Likes (and other reactions found on Facebook such as “love” or “sad”) is a good gauge to see who “approves” of your content. Likes however by nature are a passive way to engage — it merely communicates, “I like this. It’s a great design, photo, quote, caption, etc.” 

However, someone liking a photo or video also communicates that they may not like it quite enough to comment. This isn’t true in all cases, but if our posts truly exist to facilitate some sort of conversation, comments should be the goal.

I Have Something to Say

People comment for all sorts of reasons (both good and bad). Still, the fact remains that comments can significantly boost your engagement and also present an opportunity for you as a church or organization to get to know your followers. Celebrities like Justin Beiber can post a photo and get thousands of comments without a second thought, but he rarely interacts with his followers through comments. While we may receive far fewer comments on our accounts, they are an essential part of the dialogue we desire to have between our organization and our followers.

Everyone Has to See This

When someone really likes a post, they will most likely comment on it or like it. But when they love a post and are convinced others have to see it too, they may decide to share it. 

Sharing content on social media has a lot of power because it expands your reach as a church exponentially. Think about it, your content (as incredible as it is) is truly only exposed to your limited follower list. But when someone chooses to share your content to their feed, story, or profile, your content is exposed to a brand new audience. 

This is why sharing may be even more important than likes or comments altogether. If your aim as a church is to reach a broader audience that extends beyond your existing congregation, sharing can make or break you. Most unchurched people don’t follow random church accounts for the sake of it; they follow them if the content that is offered means something to them. 

A pathway to explore related to sharing content is comment tagging. This is a great way to both boost engagement and invite those who don’t yet follow us to join the conversation. This could be as simple as tagging friends in a giveaway or some other “call to action” post.

This simple act of sharing opens up a door to those outside your reach who may decide to follow you and even interact with your content further.

Not Just Numbers

It can be all too easy to look at your analytics, see a high engagement rate, and chalk it up as a massive success for your ministry or organization. But we have to understand exactly what we consider to be success. 

Is success just about having a high viewership on your live stream and thousands of comments, or is true success about souls being saved and people growing in their God-given identity?

While high engagement and reach of our content has a significant bearing on the discussion, it is not the only marker of true success in digital engagement. Social engagement is a tool that can be utilized to expose people to the message of Jesus and get them talking about it. It is a vital part of the process and can launch people directly into a place where they want to discover Who this Jesus really is.

How To Facilitate the Discussion

Now that you have a general idea of what discussion as the second level of digital engagement is, here are a few ways you can facilitate and participate in the discussion on your social channels.

• Post great design. As you read in our last post, our design is what can make or break the potential for discussion. Post a design that speaks to the hearts of your followers, is relevant to culture, and is innovative.
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• Call to Action. A simple way to really get people talking is to present a call to action, even if the action you’re calling too is just to comment. Posting a question that asks for a personal response can be a great way to get people going in the comments and motivate them to even interact with others. For example, asking the question “Who has the best pizza in town” can spark an entire conversation. You can get as serious with this as you want, but remember the goal is just to get a dialogue going. 

• Well thought out captions. Contrary to popular belief, captions are not dead, they have merely evolved. Take the time to write out a caption that speaks to the heart of your community and can still speak to those outside of it too. An essential key here is to be authentic — people, especially Gen Z, are tired of companies trying to sell them stuff. Not all of your posts have to be a promo for your next huge event, small group, etc. Be real and you will notice the pay off.

• Inspirational quotes. People appreciate good copy, but we do indeed live in a sound bite culture. A fantastic way to reach your followers, and also share a sound bite from your pastor’s sermon, is to post a short quote. These posts particularly can have a significant impact and even spur someone on to hear the context of the quote. If nothing else, they will have a short phrase to reference that will ideally point them to Jesus.

• Humor. There is so much negativity and division that exists on social media sometimes. What better way to cut through the negativity than with a little humor? Humor has a funny way (haha - get it!?) of getting us to smile and have some relief for a while. While many people may view the church as stoic and the farthest thing from having a funny bone, there is still plenty of room to post content that will encourage a chuckle. You can get extremely creative with this — create a dad jokes video, post a hilarious meme, or something personal to your church community!

• Talk back. The most important thing you can do when it comes to digital engagement and discussion is to interact with your followers. You should make it a point to reply to (or at least “like”) as many comments as possible. Make sure the person who is running your social media is able to reply with well thought answers and can also gauge how to handle certain situations, such as negative or offensive comments. Overall, make your presence known and join in on the conversation!

Excellent design has the capacity to propel our passive followers into a place of active participation. This level of digital engagement that we call discussion is the realm where true conversation can happen and relationships can be built. This level is where people make the choice to be involved in what our organization is saying and doing. 

Discussion is the ever so vital step in digital engagement where someone is exposed to conversations of faith in which they join in on. This stage leads into the next level of digital engagement: discovery. That’s the level of engagement where passive consumption and posting a comment morph into a real-life pursuit of growing and going deeper.