Alongside your website, your presence on social media will go a long way to reaching your local community. You can read more about creating social media profiles for your church here, but we are going to focus on Facebook events here.

Use social media to promote upcoming events. Create event pages, share countdowns to big events, and post highlights from past events to generate excitement and attendance. Tools like Facebook’s event system can help manage RSVPs and send reminders to ensure a great turnout.

Each of these strategies can help enhance your church’s presence on social media, making it a valuable tool for outreach and engagement. Keep your content authentic and aligned with your chaplaincy's mission to truly resonate with both your current congregation and potential new members. By leveraging these simple yet effective ideas, your chaplaincy can thrive online and create meaningful connections.

If you are part of local Facebook groups, share the event there too! For example, local families may be looking for a toddler group, so let them know yours is on by sharing the event listing with the group.

Add a location tag to social media posts

Social media posts can be searched by topic, but also by location. Adding a location to any post on social media will let everyone know where the post is taken from, but users will also be able to see it amongst all the posts shared from that location.

For example, adding your village or town as the location for a post on Instagram will mean your post will show up for anyone who searched for that location = free advertising! What’s more, according to Sprout Social, posts using location tags get 75% more engagement, which simply means more people will see the post on social media.

After you’ve got location tags sorted on your social media, why not explore who is posting in your local area? Find local people, businesses and charities, follow their profile and like or comment on their posts. Build your church profile as a local, friendly, sociable community by being more interactive online.

Join local Facebook groups, and be sociable

Facebook groups are a place where people can gather and share interests, experiences and build community online. Making it a great place to get to know others in your local community.

To find local groups:

1. Log in to Facebook
2. click Groups found in the menu
3. use the search bar to type in keywords such as your village, town, city, or borough
4. Browse the suggestions and join any that are relevant.

Once you are in, be sociable. It’s an opportunity to meet more people in your community but the group is not a place to advertise every single event or service run by the church. Instead, answer questions, start helpful conversations, join in the fun, and, when relevant, share an invite to an online or onsite event. In doing so, you'll become a trusted and valued member of the group, and in turn, you’ll build the reputation of your church community too.

Case study

How one parish embraced digital and reached more people in their community