Top Nonprofits recently shared a free downloadable social media guide with great tips for churches with limited time and resources.  Here are some highlights:

Monthly: Plan

• Content strategy planning session- Identify what’s coming up. Schedule campaigns
• Define Key messages – Define key messages for campaigns & events
• Use an editorial calendar – Can be as simple as a shared google doc or calendar

Weekly: Content Creation

• Batch content creation – Maximize time. Minimize mental gear shifts
• For Twitter, Schedule (or plan to add later) at least one post per day
• Using scheduling tools like Hootsuite - Tip: vary timing slightly and avoid :00 and :30
• Use analytics with your links - Insight, good. Dashboard obsession, bad.

Every Other Day

• Post to Facebook – Best frequency to get and keep likes

Daily

• Post to Twitter at least once a day - More is better and vary times slightly
• Best CTR: 8-9am, 2pm, 5pm, 3pm* - (test for yourself) Worst times: 1-7am, 10am-1pm, 6-7pm
• Best RTs: noon-4pm - (test for yourself) Worst times: Before 10am and after 7pm
• Space out your tweets - No more than 1 or 2/hr (excluding @replies) Buffer is a great tool for this.
• Check feeds at least 2x per day - If only 2x, then mid-morning & late afternoon

Weekends

• Post on the weekend - People are less busy which means greater click through rates but less RTs and shares

For Discussion:
What would you add to this list?

We’ve covered the emergence of church apps before. And while it is clear that apps are a growing approach to ministry, there is still a lot of speculation as to how fruitful using a church app is.

Fortunately, the developers at The Church App have provided several case studies supporting 5 reasons why your church should consider using an app.

The Church App platform was created in 2009 when Subsplash, a mobile developer accustomed to working with Cisco, XBOX, Microsoft, and Samsung, developed an iPhone app for Mars Hill Church (Seattle, WA). Since then, they have created church apps for Saddleback Church (Lake Forest, CA), Billy Graham, The Village Church (Flower Mound, TX), Elevation Church (Charlotte, NC), Greg Laurie, IHOP, and The Gospel Coalition.

Needless to say, those 3 years have helped them discover what works and doesn’t work for churches. And here are their 5 reasons you should consider using a church app, too.

#1 :: Reach More People

In the 4 years since The Church App was created for Mars Hill Church (Seattle, WA), their app has been downloaded several hundred thousand times. In comparison to Mars Hill’s 15,000 church members, their app reaches 2,000% more people than their average Sunday attendance. While results may vary from church to church, The Church App reports seeing hundreds of other churches also growing their audience by using their app.

#2 :: Become Incredibly Accessible

Gone are the days of sermons only being heard in person or when transcribed in print. Radio and cassettes revolutionized this in the last century. Podcasts and MP3s revolutionized this in the last decade. And now mobile tech is rapidly changing how accessible the gospel is today.

The Church App reports seeing several churches that have doubled or tripled their sermon download rate since using an app. Functionality that lets users listen anywhere with offline downloads, fast forwarding, rewinding, placeholding, and multitasking with other apps has made whole sermon libraries able to fit in your pocket and be accessible at the touch of a button.

#3 :: Reduce Your Cost & Increase Your Effectiveness

The same way that MP3s made spreading the gospel incredibly more affordable, mobile apps can also dramatically reduce the cost to distribute your church’s sermons. But a church app isn’t just limited to sermons. You can also save a tremendous amount by cutting bulletins and other printed materials. ChangePoint Church (Anchorage, AK) says,

The app has allowed us to communicate with the ChangePoint family in a way that has been cost effective and far more engaging than traditional printed communication. Since the launch of the app we have seen the number of people that listen to our messages online double while at the same time we were able to reduce our communications budget significantly and direct much of those saved resources to outreach.

#4 :: Boost Giving

Platforms like The Church App, offer people an alternative way to give while at church or on the go by integrating the app with your current online giving solution. Often the easier it is to give, the more money a ministry can raise. OneLife Church (Henderson, KY) says,

We are a church of about 1,000 adults. We launched the app on December 23 (2 days before Christmas), and even with the holiday,s we have seen 1,008 downloads in the first month, and the first week of giving was 3 times the monthly expense.

#5 :: Share the Gospel

Technology doesn’t replace the personal relationships that are so key to evangelism and discipleship, but it can be an effective tool to connect people to each other and the gospel message. One beautiful testimony from The Church App is:

One of my good friends got his brother-in-law to listen. He’s been listening for the past few weeks and has been a 30-year atheist. He just accepted Jesus two weeks ago after calling my friend and telling him that he had made the decision to follow Jesus after listening to every sermon! He is two states away and this could only be possible with this resource.

Behind The Church App

The Church App is a mobile app platform that lets you create high caliber customizable iPhone, iPad, and Android apps for your church or ministry. They take care of coding, development, publishing, and OS updating, so that you can focus on your mission and content. Features include:

• Advanced Audio Player to stream instantly, multi-task, resume from interruptions, or download for offline use
• The Subsplash Video Player is Apple-approved and creates full-length, mobile-optimized videos that are of the highest-quality possible for streaming over wifi and cell networks while conserving battery-life and data-transfer. It is actually one of the few Apple approved video players for videos over 10 minutes.
• Event listings and maps
• Calendar
• Bible with audio and custom reading plans
• Blogs
• Online Giving integration
• Social sharing on Twitter, Facebook, and email
• Analytics
• App Builder (CMS) allows real-time updating of content, features, and layout, and color bars.

The Church App has worked with gigachurches and smaller churches of less than 50 members. Regardless of the size, they take their app platform and customize it for the unique needs of each ministry. Their heart is to make the best software available for the presentation of the Gospel and to partner with churches every step of the way.

Special thank to The Church App for supporting Church Relevance by sponsoring this post.

Are church apps like Onseeker the next phase of Internet ministry?

Church apps are a great way to connect more deeply with a congregation on the go. And while traditional websites aren’t going away, I expect more and more church websites to start emulating the communications approach of mobile apps.

So while widespread adoption of church apps probably won’t ever be as saturated as browser-based church websites, I do think it is safe to say that church apps are about to make a big dent on the way we do Internet ministry.

Digital Church History

In 2000…
An increasing number of churches recognized the value of a church website. It was a digital land rush where most sites served as a digital billboard or brochures highlighting the church’s ministries. Unfortunately, this approach offered little value past the first visit.

In 2003…
More churches saw the potential to distribute sermons and other media to a much broader audience than their brick and mortar congregations.

In 2006…
Content management systems rose to popularity as churches took control of maintaining their own content through blogs, event calendars, and other features. Church websites transitioned from being a static brochure to a dynamic magazine.

In 2009…
Many churches experiment with streaming sermons, Twitter, and Facebook, and some offer a church online experience complete with worship, sermons, instant chat, and online prayer.

In 2012…
Due to smart phones, mobile web browsing is surging, but most church sites are clunky to navigate in a mobile browser. Church apps and mobile sites are less like a magazine and more like a conversation. I expect the next phase of Internet ministry to cut out fluff content and focus heavily on event details and dynamic conversations via social streams.

Onseeker Church App

Onseeker, in particular, is positioned to rebuild Internet ministry as we know it. Onseeker’s church app for Android and iPhone devices is incredibly rich on features that allow churches to showcase and manage:

• messages
• worship
• small groups
• events
• devotionals
• prayer requests
• online giving
• resources
• staff directory (including who to call for crisis or interventions)
• turn-by-turn directions and parking info
• reminders
• social sharing
• and more features like weather, etc.

The Onseeker Church App focuses on the entire church as a whole and is designed to make communication and ministry easier for a congregation on the go.

The content management system behind the app allows churches to add and update content in real time. And a master key allows for the creation of sub-ministry sections that can be assigned to a specific sub-ministry leader, so that there is accountability in communication.

But to really understand the value of Onseeker, watch this interview with Chad Herold of Underground, the college ministry of Second Baptist Church (Houston, TX).

Underground has been amazed at how much their students use the app, and they particularly love how Onseeker allows them to keep ministering to college students even when the students are gone for summer.

Best of all, Onseeker’s current pricing is the lowest I’ve seen for a church app thus far!

Special thanks to Onseeker for supporting Church Relevance by sponsoring this post.