Every once in awhile we see a church that’s killing it on social media, and we want to spotlight them here to help churches learn from what they are doing right that’s helping their church grow through their use of social media.
This week we’re taking a look at Crossroads Church out of Cincinnati, OH. They were the 3rd fastest growing church in the nation according to the Outreach top 100 list, and looking at their social media, it’s easy to tell why.
Today we’ll take a look specifically at their Facebook presence and what they’re doing to build relationships there. Here’s the breakdown of what they’re doing right, so you can gain some insight for your church.
1. Video, video, everywhere
There is nothing that connects like video, and Crossroads Church uses a ton of it. In fact, in the last week, 75% of their posts included video in one form or another.
These videos primarily focus around 2 things: worship and teaching. No, they don’t post videos of their main pastor all the time. In fact, they have so many people on videos on Facebook you almost wouldn’t know who their main pastor was.
They do a series called “Daily worship” where they pull someone in their home, at the church, or wherever for a quick worship video, and they just record them and post it to their Facebook. Here’s an example of that in action:
They also post video with teachings from a variety of people, talking about a subject that would be relevant to their audience. Here’s an example of that:
Overall, they are great at using video effectively.
2. Their branding is on point
Crossroads uses their header and profile photos effectively, even if they aren’t flashy. They don’t put the latest sermon series in the header photo, opting for a more general but better branded header photo that includes their logo and photos of people in their church.
In case you’re wondering, here’s a picture of their branding in action:
Simple, clean, and gets the message across: This is a church where you’ll fit in. I love their focus on the other people rather connecting with each other. This reminds me of “lifestyle” photography.
3. They run Facebook ads to connect, not to invite
I’m really impressed by the intentionality of Crossroads Church’s Facebook ads. I have to say, being that this article is being written during the week before Easter, I was a little surprised to see not a single Easter invite ad.
Instead, they opted to use Facebook ads to promote an article and two podcast episodes. Facebook won’t say how they are targeting their ads, but given that there is a general article link, a link to a podcast episode directly geared towards men, and a podcast episode directly geared towards women, I think I can figure this one out 😊.
Here are all 3 of their ads:
Overall, one of the reasons I like their ad strategy so much is because they are following the Social Church model of starting the relationship on social media without the ask. Love, love, love that strategy. 🔥
4. They share relevant article links on their social media (and the articles were written by them 😌)
This strategy is one of my favorites – writing relevant articles that connect with people and then sharing them through your social channels. Not only does it drive traffic through content back to your site (which is always a great thing), but it also gives you great content to share.
Over the course of one week, they posted two of these posts. As you can see below, it’s relevant to their audience, it draws people in to engage, and it’s somewhat controversial. Great, great stuff!
Overall, if you can’t tell, I’m extremely impressed by the intentionality of the Crossroads Church Facebook page. I hope you took something from them that you can use to share the Gospel at your church through social media!