27 Sep 6 Ways to Grow Your Church with the Power of Video
Video is powerful. Like all things that hold great power, its potential can either be maximized or completely missed. Here are 6 tips that can get you closer to using the full ability of video content to serve your congregation and grow your membership.
- Address the online audience
Whether you’re streaming a live sermon or posting a service on demand, begin by recognizing your online audience. Welcome and invite them to attend in person by listing upcoming events. This can be a pre-recorded clip inserted before the worship begins or even live in front of the congregation. The key is to reach out to the online attendees, who are already engaged with your church, and encourage them to participate more.
- Plan your content to best suit your viewers
MediaFusion’s event scheduling tool allows your church to schedule content to play live on your website, much like a cable TV channel. You can use this to program content that will always offer web visitors something relevant to watch. Consider, for instance, a viewer on your church’s site at 2 AM on a Tuesday morning. This viewer is most likely experiencing distress and seeking religious support. This could be a good time to schedule a sermon about managing difficult times with faith. If your church uses this feature at its maximum potential, your website could be a hub for helpful and entertaining content for your viewers, anytime, anywhere.
- Post shorter videos
In the age of the internet, viewership often drops off after just a few minutes, even on hour-long sermons. Experiment with short-form content. Try a casual daily five-minute prayer, or post short highlights of your Sunday service for people on the go. The competition from other online media creators is tough, so it’s crucial to tailor your content to what your members want and need.
- Share your people stories
Service times and locations escape people’s memories almost before they leave a website, but stories stay long after the computer shuts down. Post testimonials of baptisms, stories of how people found your church, or anecdotes of how your religious community helped someone through a difficult time. This is the classic “show, don’t tell”. Show your online audience the value of attending your service in person and engaging in the church community. Beyond this, share photos of events and church members on your website and on social media. Potential congregation members want to see real people and real activities at your church, so highlight these instead of stock images.
- Ensure production quality
The iPhone 7 has a 12 megapixel camera. For reference, 1080p HD uses 2.1 megapixels. The truth is that with the right knowledge, having solid production value is not out of reach for most churches. That said, you do need to invest the time and effort to get your videos to HD quality. Good audio can also help mask bad video, but good video will not help bad audio. You should pay attention to your microphone’s quality to capture the pastor’s full message. Download our free Optimizing Audio for Live Streaming ebook With the ease of access of the internet, web surfers do not have the patience for low production quality, so this is an important aspect of your strategy. Beyond that, having good quality is a mark of professionalism and respect for online viewers. Don’t mar your brand by posting low quality content on your website. MediaFusion can also help you find the right technical solutions for your church.
- Start a video blog
A video blog can stimulate church growth in many ways. First, it is a good way to update your website on a regular basis and boost your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Google has also started prioritizing websites with videos, so uploading more videos is doubly beneficial. Compared to a typical text blog, videos connect people. In a video viewers can see and hear the pastor and form a bond. Second, these video blogs are a great opportunity to share your church and show how much value it can bring. Make a church tour, show “a day in the life” of your staff members, or post a behind the scenes of a Sunday service. This can show off your church brand and set you apart from other churches in the area.