Case study: TK congregation union

Congregation unit’s objectives for social media communication are to create positive mental image about church, make church more easily approachable, being active, being responsible and being straightforward. They also want to keep up with the constantly changing society.

Communication unit has the main responsibility about managing the social media and they have a special schedule for it. They make most of the updates, handle the customer care and are responsible about marketing. They also take care of inside the company communication which mainly happens through e-mail and intranet.

In each congregation there is a selected “communication priest”. Each of these priests are expected to use social media (Facebook and Instagram) and make updates from their congregation’s perspective. They also need to notify communication unit if they want more visibility in social media for some current event. This also makes the communication inside the company more flawless.

Updates are expected to be appropriate, short, well put together and visually pleasing. Staff is encouraged to be more active on social media so there isn’t much don’t dos. Still all the bigger announcements and updates go through communication unit. Communication unit is expected to update social media regularly, on average twice a day. They are also expected to answer all the comments on social media.

Social media channels

Unit’s social media channels are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. The unit is most active on Facebook and Instagram, but all the social media channels are updated regularly. Facebook is the most important social media channel they have, so their Facebook-page is embedded on their website. When there is some sort of bigger event they usually put together own social media channels for it.

Facebook is the most important social media for them as it reaches most of the congregants. The Facebook updates are mainly about different events congregations organizes and news that concern church. This is the most important marketing and customer care channel. Union has 780 followers on Facebook.

Instagram is also updated regularly but the objective is a bit different than Facebook’s. Communication unit and also other congregations’ workers update the union’s Instagram-page with a theme: “my church”. There is supposed to be pictures from behind the scenes and pictures of regular workdays. Instagram updates aren’t as serious as Facebook updates and it’s supposed to appeal on younger audience. Union has 545 followers on Instagram.

YouTube and Twitter channels aren’t updated as regularly and I personally think that they aren’t used very effectively. Even though they have 740 followers on twitter (almost the same as on Facebook) they don’t get much likes or shares. The content is mainly same as on Facebook. YouTube on the other hand works as a channel to store videos and audio files so that they can be easily shared on other channels and websites.

Evaluation of the results happens mainly with Facebooks own evaluation tools. Otherwise evaluation happens mainly through feedback and by observing shares and likes. Also it’s easy to evaluate if marketing of an event was effective by counting how many people showed up and asking if they came because they saw the update on social media. I personally think that evaluation could be done more precisely so there would be more data on it. With this data union’s social media could be developed.