ocial media is a place where authenticity takes center stage – where people follow people, not organizations. 

So what does that mean for your church? 

I’ll show you through the top 7 church social media trends in 2024. 

The social media strategies I’ve chosen here transcend fleeting trends, to make sure your church remains seen and builds a strong foundation in the vast sea of social media.

Let’s step into the future of church social media together as I demystify the top trends shaping social media in 2024. 

Table of Contents 

1. People Use Social Media Like A Search Engine
2. Post Like A Person On Social Media, Not An Organization
3. Text-only Social Media Posts Are Your Church’s Best Friend
4. Carousels Are The Only Way To Post Church Photos On Social Media
5. Church’s Will Start To Like And Understand AI For Social Media
6. Church’s Will Remember To Repurpose To Youtube Shorts 
7. No More High Production Church Social Media Posts 

1. People Use Social Media Like A Search Engine

According to Hootsuite, Social platforms are the new search engines.

When in search of a coffee shop or dining spot, my go-to is Instagram. 

For video editing tips, I turn to YouTube.

Social media is our instinctive search engine and social platforms are optimizing for this so people can better find what they are looking for.

The top search engine in the world, Google, reported that roughly 40% of Gen-Z is using TikTok and Instagram for search instead of Google. 

This is why we need to choose our words wisely on social media in our captions and bio this year. 

These words significantly contribute to helping people to find your church. 

As long as it’s still relevant, your posts can show up in social search basically forever. 

And the more engagement those posts have, the more likely they are to rise to the top of social search results pages.

This is not a short-term strategy, but it’s super easy to implement. 

Platforms will continue to improve and expand their search functions, which is important to note as churches since y0ur primary focus is to get the Word out into the world! 

Below you’ll see how genz finds products they intend to buy, social media is almost as used as a search engine!

Want help with this? Try out The Complete 365 Day Church Social Media Plan for free here.

2. Post Like A Person On Social Media, Not An Organization  

The phrase “people follow people” still rings true. 

The more human-like your social media can be the better. 

Without a human touch, your church won’t appear to be trustworthy, interesting or unique. 

Having your Pastor be a main focus on your church’s social media is a good strategy, or some churches prefer to have a separate account for their Pastor if you have the ability to run it.

Although church isn’t about following a “famous pastor”, you need to remember that on social media, people follow people. 

So you’ll notice Pastors' social media accounts will often reach more people than a church’s main account. 

The lesson to learn here is to make your church account as personal as possible. 

Show people talking, write your captions like you are talking to a friend, not like you are an prestigious organization. 

Studies show that nano-influencers, accounts with 1,000-10,000 followers on a social media platform, generate more than twice the engagement of macro-influencers. 

So be encouraged if you don’t have a ton of followers that you can generate a lot of engagement with the right strategy and making sure you are connecting relationally with your followers. 

Want help with this? Try out The Complete 365 Day Church Social Media Plan for free here.

3. Text-only Social Media Posts Are A Church's Best Friend

Old school text posts are still performing very well not only on X or Threads, but on every platform. 

For years organizations and people have been reposting their Tweets to their main feeds on Facebook or Instagram.

Text only posts should be your church’s best friend because you don’t have to do much to make it happen. 

Talk about high-impact, low effort. 

What makes text posts work, is when they are super plain with no distractions.

I know you think your posts have to have some trendy design, but design is not what makes your social media posts effective, contrary to popular belief.

So ditch the canva templates or fancy photoshop graphics for these types of posts.

Give me a black background and white text and say something awesome that gets my attention.

4. Carousels Are The Only Way To Post Church Photos On Social Media

Carousels, aka photo dumps, get a lot more reach and engagement on church Instagram and Facebook accounts. 

Test it for yourself. Post a photo by itself. Then post the same photo with 9 more photos after it and you’ll see. 

People are posting less, but posting more photos all at once.

Sounds like a good use of time to me! 

These are popular because they feel more authentic and unfiltered. 

On Instagram you can do 10 photos or videos and on TikTok you get up to 35 slides. 

Would you believe me if I told you that Instagram carousels even outperform Reels (according to a study by Hootsuite). 

Don’t even edit your photos, and you’re even more authentic and like-able. 

Isn’t it nice that the posts that are working right now are a lot less work?

More reach for less time and money? Count me in.

5. Churches Will Start To Like And Understand AI For Social Media

People don’t like new things, especially AI.

But as churches create a lot of content, ChatGPT and apps that use it, can help your church create stuff you need faster. 

AI doesn’t need to write your stuff for you, but it can take your message transcript and repurpose it into what you need, then you can comb through and make it your own.

You can speed up what needs to be done, which is so helpful when you wear many hats and probably need more staff members for the amount of work that needs to be done.

My favorite AI tool for churches is Church.Tech. 

Their AI assistant makes it super easy to repurpose your sermon into Small Group Guides, Youtube Chapter Descriptions, Sermon Clips and more! 

You can reformat social media captions, or pull quotes or captions from your sermon transcript all formatted for the platform you are posting to.

AI still needs a human touch, but it can allow you to get words on the page faster.

AI will make your job easier and more effective. 

6. Churches Will Remember To Repurpose To Youtube Shorts 

Pew Research reports that 95% of teens ages 13 to 17 use YouTube – that’s more than any other social media platform. For comparison, 66% use TikTok and 62% use Instagram.

And Youtube Shorts are catching on.

In 2022, there were 1.5 billion monthly active users on YouTube Shorts. In 2023, that number rose another half billion. (Source: Google Trends)

This is still a fraction of Instagram Reels, but still strong growth.

All that said, repurpose your vertical videos and sermon clips  from Reels or TikTok to Youtube Shorts.

It’ll be worth it in the long run.

7. No More High Production Church Social Media Posts 

When something looks too polished, it must be a large, not trustworthy organization.

People don’t trust organizations. People trust people. 

This mentality sometimes leads to reduced trust in organizations or companies. 

Your goal is to increase trust on social media.

How can you do this? 

Stop creating super high-production content.

Your social media posts don't need to be movie quality. 

It becomes stale, uninteresting and less-human on social media.

Again, I’m all about the trends that are less work, and high-impact. 

Grab a phone and make some simple videos and work with what you got!

Want help with this? Try out The Complete 365 Day Church Social Media Plan for free here.

Conclusion

And there you have it, friends! As we wrap up our journey through the top 7 church social media trends in 2024, remember this: simplicity is the new sophistication. 

Whether you're creating relatable text-only posts, getting those photo-dumps on auto-post, or diving into the world of AI-assisted post creation, the key is to post like you are a person, not an organization. 

Experiment with YouTube Shorts, sprinkle some personality into your captions, and revel in the fact that you don't need a mega-church budget for impactful content. 

As we navigate this year together, let's keep it authentic, unfiltered, and most importantly, keep spreading the best news on earth. 

What we went over:

1. People Use Social Media Like A Search Engine
2. Post Like A Person On Social Media, Not An Organization
3. Text-only Social Media Posts Are A Church’s Best Friend
4. Carousels Are The Only Way To Post Church Photos On Social Media
5. Church’s Will Start To Like And Understand AI For Social Media
6. The Rise Of Youtube Shorts For Churches
7. No More High Production Church Social Media Posts 

Want help executing these trends in 2024? Try out The Complete 365 Day Church Social Media Plan for free here.