3 Things Your Church Should Stop Doing On Instagram (If You Have a Small Team)

If you are an Instagram team of ONE, then you know there’s a lot to get done for only one person.

If you have an Instagram team of 1-3, then you know, there is still a lot to get done for 1-3 people. 

Remember some businesses (and churches) have large teams of paid staff with multiple departments all working together to make their Instagram and other social media happen. 

What does this mean for a small church? You must be focused on ONLY what is most important and be okay that you aren’t going to do everything. Then you can slowly layer on more strategies and social platforms as you grow your team.

Table of Contents

1. Stop Creating Professionally Edited Videos, Instead Create Easy Reels
2. Stop Designing Graphics, Instead Use More Photos or Repeat One Template Design
3. Stop Making Daily Posts, Instead Post Consistently
4. Most Important EasyInstagram Strategies for Small Churches
   

#1 Stop Creating Professionally Edited Videos, Instead Create Easy Reels

Why? Because your videos will get less exposure to new people than a Reel.

Videos take a lot of time to come up with the concept and script, meet up to film, then edit and export.

If you don't have a social media team, you aren't going to be seeing the results for the amount of effort you are putting in to make the video.

The days of super professional video are over, which is kinda nice for us church people! It's easier! 

Focus on learning how to edit and create Reels. If you need some ideas to get started head over to this post 12 Church Reel Ideas to Try Today. 

Get to a consistency of 1 Reel per week and go up to as much as 3-7 per week when you get more comfortable.

Instagram Video is most useful for:

• Long form video on your feed (90 seconds plus)
• Saving your Instagram live interviews/conversations
• Your current audience versus your new people

Instagram Reels are most useful for:

• Expanding your reach to NEW audiences
• Short form video 
• More Engagement
  

#2 Stop Designing Graphics, Instead Use More Photos and Repeat One Template Design 

Have you ever spent a ton of time in Canva or Photoshop trying to design something “quickly” and then hours later you have a design that you feel “eh” about because you’re not even a designer anyway?

If you don’t have a designer your priority should not be "fancy" Instagram Quote posts.

I know they are so good looking when Elevation posts them, but if you don’t have a professional designer, this is not the highest and best use of your time right now.

You'll end up wasting too much time trying to get them to be perfect, and won't see much return.

Yes, there are stock quote graphic companies out there, but when you post a stock graphic, it has the potential to feel inauthentic to your church.

Instead Use More Photos and Repeat One Template Design

Focus on using mostly photos and carousels of photos if you are in a time crunch.

Photos take way less time to collect and edit than trying to design the perfect post. Plus, a feed full of photos will look way better than a feed full of designs if you have to choose between the two.

Photos will show people what to expect at your church, give the feeling of connection, whereas designs can be more stale and less relational.

If you are doing mostly design and don't have a social media team, switch to mostly or all photos on your Instagram.

Design has a place, but if you have one person running your social and no designer, graphics are definitely not a necessity to drive the results you want to see. 

My next trick is to repeat ONE template design over and over on your feed for educational posts. I use the same design for every post and change the color or format slightly depending on what I post. This is a great way to have a consistent look for an educational type feed and I only had to make the design once! Time saved. 

If you want to use a few designs for carousels and quotes, contract a designer for a couple hours of work to create templates for you to use over and over. Ask them to create a: carousel template, a quote template, a list template, a twitter style post template that all go together.

Use these over and over and switch up the color.

#3 Stop Posting Daily, Instead Be Consistent

If you are posting the same posts multiple times on multiple accounts just to post more, that is not helping your engagement or your social media presence.

Your followers can get “post numb” if they see the same types of posts over and over or if posting more drops your quality significantly.

While posting daily is a great goal, and posting more WILL help you reach more people generally, if you aren't able to do that right now, that is OKAY.

You can still make an impact on social media with less posts. Start with 2-3 post per week and nail them!

The point is to pick an amount you can STICK TO and stay consistent with.

Don't force yourself to post daily if it's really not working. If engagement is low, you don't like what you are posting and it's not adding value to your community, post less until you find your groove. ]

Most Important Easy Instagram Strategies for Small Churches

Complete your Instagram profile

Make sure your entire profile is complete and every aspect of your bio is filled out. Create at least 5 Story Highlights because this makes your profile look complete, professional, like your Church is open, and like you have something great going on (which you do!). 

To avoid mistakes in your bio head over to this post, where I detail exactly what you need to know about your church Instagram bio.

Ask someone at your church to be in charge of Engagement

Engagement helps your profile reach more people. By asking one person to handle engagement, you are creating a super bite sized role, that almost anyone can fulfill. Here’s what they would be responsible for: 

• Reply to every comment on posts as thoughtfully as you can
• Respond to all DM’s 
• Comment on church members accounts

Work on collecting more great iPhone photos 

Collecting big galleries of photos of everything you do at your church will come in handy and make posting on Instagram so much easier. 

If you need help, download this guide: 10 Pro-Tips To Take Professional Quality Church Photos With Just Your Phone and give it to people at your church to start learning.

Conclusion

Stop doing these 3 things today on your church social media and free up your time to focus on what matters most.

1. Stop Creating Professionally Edited Videos, Instead Create Easy Reels
2. Stop Designing Graphics, Instead Use More Photos or Repeat One Template Design
3. Stop Making Daily Posts, Instead
4. Most Important EasyInstagram Strategies for Small Churches

Remember, social media is a long game. You can add in new tricks and strategies as you grow.