Church of England Launches Instagram Guide For Parishes

Having a regular congregation is an important thing for any church, but attracting new members to experience a connection with God within your four walls, with  church altar candles and all, has never been more important.

But attracting younger worshippers isn’t the same task it once was - more time spent indoors and less out in their community can make this particular group a difficult one to target. That’s the idea behind a new side released by the Church of England, to help parishes not only reach out to a younger generation, but keep in touch.

The Church of England has a digital team, which has focused on working with parishes to train them up on how best to operate in a digital age. Their top advice - you must have a Facebook page at least. Facebook will help people find you geographically, and is simple to set up, maintain and operate, especially in comparison with a website. Now, if someone is looking for a nearby church to worship in, you’ll have an online presence to help you be found.

Instagram and Twitter may or may not be relevant, depending on your audience, but it does allow you to show off your churches personality. The guide for the CofE also includes guidance on the likes of best practice for posting images - by trying to avoid pixelation and blurry photos.

Including questions in captions can help create conversation - or engagement - while they also advise for churches to use 11 relevant hashtags on any posts on Instagram, stating that is the optimum number for engagement, according to The Telegraph.