For many churches, the Easter season is the most-attended season of the year. It's also the weekend when most of your volunteers and congregation are expecting to contribute a bit more in preparation and execution.

People outside your church are also planning to be with you, whether they only come a few weekends each year, or they're being brought by their family. If they're going to show up any weekend, it's your Easter worship services.

They're expecting to hear bible verses about Jesus Christ, the Cross, the Resurrection, but they may not be comfortable with HOW the experience is going to go and that could create some hesitancy.

Your church's social media is a tool that can be used in 3 significant ways around Easter:

1. Inviting people to your Easter service or experience. (Idea 1 & 2)
2. Helping them understand what to expect at Easter. (Idea 3 & 4)
3. Inviting church guests to return and begin a routine of coming to church after Easter. (Idea 5-7)

As we dig into each of these ideas, remember that your social media presence is always about being social. Engaging with people on social media is always a winning strategy, rather than seeing social media as broadcast media where you're simply broadcasting the message you want people to know.

It's important to post helpful content, but it's more important to actively engage with the people following your content.

Idea 1) Give your members social media graphics to invite friends to Easter

Facebook has told us over and over that it's prioritizing personal interactions over brand interactions, and we can assume the same to be true on other social media channels, so leading up to Easter services, equip the members of your church with images that they can share on their social media channels.

Remember that people are likely making their Easter plans weeks ahead of time, so don't wait until the last minute to encourage people to invite their friends.

Create shareable images so it sounds like the person posting is inviting the person reading to Easter and provide them to your members in an email so they can choose one they like and share it on their personal social media channel. Offer them some caption ideas to accompany the image:

• Join me for Easter Sunday
• Would you like to come to church for Easter?
• I'll save a seat for you. Let me know which Easter service you'll be at.

These options are all preferable to "Easter Sunday at our church. Service times. More info: website" posted to church business page.

Idea 2) Find people who made a pivotal decision at a previous Easter. Highlight their story on your channels

This post could be as simple as a picture of them with their family and a description, a before and after picture of their life before Jesus, or an intricate as a moving video about their story before they met Jesus, or how they found repentance and restoration after hearing the Easter message.

Post this video before Easter to encourage your congregation to share it with their friends as an invite tool.

Use your text or email list to let them know to find the video on their favorite social media platform so they can share it, and include your Easter service times in the description so viewers start to think about visiting your church for your Easter service.

Idea 3) Introduce people at your church who guests will meet at Easter in your posts

"This is John and Jane. They're at the front door ready to welcome you with a smile and answer any questions you have at our church. They can't wait to meet you for Easter" (Include a picture of John and Jane holding the doors)

"Dave is an avid motorcyclist, loves cherry ice cream, and leads our church staff. He'll be talking about forgiveness this Easter, and would love to meet you in the foyer after service."

"Judy runs our preschool classroom. She's a retired school teacher and loves teaching preschoolers about God's love (with a healthy dose of songs, snacks, and crafts). Look for Judy when you bring your family to Easter at our church."

Idea 4) Make a "What To Expect" video for Easter Weekend

Walk people through what to expect for Easter services at your church. Show them where they'll come into the parking lot, which doors to use if they have kids, what your foyer looks like with your Easter banners hung, where they can get coffee, and show them your auditorium.

This level of familiarity will help them feel more comfortable when they come. You can post this video on your church website, Facebook page or event, Twitter profile, Instagram reels, and stories, and send it out via email to people who have visited your church in the past 6 months but haven't been back, or people who register ahead to come to church on Easter weekend.

Idea 5) Have An Easter Photo Booth

If you haven't noticed yet, photo ops are popping up all over the place - at the mall, in the park, and at tourist destinations. 

Why?

Because people are going to post that photo on their social media accounts creating a fun way to generate word of mouth in their social feed.

Going back to leveraging personal social media channels, you'll find that Easter is the perfect opportunity for families to be together, often dressed their best for Easter, and happy to have a picture of the family.

Whether you have a photographer taking pictures that you can post to your church's social media accounts so you can tag people, or just have the photo booth in place so people can take and post their own pictures, you're going to get plenty of people sharing pictures of that photo booth.

Find a way to integrate your logo or a hashtag in the photo booth background so there is an obvious connection to your church. While many people will add a location tag, many will simply just post a photo, so tying in your subtle logo or church name will let viewers know that person was at your church.

With your brand account, be sure to like those posts that you're tagged in and leave a simple comment like "It was great to have you here for Easter. See you next Sunday." This simple invite could be enough to get them to consider coming back.

Idea 6) Take pictures of people before, during, and after your Easter service

Post LOTS of pictures from Easter - not just the new song by the worship band or the dance presentation, but also the kids making crafts, the foyer, people drinking coffee and smiling together, volunteers praying together, hugs, handshakes, worshipping, interacting, heading back to their cars, and waving to each other.

Connection is what makes people want to be part of something.

Use a photo album to remind first-time guests of their experience and the connections they made when they see your social media posts throughout the week.

Idea 7) Promote your weekend-after-Easter series heavily

We know that when someone interacts with a brand account on social media platforms they're more likely to see that brand's content in the near future. This is because if you liked a post, Facebook (or Twitter, or Instagram, etc) thinks you might be equally interested in the next post.

Once someone has tagged you in their photo, browsed through photos that you've posted to find their kids or their friends, and commented on a friend's photo from your church, or simply clicked your social media post to watch Easter online they're likely to see what you post next, so use that leverage to post about what's coming up at your church the following Sunday as an invite to join the community.

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Remember that the goal of your Easter social media strategy isn't simply to get a lot of people from your community into your building for Easter. The goal is to get the people who come to your church for Easter to find a meaningful connection and begin a routine of gathering together.

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