Blogs can be tremendous church marketing tools.
They can provide avenues for pastors to engage the congregation — whether it’s to enhance and add to a recent sermon or get the word out about upcoming initiatives. Blogs can also provide prospective members with some insight into the pastor’s way of thinking.
But before you begin, here are a few helpful blogging tips for pastors.
1. Pick a topic. Know what you want to write about and make sure it’s something you enjoy. (How terrible would it be to commit to writing about something you don’t enjoy!) Before you begin typing, develop a few guidelines that help you focus your content. For example, you might decide your blog will focus on daily devotions or Bible reading, or it will be a place to find supplemental thoughts and materials to expand on last Sunday’s sermon. Maybe you’re a pastor who likes to comment on current events. Or maybe you want to devote your time and the space on the blog to highlight community service opportunities.
2. Make sure you have the time to write the blog. Blogging is like any other activity. It takes time and commitment. If you cannot devote an hour or more each week to blogging, you should probably not do it.
3. Try it for a few weeks before you launch. You can begin blogging today, but nobody has to know. You can try it for a few weeks — fine tune your content, identify your writing style (long pieces or short entries, conversational tone, etc.), see if you actually have the time to devote to it. There are many blogs out there that have not been updated for months or years. What happens is this: a pastor has something to say, so he writes a blog. He tells the congregation to check the blog to read the content. He writes for a few weeks then runs out or things to say or runs out of time to commit to the project. If, after a few weeks, you decide that you just don’t have the discipline to keep it going, then it’s something you tried and nobody has to know.
4. Stockpile content. It’s hard to come up with fresh content. Believe me! Pastors who have been preaching for a number of years have a great resource at their disposal. They have years of sermons to dig up and revive. I spoke to a worship pastor some time ago. He said he used to write for a newsletter years ago. I told him to recycle some of those newsletter articles and turn them into blog posts.
5. Be consistent. Nobody wants to open a blog and see that the last post was months ago — or even the year before. I propose writing at least once each week. This maintains relevance. If you only write once a month, that doesn’t really give you much of a voice.
6. Guest blog for someone. If you don’t have the time to devote to a regular blog, but you have something to say, look for opportunities to guest blog. Bloggers (like me) are always looking for people to take a turn now and again. If you’d like to write a blog for Hands and Feet Marketing, send me an email and I’ll give you some guidelines.
Do you blog? What are your blogging tips for others who are thinking about doing it?
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Read some of the guest blogs written for Hands and Feet Marketing.