Social Media Resources

February 2024

• Are you having a Valentine’s Day mass, dinner, couples group, etc. or any Mardi Gras festivities? Snap a few photos and post to your page. Caption can be simple - “Check out how we are celebrating Valentine’s Day at (your parish)”

• Ask a few people around your parish how they are observing Lent this year - share their answers with their photo on your page. It may give others ideas of what to do for this liturgical season. In your caption, you can ask others to comment what they are doing for Lent, so that everyone can share ideas.

• Share photos of your first soup supper or fish fry and invite people to join for the following ones.

• Take a short video of your pastor sharing a Lenten reflection to post.

• St. Patrick’s Day is on a Sunday this year. Share a few photos of your parishioners wearing their green! Ask followers to comment and share how they celebrate (or their best corned beef and cabbage recipes!)

• Ask your parish staff and pastor what Lenten fruits they are receiving from their observances. Share their answers in text with an accompanying photo or take a short video to post.

• Do you have any OCIA candidates or Elect who will receive sacraments at Easter? Share their photos and ask the community to pray for and with them!

• Are there engaged couples at your parish? Are they working with a sponsor couple to prepare for their marriage? Get a testimony from both couples on their experience and have them send you a photo of them meeting together.

• Start a community prayer line! Ask followers to send their prayer intentions via direct message or to an email address. Share those intentions once per week or month on your social media pages, so that the community can pray for each other.

  • Note: let people know that the intentions will be shared on your socials (and if they will be shared anonymously or not), so that they know not to share any personal details that they may not want announced to a wider audience.

April 2024

• Host a parish service project for Earth Day and pick up litter in your community. Post some recap photos. You could also get a few quotes from participants on their experience to use with your pictures!

• Do a social media series on Easter joy! Content for this can look many different ways. You could post a video or written homily from your pastor, ask your young parishioners to reflect on what Easter joy means to them, or post different quotes on joy to your page - these could be from saints, scripture, or other well-known people.

• Did you have OCIA candidates or Elect come into the Church on Easter? Ask them to take a short (~30 sec to 1 min) video about their experience of the sacraments to post to your page.

• Find an article to post on your page for each week of the Easter season - just make sure to reference where you got the article from and tag the organization if they have a social media page! For example, when I post an article from Grotto Network on our Diocese of Davenport page, I make sure to tag their Facebook page in the caption of my post with the link to the article.

May 2024

• With Mother’s Day coming up, highlight the different stories of moms in your parish or school! Make sure to keep in mind all kinds of mothers - those who have adopted, spiritual mothers, mothers who may have lost a child, those who have struggled to become mothers, etc.

• If you have flowers or foliage around your parish, snap some photos of it (even better if you can get parishioners in the picture!) and share to your community. We all appreciate the beauty of springtime!

• Record a short video of your pastor sharing a reflection on the meaning of Pentecost.

• Choose a feast days and create a graphic on Canva with a quote pertaining to the feast or a quote by the saint.

June 2024

• With Father’s Day coming up, highlight thedifferent stories of dads in your parish or school! Make sure to keep in mind all kinds of fathers- those who have adopted, spiritual fathers, fathers who may have lost a child, those who have struggled to become fathers, etc.
• With school out for the summer, have youth from the parish share what they are up to this summer and how they are staying connected to their faith.
• Clergy who have received different assignments from their current placement are getting ready to move. If a priest at your parish is getting ready to begin the next chapter of his priesthood, ask him to share his favorite memories from his time at the parish
• .It’s officially wedding season! If you have any couples getting married at your parish, highlight them on your socials.

• We just began year 2 of our Building on the Synod Initiative - Youth + Family Engagement. Interview a family in your parish and ask them how practicing their faith together enriches their lives. You could post this as a video or a series of photos with a longer caption.

• Is your parish or town having any celebrations for the 4th of July? Snap a few photos and post away!

• Share one of the diocesan posts on our new bishop -  he will be here before we know it!

• National Ice Cream Day is on July 21st. Post pictures of your pastor and parish staff sharing their favorite ice cream flavor. Including fun posts like this on your social media pages not only engages your parish community, but also draws in a wider audience in your area

• School is just around the corner! Ask school-aged students at your parish to share what grade they’re going into and what they are most excited for this year. You can share this via short videos or pictures with captions. 

• For our year of Youth + Family Engagement, ask a family in your parish to lead a live-streamed Rosary or Divine Mercy Chaplet! Make sure to upload a post promoting it before they go live, so people know to tune in.

• Record your pastor’s homily on a Sunday and post it on Monday with a link to the readings. Those that may not have came to mass may find it and engage in that way. It may lead them to want to come in person!

• Although we are still having some warm days, autumn is here! If your parish or school is having a fall festival or any fall-related events, snap some photos of community members smiling and enjoying themselves and post them.
• Our new Bishop, Dennis Walsh, is being ordained on September 27th. If you have parish members attending, have them share their experience of the ordination and installation and share it.
• We are currently in the Season of Creation until Oct. 4th. 
  • Get a group of parishioners together to pick up trash, plant trees, etc. Share your photos and a few quotes from those involved. 
  • Share prayers for environmental justice on your social media pages.
  • Get ideas from the Season of Creation Celebration guide here: https://seasonofcreation.org/  

• Did you have parishioners attend the Vespers or Ordination of Bishop Walsh? If so, ask them about their experience and share a quick video of their response!
• 2nd Session of the Synod on Synodality meeting in Rome begins October 2nd! Share what’s happening from the Synod Facebook Page.
• October is Respect Life Month - have your parishioners share how they work to promote life from conception to natural death!

February 2024 - Royalty-free and copyright-free images, videos, illustrations, audio, GIFs and more:

• Unsplash

• Pixabay

• Pexels

• Cathopic

• Canva is a graphic design site that makes creating flyers and social media posts a breeze!

• Nonprofits can get Canva Premium for FREE: Canva for Nonprofits

• They have tutorials and training on Canva Design School and their YouTube Page!

• Taking good photos is a huge part of creating a warm and inviting social media page. This month’s resource is an article explaining what sorts of things to keep in mind when taking pictures and video for your pages.

• Check out the article here!

May 2024 - Grotto Network Digital Evangelization Matrix

• Having a strategy and plan for your social media presence not only levels up your social media use, but also actually makes your creation process more efficient.

• This resource will help to create balance on our social media pages to make sure we are not only reaching the people in our pews, but those outside of them as well.

• The rows across describe the audience you're trying to reach while the columns down describe the type of content that you're putting out. Here are a few examples of how posts in each section may look:

  • Evangelization, Sowing Seeds: a quote post with ecclesial language

  • Evangelization, Building Community: a picture of your confirmation class recieving the sacrament

  • Evangelization, Extending An Invitation: a post inviting your audience to an adoration night at the parish

  • Pre-Evangelization, Sowing Seeds: a Happy 4th of July post or an uplifting quote without "churchy" language.

  • Pre-Evangelization, Building Community: a picture of your parishioners smiling at your parish festival.

  • Pre-Evangelization, Extending An Invitation: a post inviting audience to a men's euchre night or a mom's morning at a coffee shop.

• Download here: Grotto Digital Evangelization Matrix

June 2024 - Social Media Strategy Worksheet

• Knowing who you want to reach and in what way you want to reach them is integral to creating a strong social media presence This resource is a strategy worksheet that can help you discern your vision, mission, goals, and the steps needed to get there.
  
  Download here: Social Media Strategy Worksheet

July 2024 - Scheduling Posts

• Scheduling posts is a great tool that you can use to stay consistent with your social media. It is also helpful in order to plan your content ahead of time, rather than having to post in the moment.

  • How to Schedule Posts in Meta Business Suite
    

• When I meet with parishes, a common question is, “how often should we be posting on our social media pages?” The answer is, well, it depends! Consistency is important, so the right frequency is what your parish/school/organization can keep up with. If it is 6 posts/week, great! If it is 3 posts/week, also great - just make sure to stay consistent with that commitment!

  • How Often to Post on Social Media (Instagram, Facebook, and more)
    

• While this month’s resource may not explicitly address social media, it can help inform the way that we use social media to reach Gen Z. Springtide Research Institute, partially sponsored by the Lily Endowment, launched this campaign to interview and share what is working in faith-based organizations across the U.S. to engage young people. Check it out!

  • How faith-based organizations are working to engage Gen Z.

    • Springtide Research Institute: What’s Working

• Do you ever find yourself struggling to make posts about biblical passages? Well, struggle no more! This month's resources will help with visual inspiration for social media posts about biblical passages.

  • Vanderbilt University Divinity Library - Art in the Christian Tradition

    • Use this site to find art of characters in scripture stories, saints, scenes from the Gospel, and more!

  • The Visual Commentary on Scripture

    • Use this site to give you inspiration for scripture reflections. It includes imagery for almost every passage in the bible!