The rule of thirds: creation, curation, conversation

MEDIA BYTES

By Rev. Marty Levesque

The social media rule of thirds is creation, curation, and conversation.

For a truly successful social media presence that helps grow the Kingdom of God, a third of your church's social media presence ought to be devoted to each category. Let's break down each in turn.

Creation. This is to promote content and events created by you. This could be a worship service, special events, or prayers for events happening in the world today. The idea surrounding "creation" is to get individuals to engage with your content by either liking, commenting, or sharing your content and thereby leveraging your followers' social networks.

Curation. These are the posts where you share other people’s content, images, or blogs. They make your stream more relevant, interesting, and less spammy. It also has the potential to help you build relationships with other churches and those involved in and around church land.

Conversation. This is the final third in the rule of thirds and is the most social part of social media. These are the hellos, thank-yous, and engaging directly with your audience. This can range from answering a question, a thoughtful comment, or talking directly to parishioners, seekers, friends and anyone else.

Mastering the social media's rule of thirds means being a little more intentional on how we use social media, but it also helps leverage everyday usage in getting your message about your church out to the world. It drives traffic through the creation of content, events, and follow-ups. Which, in turn, leverages your fans' social networks. Following the rule of thirds shows your church as part of the broader conversation of mission, theology and living your baptismal vows when you lift up other voices and give them a platform.

And finally, it shows you are ready to meet all, parishioner and seeker alike, and to share the good news of the kingdom of God.  

Rev. Marty Levesque is the diocesan social media officer and rector of All Saints’ in Waterloo. martylevesque@diohuron.org