Guest post by Brady Shearer from ProChurchTools.com
Today you’re going to see one of my favourite Facebook strategies in action:
The Video Guarantee.
First, I’ll show you how Church on the Move used this technique to increase their shares on Facebook by 31X – without spending a dime.
Then, I’ll show you how Central Church used the same strategy to increase their social shares by 28X, again, organically, all without spending a single dollar.
The Video Guarantee: A Social Media Strategy That Works
The Video Guarantee strategy works for one simple reason:
The Facebook algorithm.
Now: the Facebook algorithm is a mysterious beast. But one thing we do know about it is that it values video.
Take a look at these recent statistics concerning online video:
- Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined
- Video drives a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines
- Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it on video compared to 10% when reading it in text
These statistics are promising, but do they carry over into the church world as well?
Keep reading…
How Church On The Move Increased Their Shares On Facebook By 31X
I just showed you a trio of promising statistics concerning online video.
Now it’s time to reveal Church on the Move’s results.
First up, we have an image-based Facebook post that Church on the Move published promoting their sermon series Start Here.
This image-based post earned 30 reactions/likes, 13 shares, and 1 comment.
Image-based post earned 30 reactions/likes, 13 shares, and 0 comments
Here’s where things get really interesting…
Church on the Move then published a similar post on their Facebook page, promoting the exact same sermon series, the only difference in this post is that they used a video instead of an image.
The results?
This video-based post earned 937 reactions/likes, 401 shares, and 63 comments!
Video-based post earned 937 reactions/likes, 401 shares, and 63 comments
Remember…both of these posts are promoting the exact same sermon series. Both are published around the same time. The only difference is that one is a video-based post and one is an image-based post.
Despite the similarities in subject matter, the Church on the Move video-based post outperformed the image-based post to a tune of:
- 31X more reactions/likes
- 31X more shares
- 63X more comments
And just a reminder: this is all happening organically. Without a single dollar spent.
Now It’s Time To Check Out Central Church’s Amazing Results
Let’s take a look at another example…
In this example, Central Church is promoting an upcoming worship night for a new record they’re recording. Below you’ll find an image-based post they published on Facebook.
This image-based post earned 64 reactions/likes, 1 share, and 3 comments.
Image-based post earned 64 reactions/likes, 1 share, and 3 comments
Central Church published a similar post, one day apart from the image-based post, promoting the identical worship night, except, instead of an image, they used a video in their post this time.
The results…
The video-based post earned 220 reactions/likes, 34 shares, and 12 comments.
Video-based post earned 220 reactions/likes, 34 shares, and 12 comments
Again, both of these posts are promoting the exact same church event. They were posted just one day apart on Facebook. Yet despite these similarities, the video-based post outperformed the image-based post to the tune of:
- 3X more reactions/likes
- 34X more shares
- 4X more comments
What Does This Mean For Your Church?
Here’s the bottom line…
Our case study looked at hundreds of Facebook posts published by churches and these are just two examples of the results we found.
And our case study didn’t just focus on larger churches – we made sure to include churches of every size.
Want to see the full results?
Well, of the hundreds of posts that we analyzed, here is the aggregated data:
Video-based posts on Facebook outperformed image-based posts to the tune of:
- 3.25X more reactions/likes
- 8X more comments
- 27X more shares
How To Use The Video Guarantee Strategy
The Video Guarantee is one of the simplest social media strategies that you’ll ever encounter.
Keep posting exactly what you’re already posting on Facebook. Except, instead of image and text-based posts, swap the images and text out for videos.
When you do this, you can expect to see a huge leap in organic reach as well as likes, comments, and shares.
It gets better…
It’s not lost on me how difficult it can be to produce a high-quality video. Great video production requires money, time, and a great deal of skill.
As if that’s not enough, traditional stock video isn’t an affordable option for most churches.
The average stock video clip costs a whopping $200-$500 each. All that for just a single video clip less than 10 seconds in length.
This is why Storytape exists.
Storytape.com is a brand new stock video platform that offers your church unlimited video downloads on a single monthly subscription.
Finally.
Storytape.com – Launching November 14th, 2017
The Storytape library consists of more than 5,000 video clips. We add more than 1,000 new clips every single month. And each of our clips is shot in glorious 4K ProRes.
For the longest time, worldclass video production has been reserved for enterprise businesses and big film studios, but not anymore.
The Video Guarantee social strategy is one of the simplest that you’ll ever encounter – IF you can produce great videos.
Storytape exists to make it easy for you and your church by offering unlimited stock video downloads on a single monthly subscription.
Head to Storytape.com to see all that we have to offer.
And make sure to begin experimenting with The Video Guarantee strategy on Facebook. I think you’ll be glad that you did.
