Utilizing Social Media for VBS

Millennial and Gen Z parents, unless they have been invited to a particular church by a friend or family member, are heading to social media to find the right church for their family.

On a week-to-week church-home basis, your church website is often where parents turn. Potential visitors are looking for answers to questions like:

• What does the facility look like?
• What are the church’s core beliefs?
• What curriculum is being taught?
• How is the children’s program structured?
• What programs and offerings are available for their children?

Social media is an important tool you should be utilizing for your vacation Bible school.

While families may check out your website to learn more about your VBS, they are more than likely finding out about your VBS through social media. Social media is an important tool you should be utilizing for your vacation Bible school.

Using Social Media to Advertise

When you think of VBS and social media, your mind likely goes right to advertising. Absolutely! Facebook and Instagram are great ways to promote your church’s VBS and invite visitors.

• Create advertising graphics for your VBS. (Include dates, times, ages, and a sign-up link)
• If you pay to increase your post’s reach, be sure to limit it to people in your immediate area—you don’t want people in Colorado seeing a post from a church in West Virginia.
• If your town or community has local grapevine, yard sale, or community event pages, make sure to share in those groups.
• Encourage your members and attendees to share the church’s advertising posts.
• Make some reels to expand your reach on Instagram. Instagram users love reels, especially trendy ones.
• Facebook allows you to create events. Make a VBS event. You could even do contests in that event to encourage others to invite friends.
• While just posting graphics with dates, times, and an invite does help get the word out, truly successful social media engages the viewer. Try hooking viewers with questions or something relatable.
• Remember, social media was created not just as an advertising board but as a conversation. How can you engage people with your VBS social media advertising?
• Make sure you reply to any comments. Even if they are comments from your church members, comment back! The more comments, likes, and shares a post has, the better your post will do on social media!

Using Social Media to Connect with Parents

While Facebook and Instagram are great ways to invite kids and families to your VBS, you can also use social media to engage with parents!

Have you thought about social media as a discipleship tool for parents? It can be! Try some of these tips leading up to, during, and after VBS.

• Cast the “why” of VBS.
• Challenge parents to memorize the week’s/daily verses with the children (before or during).
• Share the learning points of the VBS week.
• Create and post a “talk about it” question related to the week’s theme.
• Invite parents back to a special service or event.
• Give resource recommendations families can use to worship together.
• Invite parents to pray with you over the children.
• Remind parents of their calling (to disciple) and encourage them to fulfill that calling.
• Share resources (related to the year’s theme) that will help strengthen the parents, such as links to great articles from the AiG blog.
• Film and post family devotion videos before, during, and after.

Remember the Why!

In our technology-driven world, utilizing social media for your VBS isn’t just an advertising tool; it’s a discipleship outlet that is worth your time and energy!

Trust me when I tell you that I fully realize everything you have on your plate regarding VBS. Yet here I am telling you to do even more work! I challenge you to remember the why.

Why do you do VBS? So boys and girls can hear about the life-changing love of Jesus, so their eternities can change. Yes. Adding on a bunch of social media work might feel like more on your to-do list, but think of the eternal impact of reaching more kids and families through social media. In our technology-driven world, utilizing social media for your VBS isn’t just an advertising tool; it’s a discipleship outlet that is worth your time and energy!