How are U.K. churches using social media to engage with their congregations?

• Published date: 01 February 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2029
• Author: Atish Sircar,Jennifer Rowley
• Date: 01 February 2020

ACADEMIC PAPER

How are U.K. churches using social media to engage

with their congregations?

Atish Sircar | Jennifer Rowley

Department of Languages, Information and

Communications, Manchester Metropolitan

University, Manchester, UK

Correspondence

Jennifer Rowley, Department of Languages,

Information and Communications, Manchester

Metropolitan University Business School,

Manchester M15 6LL, UK.

Email: j.rowley@mmu.ac.uk

Churches are important non-profit organisations that are increasingly adopting social

media. In order to contribute to understanding of the value of social media as a com-

munications channel for non-profit organisations, this article examines, and develops

a typology of, the uses of social media by two global churches with a strong presence

in the United Kingdom, Hillsong, a megachurch, and the Church of England. Informed

by previous typologies of the use of social media in both commercial and non-profit

contexts, content analysis was conducted of Hillsong's and the Church of England's

social media platforms on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. This analysis

provided the basis for the formulation of a typology of uses, the main categories of

which are building a brand, building the church community, outreach, and developing

spiritual mission. Differences between the approaches adopted by the Church of

England and Hillsong are outlined. Suggestions are offered for future practice and

further research.

1|INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this study is t o explore the ways in which ch urches

in the United Kingdom are usi ng social media to communi cate with

their congregations an d to propose a typology of the u ses of social

media. From an academi c perspective, the rese arch contributes to

the limited but developing body of research on social media strate-

gies and responds to the evidence that suggests that many non-

profit organisations are failing to exploit s ocial media's potent ial

for marketing, online en gagement, and relatio nship building

(Bortree & Seltzer, 2009; Rybalko & Seltzer, 2010; Wang, Yang, &

Haigh, 2017). The existing literature also confirms that using multi-

ple social media channe ls can have a mix of nonfinan cial and finan-

cial benefits for organisations (Morgan, 2016). More specifically,

social media allows or ganisations to gain so cial capital, engage -

ment, visibility, and communication (Gupta, Tyagi, & Sharma, 2013)

and can be an inexpensive and t ime-saving solution for fundraising

opportunities for non-profit organisations (Saxton, 2013). Social

media has emerged as an impor tant medium for both one- way and

two-way communicatio n with customers (Baci le, Ye, & Swilley,

2014; Wade, 2015). Social media can also be used to build and

protect corporate or brand reputation (Lee & Youn, 2009) and to

increase customer engagement (Gummerus & Liljander, 2012) and

online sales (Chen, Fay, & Wang, 2011). However, most research

into social media use f ocuses on consumer enga gement, satisfac-

tion, or relationships (Kim & Ko, 2012; Okazaki, Díaz-Martín,

Rozano, & Menéndez-Benito, 2015; Trainor, Andzulis, Rapp, &

Agnihotri, 2014), leading to a paucity of studies on social media

strategy, both general ly, and more specifical ly in the context of

non-profit organisat ions.

Given their focus on community building, and the potential for

social media to change the nature of religious communication,

communities, and authority (Cheong, 2014, 2017), churches offer

an interesting context in which to explore the use of social media.

However, few studies have explored social media in churches

(e.g., Cheong, 2014; Farquhar & Davidson, 2019), and none have

developed a typology of uses. This study builds on the limited

research on the use of social media in the non-profit sector, some

of which has proposed social media use typologies (e.g., Guo &

Saxton, 2014; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2013; Schlagwein & Hu, 2017).

The aim of this research is to understand how churches are using

social media as a marketing and communications channel. The specific

objectives are to

Received: 25 January 2019 Revised: 22 May 2019 Accepted: 3 September 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2029

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2029. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2019 John Wiley ?& Sons, Ltd. 1of10

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2029