Website and Facebook users from nearly forty churches and cathedrals across the Diocese of Leeds have been learning how to make the most of social media as part of a Church of England campaign to encourage the church to make the most of Facebook, twitter and Instagram.
The sought after one day course at Church House in Leeds was oversubscribed and was led by two of the Church of England’s Westminster based communications team, Amaris Cole, Digital Content and Communications Manager for the Church of England and Tallie Proud, the Church of England’s Digital Media Officer.
The team has already trained more than 200 parishes in social media and writing for the web as part of a national campaign to train people from 500 parishes before the July General Synod.
As well as going into the basics of creating Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, the course covered the national website, A Church Near You, and unlocked the mysteries of analytics, hashtags, promoted posts, safeguarding issues and dealing with negative comments.
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"Learning to write for the web is crucial to making websites and social media content engaging and helpful for users," said Amaris Cole.
"This course is church-specific, and was created for those who may feel they need some help in producing exciting copy."
The scheme is in line with the Church of England’s Renewal and Reform strategy and the practical course takes people through the basics of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, explains how to share content and also the importance of analytics and paid promotions.
Those taking part where overwhelmingly positive about the day. “Really useful”, “fascinating”, “very helpful” and “a splendid day which was a great learning experience", where some of the many comments from those who took part from every corner of the diocese.
"We’re delighted that the feedback from the lay and ordained people who have attended so far has been overwhelmingly positive” said Amaris.
“More than 70 per cent reporting that they feel more positive about digital, and more than half – again, more than 70 per cent at many dioceses – feeling excited to try out the new skills they had learnt."
More courses will be planned in the Diocese of Leeds as part of communication plans to build up network of ‘communication champions’ across the diocese.