Details below from last week's email:
We all recognize that our evangelization efforts to invite people to a closer relationship to Jesus Christ must include an invitation to parish life - sacramental, catechetical, and social.
In the early fall we conducted a survey of parish social media use. Results? More parishes than ever are using social media like Facebook and Instagram to reach out to parishioners, with the hopes that people will share those posts. Similarly, the Diocese and The Catholic Free Press are using social media to reach new audiences with a specific message, a story, or an invitation to learn more about the Catholic faith. But we all want help getting this done more easily and with better content!
I am excited to announce that Communications Ministry has launched a new tool to support the use of social media in our parishes. We have partnered with Prenger Solutions Group (PSG) to provide their social media platform, Catholic Social Media (CSM), to every parish in the diocese. They have been working with 26 dioceses around the country with proven results.
CSM is an easy-to-use platform to build and schedule social media posts. PLUS it offers a way for diocesan agencies and The Catholic Free Press to deliver content that you can instantly customize for your parish. Lastly, this platform will be a “single-stop” for you and your staff to download flyers or letters from Bishop McManus for sharing in the bulletin or forms for internal use. No need to go searching through emails or finding the right page on one of our websites!
Please note: It is FREE to our parishes. Bishop McManus has provided initial funding and moving forward it will be covered by the Communications Ministry Assessment. PSG will train our parishes and provide ongoing support. The Diocesan departments will provide customizable content that can be time sensitive (tied to an initiative), seasonal (e.g., Lent or Eastertime) or ongoing (e.g., why receive the sacraments?)
I promise that you will be amazed, as I was, at how convenient it can be to have a single place to go online to create, customize and schedule posts for multiple social media platforms! Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions. We are looking forward to this exciting new chapter in Communications Ministry in the Diocese of Worcester! And, if January won't work, we are finalizing dates in February and March as well - those will be the last two opportunities to be trained as part of this collaboration.
Sincerely,
Ray Delisle