Maintaining a thriving ministry can be hard. Expanding one and reaching new members and followers is even harder. "I think every ministry can benefit from social media," says Prescott Van Leer, a social media specialist at FrontGate Media, a faith-based marketing, event promotion and advertising company. "It goes with the territory - if you are a modern, legitimate organization, you have a social media presence."

So you think your church or faith-based organization is ready to take the social media leap? Here are Van Leer's top five tips for online ministry success.

Schedule posts at optimal times - Generally speaking, posts receive more likes and comments in the off-business hours, when business people are not in the office. There are also spikes in interaction during the weekends, but churches seem to get more attention from users in the first couple days of the week, after Sunday's church services.  In the first days of the week, post recaps or discussion topics or a photo from something at service that weekend.

Integrate your social networks with your website - The more in-sync your website, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are, the more your social media presence will be watched. If you post out updates from a new blog on your website and include a "Like" or "tweet" button on the post, the more views and interaction you'll get.

Post content that sparks conversation - Mentioned briefly above, post sermon recaps, questions people have asked since the sermon, post about how God's presence was revealed, etc.  Post something that people who were there will appreciate and people who weren't will be glad to know about.  Use relevant and trending hashtags that would be relevant to your Twitter post.  

Take advantage of tools already in Facebook - Facebook has a number of features that will help you run a savvy social media ship.  Create a cover photo, make sure all the "About Us" sections are filled out and upload and create upcoming events that people should attend on your FB page.

Post visual content - It's a simple fact that photos and videos get more responses than regular text updates or links.  Photos get the most interaction because they are the perfect balance between the visual of a video and the text of a regular update. Photos don't take as much time to view as it does to watch a video, and are more exciting than text updates.

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