7 Quick Tips for Creating Captivating Content

1. Make Your Content Unique to the Culture and Language

The internet is an overwhelming large place and your message can get lost. However, if you write your message in the language of the people you are trying to reach and if you write content that is culturally relevant, your target group will be drawn to it. As a Christian page focusing on your particular people group, you will be unique and you will stand out.

Ideas about how to make content culturally relevant:

• Post photos of cities, monuments, festivals, food, and dress.
• As soon as a major news event occurs, talk about it.
• Post content based on national holidays.
• Refer to famous historical figures.
• Use well-known stories and fables to teach a point
• Use local proverbs as a point to start a discussion.

2. Know your Audience

Romans 12:15 says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

You must know what makes your readers rejoice and what makes them weep if you want to reach them with the Gospel. Humans are emotional creatures and we are drawn to others who share and understand our emotions.

How can you know your audience?

• Pray for insights.
• Sit outside on a crowded street and watch them.
• Visit with them and ask them what they are excited about. What is difficult?
• Read the news.
• Listen to call-in radio shows and interviews on TV.
• Look at locals’ Facebook pages and see what they are talking about with each other.

3. Map Out the Spiritual Journey

Draw a timeline or map of the spiritual journey you would like your readers to take.

Where are they starting at? What are the barriers to moving toward Christ? What steps would you like them to take as they move toward Christ?

Write articles on your website based on these answers.

Possible steps along the journey:

• Disillusionment with the Status Quo
• Being Open-Minded
• Addressing Misconceptions about Christianity
• Reading the Bible
• Prayer
• Obedience
• How to Become a Christian
• How to Grow
• Sharing Faith
• Persecution
• Being Part of Christ’s Body, the Church

4. Grab Your Readers Attention

The title is the most important part. If your title creates curiosity, then readers will continue reading. At the same time, your readers have probably grown up thinking about Christianity in a certain way. Shock them by addressing their misconceptions about Christianity!

Here is an example from our context:

Most locals believe that people are paid or given a visa by foreigners in order to convert. We didn’t dodge the issue or deny it in our post or people wouldn’t have believed it. Instead we ran a post with a picture of a passport and titled it, “Christians Receive a Visa!”

When users clicked on the Facebook post, they went to an article explaining that though Christians aren’t given a visa to another country, they do have guaranteed citizenship in heaven!

Also check the importance of Creating Great Visual Content.

5. Schedule Content

Look at your calendar a month at a time. It takes time to develop themes and to create content. Think ahead. How will you schedule content for the upcoming month? When will you run ads? One suggestion is to sign up for “Trello” and organize the content there. Build a library and you can reuse content later.

Ideas for themes/campaigns:

• Christian Heritage in the Country
• Photos from around the Country (ask users to contribute)
• Family
• Christmas
• Basic misconceptions about Christianity
• Christ’s Life and Teachings

Even though you have a schedule, you will also want to be flexible and ready to post when news events occur.

6. Clearly State Action Steps

What is the Call to Action (CTA) on each page, post, landing page, web page?

Call to Action ideas:

• Read Matthew 5-7
• Read an article on a certain topic
• Private Message
• Watch a video
• Download a resource
• Fill out a form

Ask several friends to look through your posts, landing pages, and website as if they were seekers. If someone is interested in learning more, is it obvious how to move forward?

7. Preserve Online to Offline Consistency

Diligently preserve the same message from the online content to the face-to-face meetings.

If someone reads your post/article will they receive the same message when they finally meet with someone face-to-face? For instance, if “sharing your faith with others” is emphasized in your content, is it also emphasized in face-to-face meetings or are seekers advised to keep their faith a secret in order to avoid persecution?

Communicate as a team, as Christ’s body. The content creators should let the visitors know which themes they are focusing on during a given time period. The visitors should tell content creators about problems their contacts are running into and perhaps content can be created to address these issues.

Make sure your team is on the same page about important topics such as:

• Where do you want seekers to find the answers to their questions?
• How mature does a believer need to be before they can study the Bible with others?
• What is the church?
• What is the long-term vision?

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This blog post was submitted by a member of a team who is implementing Media to Disciple Making Movements (M2DMM) strategy. Email [email protected] to submit content that will aid the M2DMM community.