Elevation Church is a multi-site church pastored by Steven Furtick, based in Matthews, North Carolina.
Elevation has 18 locations, with 9 in the Charlotte area, as well as locations in Raleigh; Greensboro; Winston-Salem; Roanoke Virginia; Melbourne Florida; and the Greater Toronto Area.
2. Lead Project Manager: Supervises team project managers are responsible for timeline, organization, and schedules.
Although the team structures are similar for each account, there is a lot of overlap in roles (i.e. project managers handling multiple accounts or social managers using specific skillsets like copywriting, content identification, video producing for other platforms) and responsibilities are allocated within the teams may vary based on strengths.
What programs do you use for organizing/posting/analytics? We use Flow for project management, and Spredfast for content storage, scheduling, and analytics.
What is your overall strategy for social media? When people look at our church, we have the ability to give them a window where they would otherwise see a wall. A large portion of our audience will never step foot into a physical location, so we see social media as a way to translate our church culture online as well as connecting people to the gospel on a daily basis.
Is there a best time, day, frequency to post? Not that we have been able to identify! As social algorithms have developed, platforms are prioritizing authentic relationships between accounts and users, which means that social is becoming less and less of a formula and more user-focused.
What tools do you use to produce content? (including Instagram Stories) Our creative department uses the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, After Effects, etc.) for all assets. When we are shooting IG stories on the weekend, they are shot on DSLR or C100s.
How do you plan your content? We start with a skeleton of what needs to be promoted, acknowledged for the week we are planning and then build out stories, sermon content, weekend content, etc. around that.
How far in advance do you plan content? We work towards being 3-4 weeks out on our content plans. This allows time for sermon content to be pulled plans to be put together for the project manager, content to be created, approved, and all content to be scheduled the week before it’s posting.
We are not perfect at this but we really try to keep this process! Planning this far in advance allows us to pivot when something last minute comes up without throwing everything else into chaos.
What is the approval process for social content? Social content is first approved by our lead designer and then approved by the social manager for the account. Depending on which account is represented, there is also a client who approves (i.e. Pastor Steven approves social content for his channel after the lead designer and social manager approve).
What is your process for working with other departments, clients? Other departments have the freedom to ask that we help them promote an initiative, but on our brand accounts, promotion for other departments (like worship, campuses, kids, youth, etc.) is at the discretion of the account holder.
It is our responsibility to know the makeup of our audience and use promotion strategically based on who it applies to. For example, when we have an eGroups push we will promote that from the church account because eGroups are available locally as well as online, so it applies to most of our audience and can serve to connect them to our church and grow in their faith.
When we establish that we will promote for another department, we work on a promotional plan based on what we know about the initiative for approval by the client including goals and what calls to action will be used to measure success.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How is your team structured and who does what? Within our organization, social media falls under the Communications team which handles all central communication for our main worship experience and manages all online properties.
Each major brand channel (@stevenfurtick, @elevationchurch, @elevationworship, @elevationyth, @elevationoutreach) has an allocated social manager, a creative (most of whom can do some combination of video, motion graphics, and/or design), and project manager.
The Social Team Has 3 Major Branches:
1. Social Director: Supervises social managers who own each major brand account, they are responsible for the overall strategy and vision of the channel.2. Lead Project Manager: Supervises team project managers are responsible for timeline, organization, and schedules.
3. Lead Designer: Supervises all creatives within the communications team, they are responsible for the execution of content within channels.
Although the team structures are similar for each account, there is a lot of overlap in roles (i.e. project managers handling multiple accounts or social managers using specific skillsets like copywriting, content identification, video producing for other platforms) and responsibilities are allocated within the teams may vary based on strengths.
All team members carry an equal weight of brainstorming, creative standards, and innovation.
What programs do you use for organizing/posting/analytics? We use Flow for project management, and Spredfast for content storage, scheduling, and analytics.
Up until 2017, we did everything through Google docs, which was effective but time-consuming. Spredfast has helped to streamline our processes and archive our content well - so although it was an investment, we are very grateful for it!
What is your overall strategy for social media? When people look at our church, we have the ability to give them a window where they would otherwise see a wall. A large portion of our audience will never step foot into a physical location, so we see social media as a way to translate our church culture online as well as connecting people to the gospel on a daily basis.
Whether we are telling stories, posting sermon clips, or promoting an initiative, everything that we put out should inspire and/or connect people to God and our church.
Is there a best time, day, frequency to post? Not that we have been able to identify! As social algorithms have developed, platforms are prioritizing authentic relationships between accounts and users, which means that social is becoming less and less of a formula and more user-focused.
We try to focus more on knowing what resonates with our audience than on a specific time to post or
frequency of posting.
frequency of posting.
What tools do you use to produce content? (including Instagram Stories) Our creative department uses the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, After Effects, etc.) for all assets. When we are shooting IG stories on the weekend, they are shot on DSLR or C100s.
How do you plan your content? We start with a skeleton of what needs to be promoted, acknowledged for the week we are planning and then build out stories, sermon content, weekend content, etc. around that.
We try to add value with each post whether we’re giving content/inspiration or asking our audience to do something. When the plan is determined, we add in the actual content of the post. Once the plan and content are complete, we deliver it to our project manager to be created.
How far in advance do you plan content? We work towards being 3-4 weeks out on our content plans. This allows time for sermon content to be pulled plans to be put together for the project manager, content to be created, approved, and all content to be scheduled the week before it’s posting.
We are not perfect at this but we really try to keep this process! Planning this far in advance allows us to pivot when something last minute comes up without throwing everything else into chaos.
What is the approval process for social content? Social content is first approved by our lead designer and then approved by the social manager for the account. Depending on which account is represented, there is also a client who approves (i.e. Pastor Steven approves social content for his channel after the lead designer and social manager approve).
What is your process for working with other departments, clients? Other departments have the freedom to ask that we help them promote an initiative, but on our brand accounts, promotion for other departments (like worship, campuses, kids, youth, etc.) is at the discretion of the account holder.
It is our responsibility to know the makeup of our audience and use promotion strategically based on who it applies to. For example, when we have an eGroups push we will promote that from the church account because eGroups are available locally as well as online, so it applies to most of our audience and can serve to connect them to our church and grow in their faith.
But we would be less likely to promote a campus movie night because it only applies to people in the area of that location.
When we establish that we will promote for another department, we work on a promotional plan based on what we know about the initiative for approval by the client including goals and what calls to action will be used to measure success.
After plan approval, we have all assets designed.
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