What Should a Church Post Online? This Social Media Policy Template Makes It Easy

A social media policy for your church is an essential element of your parish's social media strategy. In our Complete Guide to Catholic Church Social Media Management, we outline why it’s absolutely essential to set clear expectations for those representing your parish online with a written policy, and how even a simple policy can be beneficial. In this article, we dig deeper into what a parish social media policy is, what it should include, and provide you with a social media policy template to get you started!

What is a Social Media Policy Anyway?

A social media policy is a written guide that explains how an organization will communicate online through its social media channels. It often outlines expectations for anyone who posts or engages on social media on the organization's behalf. In a parish setting, this may include staff, clergy, volunteers, and ministry leaders. With a solid policy set in place, an organization’s digital presence will always reflect its mission, protect its community, and remain consistent, no matter who manages the accounts.

In the general nonprofit world, social media policies usually include:

• Purpose and goals — why the organization uses social media and what it hopes to accomplish.
• Roles and permissions — who can post, who can approve content, and who has access to accounts.
• Brand and voice guidelines — how the organization speaks or wants to “sound” online, what tone is appropriate, and what visuals to use.
• Content rules — what should and should not be shared, including confidentiality, copyright, and safety considerations.
• Response expectations — how to approach and handle comments, questions, conflict, or negative engagement.
• Security practices — password management, account recovery steps, and what to do if something goes wrong.
• Accessibility guidelines — expectations for captions, alt text, readable fonts, color contrast, and other practices that help all parishioners engage with your content. Prioritizing accessibility ensures that people with visual, hearing, or cognitive differences can participate fully in your parish’s online life.

How Does Having a Social Media Policy Benefit a Church

When a parish takes the time to put these basics in writing, something important happens: communication becomes more transparent, safer, more mission-driven, and even more accessible. Instead of guessing “what’s allowed” or scrambling after the fact when issues or conflicts arise, your team has a shared roadmap.

Clarity like this and a unified approach to social media are exactly where the real benefits begin — especially when a mix of volunteers and staff may be posting and engaging with your parish social media all at once!

The Difference Between a Staff and Church Social Media Policy

A parish’s social media policy guides how the organization communicates. It outlines what accounts are your official parish social media profiles, the messaging tone, the parish brand, and the expectations for anyone posting on behalf of the parish.

A staff social media policy, on the other hand, addresses how employees represent themselves personally on their own public social profiles. Even when staff aren’t posting on parish accounts, their public online behavior can reflect on the church (or any organization they are a part of). These types of guidelines usually include expectations around respectful conduct, avoiding public statements that contradict Church teaching, maintaining appropriate boundaries between youth and adults, and protecting confidential parish information.

While these two types of social media policies serve different purposes, together they help ensure that both the parish’s official voice online and the voices of its staff members contribute to a healthy, trustworthy online presence.

What Should be in Your Parish Social Media Policy?

As outlined above, a strong social policy for any organization should include the following components:

• Purpose and goals
• Roles and permissions
• Brand and voice guidelines
• Content rules
• Response expectations
• Security practices
• Accessibility guidelines

For your Catholic parish, when considering the above and determining your church’s social media policy, you should also seriously examine:

• Any restrictions you might have about posting parishioner photos (especially when it comes to images with children).
• Accountability for those responding to private messages to your parish on different platforms.
• Any child protection practices your parish follows and how they might apply to your online interactions.
• A specific Bible translation you use for scripture quotes.
• Which Catholic sources are trusted and acceptable to use when reposting or referencing other online content.
• Your parish’s approach to political and sensitive cultural topics.
• How your parish chooses images to share and avoids copyright violations. Parish staff who use a content library, like LPi’s WeCreate, get all the Catholic images they need copyright-free!

Who Should be Making Our Church Social Media Policy Anyway?

Every parish is different when it comes to how it chooses to make official policies. What we’d recommend, though, is creating a committee with different staff members, volunteer leaders, and anyone else who might have access to your parish's social media accounts, to build your policy together. This gives everyone who will be using your social media a bit of ownership and buy-in. It’s a great way to get everyone on the same page from the start and to ensure they understand and agree to the rules!

Parish Social Media Policy Example

If you’re looking for a social media policy template for your parish, look no further! Here is a blank template to help you develop your own church’s social media policy. Remember, this is simply an idea guide. What you decide to do with your parish policy is up to you!

Download the template here.

For more information, tips, and ideas to aid your parish toward a faith-filled online presence, be sure to check out the Complete Guide to Catholic Church Social Media Management, as well as the Web and Social Media section of our blog.