Church social media strategy audit
- Price
- Free plan: 100 credits, no card. One analysis uses about 109 credits.
- What you get
- A category table with posts, share of posts, median engagement and Reel views; how often the account invites people to a service, group or serving team; a side-by-side with a peer church on the same categories; five changes for next quarter's content calendar; and every post listed with its category so your team can correct it.
- Coverage
- Any public church Instagram account, in any country. Use your own categories or the eight on this page. Private accounts, Stories, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram Insights (reach, saves, shares, profile visits) are not covered.
- Time to report
- Usually 12 minutes.
- Account
- Sign-in with Google required to run it. You can read the example and fill in the form without an account.
How do you audit a church's Instagram?
Place each recent post in a ministry category, then compare the share of posts and the response per category with what the account is for. In a run on November 5, 2026, 3 of Life.Church's 46 posts over ten days were next steps, and 1 invited people to a service; at Saddleback it was 1 of 9.
Enter your church's Instagram account. Nolyn sorts your 48 most recent posts into ministry categories such as sermons, worship, stories and next steps, shows how much of your feed each one takes up and what response it gets, and checks the mix against what the account is for. Add a peer church to compare the same categories over the same dates.
- Posts, Oct 27–Nov 5
- 46 vs 9
- Median engagement
- 0.248% vs 0.183%
- Next-step posts
- 3 of 46 vs 1 of 9
- Median Reel views ÷ followers
- 2.06% vs 4.43%
Key findings
- One campaign and one sermon series fill most of Life.Church's feed
- Format explains much of the gap between categories
The report includes
- Your content mix by category
- Response per category
- A next-step count
- A peer church on the same categories
- Calendar changes and a post list you can correct
What you get
Your content mix by category
Response per category
A next-step count
A peer church on the same categories
Calendar changes and a post list you can correct
Sample: Life.Church and Saddleback Church, side by side
A real run on two public church accounts, using the eight categories on this page and the goal of bringing people to a weekend service and into groups and serving. Both churches are shown over the same ten days. This describes what they posted, not how well they do ministry.
Posts, Oct 27–Nov 5
46 vs 9
Life.Church vs Saddleback, pinned posts left out
Median engagement
0.248% vs 0.183%
(likes + comments) ÷ followers; 599,545 and 115,469 followers
Next-step posts
3 of 46 vs 1 of 9
One post at each church invites people to a service
Median Reel views ÷ followers
2.06% vs 4.43%
12,331 views over 16 Reels; 5,120 views over 6 Reels
| Category | Life.Church posts | Life.Church median engagement | Saddleback posts | Saddleback median engagement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scripture and encouragement | 21 (45.7%) | 0.665% | 1 (11.1%) | 0.201% |
| Sermons and teaching | 14 (30.4%) | 0.220% | 7 (77.8%) | 0.142% |
| Next steps and invitations | 3 (6.5%) | 0.115% | 1 (11.1%) | 0.236% |
| Other (no caption) | 8 (17.4%) | 0.248% | 0 | — |
| Worship and music | 0 | — | 0 | — |
| Stories and testimonies | 0 | — | 0 | — |
| Events and series promos | 0 | — | 0 | — |
| Community and outreach | 0 | — | 0 | — |
| Kids, students and family | 0 | — | 0 | — |
Oct 27–Nov 5, 2026, pinned posts and collabs owned by other accounts left out. Engagement = (likes + comments) ÷ followers, median per post. Figures as Instagram returned them on November 5, 2026.
One campaign and one sermon series fill most of Life.Church's feed
Format explains much of the gap between categories
The comment ask works, on carousels
Few posts ask for the step the goal depends on
Saddleback posts a fifth as much and leans on teaching
Five categories are empty at both churches
Every figure was recomputed from the responses saved from this run. Nine Saddleback posts is a small sample, so read its shares as a direction, not a rate. The run's report compared 15 Saddleback items, including pinned posts and older Reels, because its posts lookup failed; this page uses the nine posts from the same dates instead, and we placed three carousels the report had skipped. We also corrected the report's count of identical Bible Month captions (10, not 11), three Saddleback comment counts and several dates. Eight Life.Church posts have no caption, so they sit in Other. Life.Church was running a Global Bible Month campaign during these dates.
How it works
Enter your account
Add your church's @handle. Keep the eight categories or list the ones your team plans with, and say what the account is for.
Add a peer church if you want one
Pick a public account you look to. Nolyn compares it with yours over the same dates.
Nolyn reads and sorts your posts
It reads your 48 most recent posts, places each in one category from its caption and works out the response per category.
Correct the categories, then plan
Check the post list, tell Nolyn what to move, and use the five changes in your next content calendar meeting.
Who uses a church social media audit
Communications directors
Executive and lead pastors
Volunteer and part-time teams
What it cannot do
Nolyn reads the public numbers on each post: likes, comments and, for Reels, views. It cannot see reach, saves, shares, profile visits, Stories or follower details, and it cannot tell you whether a post brought anyone to a service. Categories come from captions, not from the image or the video, so posts with no caption land in Other and some posts will need moving. Forty-eight posts can cover ten days or several months depending on how often a church posts, and a campaign or sermon series can dominate a short window. Engagement by followers falls as accounts grow, so compare categories within your own account first and use a peer for the mix rather than the rate. It does not judge doctrine or theology.
Questions
List your recent posts, place each one in a category your team actually plans with, and count the share of posts and the response per category. Then compare the mix with what the account is for. In the sample, Life.Church's 46 posts over ten days held 3 next-step posts, and 1 of those invited people to a service.
A goal for the account, a short list of content categories, a rough share for each, and a regular next step for people to take. An audit shows whether the feed matches that plan. It will not write your strategy for you, but it gives your team real numbers to plan from.
Use the ones your team already plans with. This page starts with eight: sermons and teaching, worship and music, stories and testimonies, next steps and invitations, events and series promos, community and outreach, kids, students and family, and Scripture and encouragement. You can replace them with your own list.
We have no benchmark across churches, and two accounts do not make one. In the sample, Life.Church's median was 0.248% with 599,545 followers and Saddleback's 0.183% with 115,469, over ten days. Compare your own categories and formats with each other first.
Yes, if its account is public. Both are read over the same dates and placed in the same categories. Use the comparison to see how another team divides its feed. A large multi-site church has different staff and reach, so its engagement rate is not a target for a local church.
No. Nolyn reads public posts only, so you never connect your account or share a password. That also means Instagram Insights such as reach and saves are not included.
This audit covers Instagram only, so posts your church shares on Facebook or YouTube are not counted. Nolyn has a separate YouTube channel analyzer, but it does not use the categories on this page.
Reading this page and the sample is free. Running an audit needs a free Nolyn account: sign in with Google and you get 100 free credits. The sample run, with a peer church, used 109 credits and about 12 minutes, so it went past the free credits. That run was interrupted once and repeated a few reads. We have not measured a run without a peer yet; it reads about half the posts.
To run it, yes: sign in with Google. It is free and asks for no card. You can read the example and fill in the form before signing in.
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