3 Things to Understand When Looking At Your Online Church Metrics
When you post your service to Facebook, YouTube or any online platform, you’ll usually be able to see how many people have “viewed” the service or see how many people are watching along. If you want to get more in depth, you can see things like: how many people watched, how long they watched, when did they stop watching, and where are they watching from. These metrics usually do one of two things for Pastors who look at them: make them really excited or make them really depressed.
No matter what camp you may fall in to, let’s take a look at some things to understand when you look at your online metrics.
Views Do Not Equal Attendance
Typically, we can count heads in the auditorium and determine how many people attended that Sunday. When we look at views, it’s hard to quantify those as attendance because Facebook measures a view as someone who watched for 3 + seconds. YouTube measures a view as someone who clicked on the video and watched for 10 + seconds. This doesn’t really quantify as someone who sat through your entire service. So, don’t equate views with attendance. I like to look at views as people who “saw us as they drove by”. People have the chance to see what happens inside your church as they scroll through social media. You should pay attention to the numbers of people that stopped long enough to register a “view” on that platform. These articles will help you further understand metrics on Facebook and YouTube.
Detailed Metrics Help You Tweak Every Week
Beyond the “views”, a look at your detailed metrics should not tell you anything more than: what age groups are watching, where are people tuning in and when people are disengaging. Let these metrics inform how you can adjust service elements or content moving forward. The beautiful thing about online church is that you can tweak every week. If you notice that people are tuning out after 9 minutes, you may want to shorten your service or change up the element orders. You may discover that more older people are tuning in than you thought. You may discovery that your younger families aren’t tuning is as much. All this will do is help you in your planning for the upcoming week.
The Best Measurement is Engagement
In the online church environment, the best way to measure is to measure engagement. Check out this blog that has some ways you can engage people during online church through hosts, forms and a lobby experience. You can assess the level of engagement in those areas as they are happening. You can also connect with your church through a phone tree weekly and check to see if they are watching the broadcast. You can discovery other ways to engage your church beyond Sunday here.
You measure what matters and remember we’re talking about souls for whom Christ died. Whether they stop by for 3 seconds or sit through 40 minutes, they are all equally valued by God. Let’s continue to do our best every week.
How are your metrics changing what you do?
Jeremiah works as an Effectiveness Coach with the ABNWT District of the PAOC. He is a passionate and creative leader who believes that the church is the hope of the world. He uses collaboration, innovation, and inspiration to challenge churches and their leadership to engage in the only mission Jesus ever sent his church on: making disciples.