In this critical time, sending clear messages is more important than ever. As a leader, you are looking for more effective ways to send important messages, event schedules, and future events to your congregation. You want to be sure that the message has been received without having to individually remind everyone.

In this day and age, nothing can be as effective as visual communication, but to some who don’t have much experience with creating digital content this might sound too hard and time consuming. You are probably wondering how can I take time from my already busy schedule to update visual contents on my TV screens in my church?

I am going to show you some easy ways to turn your TV screen into your own digital assistant and how to create, upload, and change digital contents in minutes using OptiSigns Digital Signage apps.

Here are six ways to modernize your church with digital signs.

1. Create Content.

Once your TV screen is set up, you’ll need to upload contents and schedule times for which you want to display those contents. One simple way you can create contents with Optisigns is the Canvas app. Using thousands of existing templates created for any occasion, you can simply select a template, edit the text, and upload it to your screens in minutes. Using the canvas app is easy, you don’t need to be a digital media expert to create content anymore, and it will do most of the hard design work for you.

You can also use the tools you are familiar with like PowerPoint, Google Slides and start your project from scratch if you have previous experience creating content. Both options are very easy to work with, and they can get the job done for you quickly with the best quality.

2. Communicate Your Schedule.

An important function of digital signage for churches is to help communicate what’s coming up. You can leverage slide templates to quickly create signs that highlight single events. Or you can link up your shared Google or Microsoft Calendar and have it automatically update on your screens. Using a shared calendar can reduce the work needed to update your digital signs with upcoming schedules. It will also allow others to contribute simply by sending invites to the shared calendar.

3. Leverage Content From Your Social Media.

If you are already using Facebook and Instagram to post content, you can reuse that content easily on your digital signs. Just connect your social media account, and let the platform do the rest. Automatically pull in new posts and generate visualization on your screens.

Another way to involve your congregation and use their help in posting content is to create a #hashtag for your church group. When someone in your community is posting pictures of events or projects related to the church, they can use the designated hashtag on their post. They will automatically post the images onto your screens for everyone else to see and enjoy.

4. Collaborate With Others to Update Your Signs.

There are a few solutions to help you collaborate with others to update your digital signs and to keep your community involved. Use Google Slides, Drop Box, Google Drives, One drive and other solutions to simply give access to your congregation to collaborate, update content, and to improve communications.

Imagine if someone in your community has a sick family member and is looking to help speed up the healing process by asking other members of community for prayers. Now imagine if they can do that by just posting one image on the google slides from their home.

As the digital signage administrator, you just need to put the Google Slides or other apps on to your signs once. When changes are made on the Slides, your digital signs will be automatically updated. You can also mix Google Slides with your other normal image, video, and social media content in your playlist. This way, your content collaborator can contribute to the slides design without having to log in or learn other tools.

5. Automatically Stream Your Live Events to Your Screens.

With Covid-19 social distancing, it might be common that your main hall is full and you need to utilize overflow rooms. You are already streaming your content over the internet through services such as livestream.com, YouTube Live and Facebook Live. Why not schedule the livestream event to automatically run on your overflow room’s screens at the same time? 

6. Use QR Codes.

Here are a few ways you can use QR Codes on signs in your churches:

Follow your Social Media. You can have QR Codes set up so folks can scan to follow your Facebook, Instagram, or other social media.

Connect to your WiFi. No more writing a password on a piece of paper, whiteboard, etc. You can set up a QR Code so users can scan to be connected to WiFi.

Give more info, maps, details. You can have your users scan the QR Code to be routed to Google Maps to learn more about a location referenced on your sign or to a webpage to learn more.

Share feedback. QR Codes can be set up to pre-fill an SMS text message or email with some information, making it easy for you to collect feedback.

There are many other ways to get creative and use a digital signage solution as your full-time assistant, to help make your day to day work much easier. You'll be able to communicate your messages in a beautiful visual format that helps your community be more involved and to make your messages more memorable.