Throughout the lifespan of the Here I Am app we have been able to see a little over 1200 posts created across our client churches. We’ve also done a great deal of research into how churches use other social media (Facebook, Instagram, others). Throughout all these posts there are two topics that seem to always garner the most attention via likes and comments – babies and birthdays. This theme is consistent in public social media where algorithms drive the reach of who may see a post, and within private social media, where the reach is across all of the members.   

When folks take a break from a social media platform, some of the dominant reasons they return is to look up someone’s birthday, or to see how a friend’s young child is doing.  These posts always provoke a flurry of engagement, they are celebrating life’s most positive moments with which we all can relate.  

Within a wide-ranging social media feed, all types of posts exist.  When a birthday or a baby picture pops up, it becomes very easy to ‘like’ – there is no guilt, no second thoughts, no wondering what others will think.  Just pure positivity. We have written about how to curate positivity (Here I Am November blog post can be read here).   

Keep liking babies and birthdays to continue online positivity!  While we all lead different lives and cannot post baby pictures, there are a number of other great positive posts that can occur. It could be something as simple as a bible verse that makes your day better, a bird you saw out a window or relating a good deed you witnessed.  Oftentimes, it is controversy that drives the viral spread of likes and comments in a public social media channel – change the game and keep liking and posting the positive items in life.