Another panelist, Jasmin Lemieux-Lefebvre, communications director of the Archdiocese of Quebec, stressed the power of videos on social media.
"The conversion stories are the one stories that bring us the most attention," he said.
Lemieux-Lefebvre suggested professional Catholic communicators should regularly ask one simple question to judge the quality of their content: "Are you willing to share it on your personal social networks?"
Samantha Wallace, a social media specialist with the Knights of Columbus, stressed the importance of listening to everyone who engages with one's organization: every Facebook comment and Twitter reply. Monitoring what kind of content is successful helps an organization modify and improve its strategy.
She found that Knights of Columbus social media followers and their friends started responding well to faith formation and spiritual content once the organization began to create and share it. Experimentation with Facebook Live, despite initial setbacks, also proved fruitful.
Vicki McEachern of Catholic Christian Outreach, a Canadian campus missionary ministry, stressed the importance of authenticity in speaking to people on social media.
"Truly trust your audience," she said.
Success on social media shows that when content is appealing, the number of people sharing it can grow exponentially.
"What this means is that if you have a piece of content that reaches many people, the content doesn't do 10 percent better or 40 percent better," Millegan said. It can do 40,000 times better.
"One really good piece of content can be worth more than a huge number of okay pieces of content," he said, adding that the changing nature of social media platforms requires some flexibility.
"It's easy to have success in one medium and get complacent. Then the world changes around us and we're left behind. Always have humility and try new things," said Millegan.
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Kevin J. Jones is a senior staff writer with Catholic News Agency. He was a recipient of a 2014 Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship.