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How Churches Can Use Facebook Pages.

A while back, I posted “How Churches Can Use Facebook Groups“, it seemed a little popular, and as our Church in now looking into using a Facebook Page, I thought I should write a follow up to the previous post that is focused on how Churches can use Facebook Pages.

To start with, lets look at what Facebook say a page is:

Pages allow real organizations, businesses, celebrities and brands to communicate broadly with people who like them. Pages may only be created and managed by official representatives.

The suggestion being that a Facebook page is focused around news or content about an individual / organisation, an organisation such as your church.

If you’re not sure why you should be thinking about this, pastors.com reports that:

80% of people check out your website before attending your church. The second place they visit is your Facebook page to view pictures and dialogue between church members. In most situations your Facebook page is much more telling than your website.

If you’re thinking of starting a Facebook page for your church, or are looking for some extra hints, tips or ideas, you may find some below:

  1. Compared to Facebook Groups, Facebook Pages can be quite locked down. You can control who posts, set language controls, ban users, take a moment to explore the settings page and see what happens.
  2. Dont overload people, don’t post too much too often. You can schedule posts to go live on your page, therefore you can sit down, write a few posts, and then schedule them to go live over the course of the next few days / weeks.
  3. Remember to avoid “Churchy language” that non Church people may not understand.
  4. Get help. Find people to help monitor comments, update the site, and do anything that may be needed.
  5. Remember, if your Page gets more than 25 people liking it then you can choose a shortened address for your Page in the form of www.facebook.com/yourchurchname (you will also be able to use the address fb.com/yourchurchname). This is very useful for putting on publicity and much easier to pass on by word of mouth.
  6. Dont forget you can use the Pages App on your phone to update the page.
  7. Update your Facebook page, when you update the website. Use a wordpress plugin to auto update Facebook when your news or blog pages are updated.
  8. Think about when your posting, some people are more likely to check Facebook during the day than others.
  9. Post about things! Post about upcoming events, sermon podcasts, news items, Bible verses, Bible verses against arty backdrops, Church notices…. anything that may be important and interesting. Remember that schedule feature? Use it to post handy reminders about upcoming events, or any thing the Church may need to be reminded about!
  10. Make it up as you go along. Don’t get worried about what people think. If you get bogged down in rules you may avoid experimenting with an idea that may work really well and connect with people. Be creative.

Any more ideas?

For more info see  churchmarketingsucks.com, pastors.com, and fiec.org.uk.