We’ve been talking a lot in the last month about using Facebook pages for churches and ministries. Here’s your chance get some free pub for your church/ministry and some new “fans.”
Go ahead and post a link to your Facebook page in a comment.
And tell us anything about it that you think would be helpful to other people who are doing FB pages for their church or ministry… What have you put on your page? How often do you update it? Have you gotten many people in your church or ministry to be come “fans?” Has there been much interaction with “fans” on your page (posting to the wall, commenting on status updates or other things you’ve posted to the page)?
Co-founder & CEO, OurChurch.Com
Paul has been the CEO of OurChurch.Com since its founding in 1996, combining his passion for faith and technology to lead the organization.
An accomplished writer, Paul has authored over 2,000 articles on faith and technology, featured on platforms like ChurchLeaders.com, The JoyFM, and his personal blog, LiveIntentionally.org.
Beyond his professional achievements, Paul serves as an elder at Journey Community Church and is deeply engaged in his community through his involvement with the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch and the Safety Harbor Chamber of Commerce. He is a contributing author of the book Outspoken! Conversations on Church Communication.
12 Comments
We had a group before we had a page. It’s been hard to get people who are signed up on one to also sign up on the other. We’re looking forward to more suggestions on how to improve our page.
To be honest, though, so far we’ve found the group to be much more useful.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Herald-of-Truth/15779085364
I like being able to set up events for our church on facebook, but the catagories that you are required to use are very limited for churches.
https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Glenpool-OK/First-Grace-Church-of-Glenpool/76767856920
Tim, thanks for posting the link to your FB page. Looks like you’re doing a good job of updating it, but there isn’t much interaction yet. I noticed that you created the page before FB made changes to its pages on March 13. Do you know if your “fans” are seeing the updates in their news feeds? Many organizations with older FB pages have had problems with that:
https://blog.ourchurch.com/2009/03/30/trick-facebook-pages-news-feed/
I’d also love to know how the FB group has been more useful
Wendy, thanks for posting the link to your FB page. Nice job.
I agree that the categories for FB events are very limiting, not really any good fits. The good thing is that the categories don’t really matter all that much.
Paul,
Thanks for the kind remarks. Our facebook page is only a week old, so I am still in the learning stages. I love the blogs you have posted about facebook and how it can benefit churches. Great information. I think that facebook is just another tool for interacting with members. It’s free and our members are on facebook anyways. We might as well utilize facebook and I like to refer back to our website so that they remeber to check out our site too. I like the fact that you can add links to comments, great way to link back to our website.
Well, looking carefully, I guess the main difference for us is that we have over 200 in our group versus 20 fans on our page. That’s made messaging, etc. more effective there.
The only thing I can think of right now that I can do on the group that I can’t on the page is link to some of my uploaded pictures, that is, have them show up in the photos section. Since I’ve been uploading pictures, that’s on my mind.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Tim,
>>the main difference for us is that we have over 200 in our group versus 20 fans on our page. That’s made messaging, etc. more effective there.
So you are using the group messaging feature like an email distribution tool? How has the response been? Are you getting replies to those messages? Are people posting messages/photos/links to the group?
The great think about FB Pages now is that you can post a status update, link, or photo to your page and that shows up in your fans news feed along with updates from all your friends.
My church has a group as well, and after that important improvement to FB pages, I created a new FB page for my church and then used the messaging feature of the group to tell all the group members to become “fans” of the FB page. Now we have more “fans” of the page than we every had members of the group.
>>The only thing I can think of right now that I can do on the group that I can’t on the page is link to some of my uploaded pictures
I’m looking at your FB page right now and it looks like you successfully added pictures yesterday. Adding photos to your page should work the same as adding photos to your personal profile.
Well, I haven’t figured out how to add photos directly from iPhoto, like I can on my personal page. With the group, I can take pictures from my personal page and put them in the group photos, tags and all. With the FB page, I can’t or, I should say, I haven’t figured out how.
I can export the photos from iPhoto into a folder, then upload that folder onto my page, but captions and tags have to be added by hand. It’s doable, just not as easy.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
I have just started a new facebook group called Christianity unite now ! Please be so kind to visit it ,read the message,and if you agree please join and invite all your friends to join as well .Thank you so much . God bless .
Why do u guys have to worship a jew who was killed 2000 years ago. what u guys are doing is pagan worship ( wood piece with an idol of a dead man) whom u call son of god and light a candle and pray.
Wake up guys u need to know the truth and understand how u guys have been taken for a ride by the crooks who run Vatican. If u are follower of Christ then tell the those u steal in his name that Christ wore a rag walked bare foot and eat what ever he could get and didn't lead a lavish life as those crook in vatican are doing
https://www.facebook.com/puertacielo