Scroll down to learn more about our Content Management System (CMS).

5 Reasons Your Ministry Should Be On Facebook

Facebook is a social networking website which allows users to create an account, personalize it with pictures and information, add friends, and comment on other people's profiles. With over 400 million active users worldwide, Facebook has become one of the most powerful tools for mass marketing out there.

Companies, organizations, and churches can create their own pages where users can congregate and keep up with news, videos, and picture posting, blog entries, and your Twitter feed. With Facebook's new integration with many of the most popular websites on the Internet, and the ability for users to customize their Web experience with its "Like" feature, the impact of Facebook on marketing and communication is substantial.

Why Should My Ministry Have a Facebook Page?

1. Audience

Where else can you potentially reach 400 million people? Facebook has user profiles from people across the globe. After making your own Facebook page, any user can "Like" you and follow your content updates. The demographic for the majority of users is people between the ages of 20-35, making Facebook the place to be for interacting with the current generation of Internet users.

2. Dialogue

Your website is mostly one way interaction. You post a news item or create an event, and your users read the information. Facebook pages allow for two-way interaction. Any of Facebook's users can post comments on your page's Wall. They can ask you direct questions, they can interact with other users or answer discussion questions you post, or they can give their reaction on your blog entries, photos, or videos.

3. It Drives Traffic to Your Website

By integrating your church website's RSS feeds for news, blogs, and other content onto your Facebook page, you have another avenue for posting links back to your primary Web presence. Want more people reading your blog? Post an excerpt or summary on your Facebook page and link back to the full post on your website.

4. Visibility and Relatability

Having a Facebook page gives you "street cred." Facebook has grown to be one of the most popular websites in the world, and its young demographic is ideal for sharing your ministry's media. Any place you can share your website's content is great. For free, even better. But displaying it where young people visit every day, that's ideal.

5. It's Free Advertising

Because of its huge potential audience, having a Facebook page is like having an ad on the largest billboard on the largest street in your area. And it's free!

In our next post, we'll talk about how to make your updates automated so that you'll rarely have to do more work than posting new content on your website.

MORE RESOURCES FOR FACEBOOK AND YOUR MINISTRY

Facebook Help Files - iMinistries Support
10 Reasons Your Church Should Be on Facebook - Frank Chiapperino.com

Free Trial

We believe the best way to describe our tools is for you to try them out yourself. We offer a 15-day free trial account which will give you a few days to use all of the features available to our paying clients. There's no risk and no obligation. Who knows, you might even enjoy the new control you have over your very own website.

Create Your Free Trial Account

Comment

Name

1 comments

On 11/13/02010 2:22 AM, Scott said... Nice post, Bryan. I enjoyed the mix of tech how-to along with your discussion of some of the concepts involving "why" do Facebook for a ministry. In my situation, we have a downtown coffeehouse that is a ministry of our church - what a blessed opportunity! And so when it comes to social media, this on-the-corner-downtown coffeehouse represents modern and worldly life.

Prior to the coffeehouse, there was no want, need, desire or awareness on the part of our church leadership..."Facebook? What's that for?"

Today, the Facebook page for this ministry has close to 900 fans. Pretty good for a small town effort that has reached out to a lot of locals and a lot of out of towners. It's purely this DIALOGUE that you mention that drives the life of the page. An opportunity for converstaion and awareness that would never have existed before, if not for our church putting their toe into the social media waters.

In my responsibility for managing the FB page and helping with other online activities, it's refreshing to see young people being reached, where they already are, and older people being pulled into that same space!

Scott
http://www.safehouseweb.com

follow me on Twitter