One of the first uses by youth workers has been to advertise for youth group meetings as well as outreach events. This is one way to expand your student base without too much planning or time. Many times, your students will invite their own friends to your ministry page that you have never met.
- Event RSVP
Through our Facebook group, I sometimes create events and send invitations all the youth group kids to RSVP as “attending,” “not attending” or “maybe attending.” Even though we have sign-ups on our website, too, when people join an event in Facebook, it shows up in all their friends’ news feed and gives the event some free publicity to other students who otherwise might not know about it. Of course, they can easily check out more details of the event and sign-up to attend, too, if they’d like. - Prepare Students For The Lesson
One of the greatest things you could do in preparation through the week for your youth group talk is help the students get in the mindset. On your ministry’s Facebook page, post the main and secondary Scripture for the week, pre-questions and follow up questions, and any promo videos and banners for the teaching series. This allowed them to be thinking about the talk long before you start and after you finish. - Do Not Make This Your Only Line of Communication
Yes, it is 2011, but I have SO MANY middle school students who are NOT on Facebook. To that point, I have many parents that do not even understand what Facebook is meant to be. (Should I point them to the Scoial Network movie?) Facebook “advertising” should be only one of many different ways to interact with students and I would go as far as saying should not be in the top three best ways to communicate to students. Nothing beats face-to-face conversations with students and parents, a hand-written note implies effort and thought, and flyers can be hung on a refrigerator.
