Facebook has become the world renown flagship of social media with the most registered users, most page views (according to Alexa), and even has a movie written about the business. Of course, social media is not defined by Facebook, but has influenced much of the online networking model for other social media businesses.
That being said, it would seem that many ministries do not use Facebook well. We want to breakdown what Facebook has become and how ministries can use it better.
- Facebook is your personal social media network.
While others may offer personal information, photos, and other personnas of being your personal social network, the user base that Facebook contains naturally lends itself to being the average Joe’s personal site just as Twitter has become the professional networking one. This simple audience is what every other network is missing and so you need to approach it with this regard. Do youth ministry? Then not only engage students but the parents too. Have a church’s Facebook fan page? Do not forget about the over 40 crowd because they make up almost half the users now. - Facebook requires boundaries.
Because Facebook is so personal, you need to have boundaries. Do not run your ministry’s Facebook presence through your own personal page. What happens if you quit, or even worse, get fired? Then you are too enmeshed in your ministry’s Facebook identity that it may be completely impossible to separate. Have a fan page with it’s own unique URL address, customize it, and even utilize the timeline features to show off when your ministry started and some of the history of events. - Facebook is becoming more visual.
If you are not using Facebook visual elements on your pages, then you are missing out. Do not forget to add a photo every once in a while and even utilize Facebook “highlight timeline event” feature to take up even more webpage real estate. If you video blog, share it on your fan page. And never, ever forget to tag people in your photos and videos as this will dramatically increase your fan page’s reach. - Facebook is not your ministry’s website.
I have already told you that Facebook should not replace your ministry’s website and I had some pretty hard push back about it. What happens if Facebook’s stock tanks tomorrow and they remove it from the Internet? It’s possible and now your ministry is left without an online presence. You do not own Facebook and so you do not get much of a say to what happens on there. Integrate your fan page, sure, but do not put all your eggs in this social media basket.
We would love to like your Facebook page, share it in the comments below!
[…] about the general social media strategies that you could have for each social network, how to best form your social media strategy around Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter, and what our own social media strategy is this […]