Summary
This is going to be a very simple strategy with one goal in mind: to build awareness of your church in the community and the surrounding areas and to convert Facebook likes and followers into church guests, all using the platform of Facebook
Strategy
Internal Promotion
Encourage people to like and follow your Facebook Page internally though bulletins, announcement slides, and videos. Request that your members not only follow your page but select the See First Option to guarantee your content shows up in their news feed.
LINK: Download a Facebook Ads Friendly “See First” Image
See First Campaign
You need to run a “See First” Campaign. Spend some money on an ad to those who already follow your page encouraging them to set their News Feed Preferences to “See First” for your church’s content.
Small Groups
You need to create groups that are directly administered and linked to the Church’s Official Facebook Page. These will be based on your Adult and Teen Sunday school classes. You will need to select at least one Facebook savvy volunteer (make up a cool title for them like “Facebook Outreach Representative”) from each class to moderate and post content to those groups. Instruct them to post at least once a week in those groups with a conversation-starting post. Provide some graphics for them to help get things started.
LINK: Here are Some Free Social Media Graphics to Get Started
Always Post to Start Conversations
You need to start a conversation with every post. The goal is to get interaction with our post. Ask a question. Doesn’t always have to be spiritual. The keyword here is “social”.
For example:
- “What did you get out of this week’s sermon?”
- “Did you read anything interesting in the Bible this week? Post in the comments below.”
- “Edwards Apple Orchard just opened up! It’s a Rockford Tradition for the Fall. Is anyone here going this year? Let us know!”
Create a Facebook Show Page
A new feature of Facebook is to have Show Pages.
Show Pages are a new video page format on Facebook organized in a way that makes it easy for people to understand what a show is all about, watch episodes and other related videos, connect with communities that have formed around a show, and more. – Facebook
Create a show page for your Facebook Livestream of your services. If you’re not already doing it you should use Facebook Live to Livestream your services. This is very inexpensive and easy to set up. Any church of any size can double their audience through live streaming. A show page can be connected to your main page the way a group is connected. First, this expands your Social Media Presence. Secondly, it will help connect a show to you through the new Facebook Watch Feature. Facebook is looking to compete in the streaming TV space and this is the time to jump in.
Facebook Ads
The final stage in reaching out to the community is the ability for minimal cost to push out ads targeted to your city. This should be used to push special guest-friendly Sundays at church, and also just cool content that you create and give away to the community such as videos and free eBooks. I would recommend a starting budget of at least $50.00/month for advertising.
Conclusion
With the new algorithm for Facebook’s news feed, it would be detrimental to the health of your social media marketing if your page was solely used as an announcement board. Not even your own page’s fans will see your content unless you use your page as a community builder.
I have created a sample marketing strategy to help your church use this amazing platform called Facebook. This is certainly not a comprehensive strategy and I would be glad to consult with any church on their marketing strategies, but here is a good start at taking your Church’s Facebook presence to the next level.