Facebook Inc., the world’s largest social-networking site, surpassed Google Inc.’s search engine in weekly hits to become the most visited Web site in the U.S. for the first time, according to research firm Hitwise.
Facebook.com accounted for 7.07 percent of visits in the week ended March 13, topping Google.com’s 7.03 percent, New York-based Hitwise said in a March 15 blog post. Facebook almost tripled its visits from a year earlier, compared with 9 percent growth at Google, the most popular search engine. (via Business Week)
Do you need any more reasons why your church needs to be active on Facebook?
Some churches are doing a great job using Facebook, some even have Internet Campuses on Facebook, and others, sadly, are still blocking their church staff from viewing it. Regardless, I think this presents one simple reason why we need to be on Facebook: It’s where people are, online.
With baby boomers being one of the fastest growing user groups on Facebook, it’s no longer just something the young kids are doing anymore. My mom added me as a friend on Facebook the other day. I sort of freaked out.
Facebook presents an incredible opportunity for churches to connect with their congregations as well as those who they may never be able to reach.
Every church needs to have a Facebook Page.
A Facebook Page is going to become as important to churches as having a website.
The good news is Facebook Pages are FREE and easy to set up!
Your church should have one global Facebook page that is the information hub for your church on Facebook. From there, individual ministries and/or church campuses should have Groups, and you should link to all of the Groups from your Page.
Emails are growing more and more passé and are being unread and deleted more frequently than we care to admit. Social media is now a key way we are connecting with people and driving them to our online content. Twitter and Facebook are in the top 5 referrers to our church website. That says something.
At Park, we rely on Facebook and Twitter to stay on people’s radar throughout the week. I posted awhile ago about Park’s Twolicy [Twitter policy] and the same ideals drive how we use Facebook.
If there’s a major churchwide event, we post it… if we have a new sermon or video, we post it… if we have photos from an even, we post them. You get the idea.
And the cool part is, as people who are ‘Fans’ interact and respond to our content, either by ‘liking it’ or commenting, it goes to their News Feed, which then goes out to hundreds and thousands of their friends, who in turn, can check out what the are liking and commenting about and then be connected with our content. That’s some of the best FREE advertising your church can do!
Look at Facebook as an extension of your church website and a vehicle to drive people to your content.
Park’s Facebook Page
Late yesterday afternoon we relaunched Park’s Facebook Page with a customized landing page. [Apparently that was great timing with the news of Facebook passing Google.]
If people aren’t Fans of Park on Facebook, it will take them straight to our custom ‘Welcome’ page that gives a quick snapshot of who we are and ways to connect with us… our campuses, events, volunteering, and our Sunday services. We also linked to other social media [Twitter, Vimeo, Podcast, etc].
It’s a short and simple way to give people some options and all of the links go to our website where they can explore and learn more about us.
If people are Fans, they bypass the Welcome page and go straight to our Wall.
It’s pretty sweet and I’m excited to see how people respond.
How Did You Do That?
We didn’t.
Eric Edwards from MonsterEyes did.
We saw the Page he did for Soul City Church and loved it, so I shot him an email. Turns out he was in town helping Jarrett Stevens with his move from ATL to Chicago, so we met up to talk. Fast forward two weeks later, our Page went live.
Eric does awesome work and is VERY affordable. Check him out. [And he didn’t pay me to say that.]
Final Thought
Your church needs to have a presence on Facebook. You don’t have to have a fancy Page to be effective… you need to start of by having a Page period. If Facebook is a place where people are going, interacting and conversing, we, as the Church, need to be there too. It’s just that simple.
Jesus went to where people were, so should we.
The goal at the end of the day isn’t that they get connected with us, but that [through what we do] they get connected to Him!
