Comments on: Facebook For Churches: How Our Church Uses Facebook

By: Prajeeth

Prajeeth — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 08:00:27 +0000

thanks for the article.
I could not check your facebook church page. facebook.com/whoisgrace.
Can you pls check.
Also pls visit our church FB page http://bit.ly/9HGnQJ & give your feedback.
God Bless – PJ

By: Debbie

Debbie — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 17:43:18 +0000

Hi, I’m an admin for our Church Group page, the only thing that will show up in people’s ‘feed’ is an event. How do we get posts to show up? Is creating a ‘Fan’ page the solution to that?
Thanks so much for your help.

By: Danielle Hartland

Danielle Hartland — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:36:47 +0000

Good point, marshall. I honestly found that making the church page interactive and personal didn’t help create conversations, so that’s why we moved to the staff doing it and referencing the church page when it makes sense. I think people would rather talk to a human than a human behind an organization. Just what I’ve found…but I think what you’re saying does work for orgs.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:53:53 +0000

Thanks for this post. I’m always looking for better ways to get our team and congregation to use social media like Facebook to interact when perhaps a Bible study series/meeting time just isn’t convenient. Good thoughts!

By: bondChristian

bondChristian — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 17:38:32 +0000

One thing I’m interested in…

Might it be better to make a page more person by showing the people behind it?

I know individual profiles are usually for the personal interaction, but personally I like when the pages themselves have a personal identity behind them, not just a ‘church.’ I’m much more likely to interact (comment, like, etc.) with that kind of page.

Just interested… I’m really enjoying this series so far.

-Marshall Jones Jr.

By: Paul Steinbrueck

Paul Steinbrueck — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:02:55 +0000

Thanks Danielle! Yep, that helped me understand a lot better what you guys are doing.

By: Danielle Hartland

Danielle Hartland — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:44:37 +0000

Awesome questions! Here I go:
1. facebook.com/whoisgrace
2. the main page is static, but links to regularly updated info / the rest is a feed from our church blog and events page
3. the “church” broadcasts, the staff (real people) ask the questions and do the interaction. it is mainly for broadcast.
4. because multiple “likes” or comments on an item drives it up in people’s individual news feeds. it gets us more bang for our buck.
5. yes. that is what i’m saying. it’s been interesting…but is paying off. we have an awesome volunteer team and and awesome database that helps us pull this off. we don’t do phone calls, but we do email vs. snail mail vs. facebook.
6. yes
7. yes…more on them in the next post!

pheww! i hope that helps.

By: Paul Steinbrueck

Paul Steinbrueck — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:01:26 +0000

Hey Danielle,

Thanks for sharing your church’s Facebook strategy. I’m very interested to learn about what other churches are doing with Facebook, what’s working, what’s not, etc. I’ve got some follow-up questions for you…

1) What’s the URL of your church’s Facebook page?

>>We have a church Facebook page that we use to post upcoming events and initiatives.

2) How often do you do this?

3) Is the only thing posted to your church’s FB page upcoming events and initiatives? If so, it sounds like FB is just being used as a broadcast/promotion medium. Or are other things that might be used more for engagement (questions, videos, links to thought-provoking blog articles) being posted?

>>I encourage staff not to re-post/share those, but to “like” or comment on them

4) Why?

>>We’ve found that some of our volunteers like to communicate via Facebook, so we’ll message them that way, as opposed to email or phone calls.

5) Are you saying that you ask everyone in your church their preferred method of communication (email, phone call, Facebook), you keep that info in a database, and then when you do church-wide communication you deliver it via each person’s preferred method of communication?

6) When you say “we’ll message them that way,” you mean a private message as opposed to a public status update on the page?

7) When you mentioned Pastor Mike and Pastor Al’s use of Facebook, you are talking about how they use their personal Facebook accounts, not the church’s?

Thanks for the additional insight!