Facebook Fan Pages are an amazing communication and collaboration platform. The ability for an organization to broadcast messages, and then for recipients of that message to interact and comment, has never been easier.
There are a lot of different organizations, groups, products, and high profile individuals that have found value and are benefiting from a Facebook Fan Page.
But one of the most effective ways I see a Facebook Fan Page being utilized is by a church. The benefits are huge and multi-dimensional, so I thought I’d write out some of the ways that I see how a church could benefit from a Facebook Fan Page.
Here are 5 ways I see that a church can use a Facebook Fan Page:
1) Receiving updates from missions trips. People who are on missions trips can easily keep the rest of the church updated with photos, videos, and testimonials. And especially if the missions trip has a mobile device like an iPhone.
2) Prayer requests from others. Fans of the churches Facebook Fan Page can easily add prayer requests to the wall of the page, and other fans, admins, pastors, etc… can see those prayer requests and act upon them. This is a great way for prayer requests to be shared that might not otherwise ever be presented to a church.
3) Broadcast messages / updates from Pastors. With a Facebook Fan Page, the pastors of a church can now instantly communicate with “Fans” and share information, prayers, and updates. This is a powerful way for Pastors to communicate with both church members, and non-members, in a way that’s never before been possible.
4) Church promotion and “word of mouth” marketing. I don’t mean to make a church out to be a business that’s “marketing” their products and services. But a church’s mission is to grow – right? With a Facebook Fan Page, the ability for other people to be exposed to the church is unprecedented. If you’re a fan of a Facebook Page, then any information you share on that page is presented in your wall’s news stream. This stream is of course viewable by all of personal friends on Facebook. So the more you interact on your churches Facebook Fan Page, the more your personal friends are exposed to that church. All of this exposure gives the church an opportunity to reach people in ways that may have never before been possible.
5) Sermon responses and “feedback”: The more people are willing to share about how a sermon has touched and blessed their lives, the more others will benefit from that sermon as well. I’ve always viewed feedback, whether it was good, bad, or ugly, as valuable because at least you know what people’s response was to something. And knowing this is powerful because you can always decide whether changes are warranted or not. Just the benefit of knowing helps, and a Facebook Fan Page makes that possible.
So there’s my 5 ways that a church can benefit from a Facebook Fan Page. What about you, do you know of some other ways that a church can benefit and utilize a Facebook Fan Page? Do you have examples of a church that’s already utilizing a Facebook Fan Page? Share your comments below!