Saturday, May 14, 2011

How Facebook Can Help Your Church Grow (Part 1)


One third of our guests at Christ Fellowship come directly through our Facebook strategy. In August of 2010, Facebook was nothing more to me than a fun novelty. It was the place to catch up with high school buddies and to keep up with people’s anniversaries. About that same time, God led my wife and I to rebirth a church in the heart of the city of Tampa with 1year2live. Pastoring a dying church and going without a salary meant that everything changed--especially my view of Facebook.

Our church with 1year2live obviously needed a new relational connection with the community. Thousands of people around our church had either written it off or had never even heard of it. That was when my entire idea of communication changed. We had to rethink our marketing like Disney, Coke, and Doritos had done. We needed a way to quickly get thousands of people to experience our fellowship even before they came to one of our Sunday gatherings or Feed the City events. Facebook allowed us to do this with no prior experience and without hiring a marketing company for the church.

When it’s all said and done no church can afford to have a social media presence that doesn’t translate into guests on Sunday. This may go against what many social media purest would suggest. They might suggest, "Build a relationship with your customers and over time they will eventually pursue your product."

To read more, click here.

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