Church Marketing Sucks

If you didn’t know, Facebook recently made a massive announcement about an update to their mission. They are pivoting from helping people ‘get connected’ to helping ‘build community.’

That means they are putting much more emphasis on making Facebook groups their number priority. More about that here.

This has huge implications for churches who have Facebook pages. Facebook pages and Facebook groups are very different.

If like me you’ve been frustrated at the throttling back of the reach of Facebook pages to a very low organic reach then this news is the best news I’ve heard come out of the hallowed halls of the Zuck palace in the last five years.

Why?

Because it means you can reach 100% of your Facebook audience! You just need to plan, launch, and grow it (You can link your Facebook page to your group).

One of the challenges that churches will face with their groups is to make them relevant and useful community building/discipleship groups.

6 Ways to Use Facebook Groups

Here are six ways you can make your group engaging and effective:

1. Prayer requests: Create a post that others in the community can pray around.
2. Social learning modules: Step your community through any short courses your church runs (e.g. assimilation, group leadership, etc.).
3. Next steps post content: Create content that is focused around helping someone take a next step in their discipleship journey.
4. Sunday recap: Go deeper and take people backstage and share more about what you couldn’t cover in the sermon. Present it in a question and answer kind of way so that people will feel comfortable asking questions.
5. Watch party for Facebook Live sermon: Share your Facebook Live from your page to your group and create a watch party.
6. Create meetups: Set up meetups where people can come together offline in a safe space to go deeper in community. This can tie into a small group building strategy.

I understand that there is a lot to take here. Fortunately Facebook has created a free ebook resource specifically for churches that will help build your Facebook group community. There are no catches or sign ups. They just want active healthy Facebook church groups. Check it out here.