Facebook Church Pages

By now, I hope I've made it clear with posts like this that I love Facebook.  And I even like Myspace.  Even though I work for MyChurch.org, I hope believers don't abandon these other popular social networks (more thoughts on that here). 

On that note and disclosure, I think the new Facebook pages are great.  They can bring social networking into your church and let you outreach through the social networks of your members.  With Pastor Cynthia's permission, I created a Facebook page for Shepherd's House to play around with some of the features.

To create a page, go to the Facebook registration site and click on the link to create a page for a business or band.  Next choose "Religious Center" in the Local section (that's as close to "church" as Facebook will get):

 

After you create the page, you are the administrator of this page - which can be linked to an existing Facebook account or a new one.  Here is what I see as the admin of Shepherd's House on Facebook:

I can add video, photos, and events.  I can "Send an update to fans" which acts as a bulletin to all members who join this page.  And I can set the Sunday service times.  I can even add 3rd party applications to this church page. 

How do Facebook pages differ from Facebook groups?

1) Groups could not bring in 3rd party apps.   By default, groups and pages have most of the same default tools - photos, videos, the wall, and discussion boards.  But pages can add 3rd party apps like the Prayer Request (disclosure: I made this app).

2) People who join your page are known as "Fans"  There's a new section on your Facebook profile that lists all the brands that you're a fan of.  Here's my tiny fan list:

3) Facebook pages have a nifty advertising model built in.  As a church page, you can send "Social ads" through the Facebook network to target specific people.  And this is where the data behind social networking is very powerful (almost creepy).  For Shepherd's House for example, I can target married men ages 21-30 who live in Thousand Oaks, have college educations, and are politically moderate.  Yikes!

That 3rd point makes me realize how much money Facebook is going to make off local businesses.  Not to mention all the Madison Ave dollars that will be flowing in to promote the big brands and music/entertainment.  But I digress...

Cynthia commented in this post that ads have been degrading on Facebook recently to Myspace-like quality.  With this new ad system, I think we'll see more questionable ads on Facebook.  Especially since literally anyone can now put up ads and target whoever they want.  But I still think Christians should take advantage of Facebook.  And I still personally like Facebook a lot (even though they're now essentially backstabbing some of the 3rd party developers that made them popular recently). 

Comments

[Dave]

Thanks for this. I've given it a go for our church, and it is certainly more customisable in some respects than a Facebook 'group'. But on the other hand it seems to me to have less of the community features such as the ability to appoint admins and the 'recent news' and 'posted items'. Unless I'm missing something.

[djchuang]

Thanks for the instructions about Facebook pages here, Joe! I had heard about this new feature a few days ago, but couldn't tell how to get there to try it out. Sometimes, Facebook is like that -- its minimalistic user interface puts commands and functions in places I can't intuitively find.

[Cynthia]

Joe - thank you! Dave has a good point, can you appoint other admins, etc? You will teach us all. And also, should we abandon our 'group' page. (We haven't talked about it publicly to our congregation yet.)

Also, Joe Louthan, who can be found in my friends list on my fb page sent me this message when I was complaining about the offensiveness of some fb ads:

"If you use Firefox (which of course I do) and then install the Add-ons of Adblock and Adblock Filter.G Updater, then those ads disappear."

I haven't even tested this out yet.

And lastly, we will be 'targeting our ads' only to "UNmarried men ages 21-30 who live in Thousand Oaks, have college educations,and are politically moderate" because we've got some single women to consider.

[Joe]

Cynthia, Dave - there are no admin appointments it seems. So its somewhat limited in the community features. Only 1 person (the creator) seems to have control over everything, and that's a shame. I'll try to find out if I can transfer admin duties to Cynthia.

I don't see that much benefit of a Page over a Group now (for a church)... has anyone else tried it out yet?

And I love your thinking Cynthia! We need to get the singles in TO aggregated at Shepherd's House ;)

[Ben Hunsberger]

Looks like you've recanted your recommendation of this. Is this correct?

[Gail a Church Secretary]

I am very concerned! It seems to me that are more dangers than pros to have a Facebook page for a church. I know that there are privacy issues and live and death issues when you put photos and information out for the whole world to see. If someone wanted to find a child or teen they could do damage or even harm to them by posing as someone they think they know. I have done alot of research on the dangers of Facebook and other social networking programs. How can anyone think that this is OK to have a church page? Photos that are not appropriate to represent a "church friend"...not counting the viruses that can be spread, sex offenders and etc., an innocent request for email addresses from someone posing as a friend, and last a 13-year old who committed suicide because of an adult posing as a 16 year old boy. Would not the church legally be responsible? Something to think about.