What’s most surprising to you?

Infographic by Assisted Living Today – Assisted Living Facilities

However! If you’ve already converted, then Facebook’s blog post about the new apps is probably something you’ll be interested in.

What kind of apps are available?  A Few examples:

Pinterest- post your favorite items from your Pinterest account to facebook.

TripAdvisor- your virtual passport

Foodily- share recipes

Rotten Tomatoes- share movie reviews

Ticketmaster- Find and buy tickets from facebook

Click here for a full list of apps and to start downloading them now.

But how do you get the word out to your whole community that you’re having an event?

There are a few free ideas:

Facebook- this is the obvious one. Create an event. Invite your congregation and encourage them to spread the word. You can upload the event flyer as the event picture, so all the details are right there.

Community Event Calendars- Local newspapers usually have an online calendar filled with community events. Take time to submit your event. You’ll probably need to plan ahead for this one and submit it Two or three weeks before the event, in case it has to be approved .

Local Adventure website- some cities have websites that are filled with “free, local fun.” Do a little investigation and see what your city has to offer. Start by Googleing “free events in “your city”.

What other places can you think of?

Not only are insights tracking how your page fans are interacting with your page, they can track the total reach of your page.  Meaning, it tells you how many of your fans’ friends saw your content.

Here are some definitions and useful information to help you understand what you’re looking at.

Weekly total Reach- the number of people who viewed your content within the last week

People talking about this- The number of people who have created a story about your page. This includes  when someone likes, comments on or shares your posts.

Virality- the percentage of people who have created a story from your page post out of the total number of unique people who have seen it.

Reach- The number of unique people who have seen your post

On the left side of the screen, if you choose “likes,” you’ll be able to see where your likes came from.  For example, if someone liked your page from a mobile phone or from another page, it will tell you how many people did so.

The analytics can go pretty deep. Play around with them. If you have questions, feel free to ask us!

pic by littleellieb

If Facebook was a country, it would be the 3^rd largest country! Only China and India have more people!

User Stats:

50% of those users login everyday.

Average user has 130 friends

Over 700 billion minutes are spent

Over 900 million objects (pages, groups, events, pages) to interact with

Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month

70% of Facebook users are outside the United States

The top 10 facebook pages:  (as of July 25, 2011)

1. Facebook- 49,329,339
2. Texas Hold’em Poker- 47,408,023
3. Eminem- 44,054,254
4. You Tube- 42,365,259
5. Rihanna- 41,470,674
6. Lady Gaga- 41,340,318
7. Shakira- 37,732,581
8. Family Guy- 35,409,829
9. Justin Bieber- 33,539,963
10. Linkin Park- 32,824,597

How can we expect people to come back to our websites if we aren’t keeping it updated?  What is the draw to it?  Since less than half are actively using Facebook, and 3 of 4 churches are depending on it for important marketing and community reach, I think it’s time we make sure churches have the power they need to keep the website, not just current, but engaging.

Does your website allow you to easily add new content?  If not, find out how easy it can be through faithHighway.  If you are a current faithHighway client and need help making your website content stellar (and regularly updated), contact your client relationship manager for more free training and consultation.  Don’t forget – the consultation is always FREE: 877.703.2484.

Choose who you will advertise to based on age, gender, city, state, country, interests, connections and friends. This sort of targeting allows you to really hone in on your audience.

The Cost Per Click method of advertising allows you to decide what your monthly budget is and work from there. With the robust analytics, you can start out small and grow and adjust your campaign and demographics accordingly.

Here are the steps to create an advertising campaign on Facebook.

1. Create a new Advertising Campaign: http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/

2. Upload Destination URL (church web address or dedicated campaign landing page)

3. Enter Title and Body

4. Upload Campaign Image or Logo

5. Select your Location and Target Demographic

6. Type in an Interest (this serves as a keyword to narrow your audience)

7. Select your Campaign Daily Budget

8. Set your Cost Per Click Max Bid estimate (it is suggested to fall in the between the suggested high and low bid for your audience, otherwise your ads may not be viewed)

One important thing to consider is where you will point your user click throughs. Some choose to lead them to the homepage of the website, while others choose to create a dedicated landing page. In advertising, generally a custom landing page is created to send all campaign traffic to. This allows you to more highly control the desired action of your user. With a landing page, you can reduce the number of click “options” on the page, forcing them to pick from one or two actions. For example, a homepage gives you the option to select from multiple main navigation items as well as various other graphic navigation buttons.

But, a landing page can offer a reduced number of selections such as “Sign up for a small group today” or “Email the pastor today to learn more about Main Street Church”. Removing the options makes it easier for your goal to be understood and met by the user.

With over 500 million users on Facebook, there is no question that our culture finds it relevant to their lives. Now we just have to decide how we can best use it to build the Kingdom together. Have further questions about advertising on Facebook? Let us know. We’d be happy to help.

Most of the respondents answered that they spent around 2 hours per day managing their business’ social media accounts. A Few spent up to 4 hours and very few spent less than 1 hour.

Of course, each church is different and you may not even have a presence on social media sites.  I would say that to have a somewhat attractive presence on two of the most popular sites, it’s important to set time aside each day to update these sites. What do I recommend?

Twitter: 10-20 min. per day

Facebook: 40-50 min. per day

Linked In: 20-30 min. per day

Use this time to schedule posts for later in the day. This means that you can sign off and forget about the account and your scheduled tweets will automatically be posted to your account.

Of course, the more you update, the more interaction you will have. BUT the big thing is to remember that you don’t HAVE to update. It’s ok if you skip a day. Maybe start out spending 1 hour per day every other day. So in a given week, you update your accounts 3 times.  Create a schedule that works for you and stick to it.

Any other recommendations from those of you who update and interact regularly via your social media channels?

If you’re new to social media or you need help getting started, faithHighway has consultants who can guide you through the process and help you get started. Don’t hesitate to contact us today to get started!

*Photo by ToniVC

6. News feed - if you use “switched” to use facebook as fan page (see point #1), then your fan page has a news feed. All updates from organizations that you like (from the fan page) will show up in this feed.

7. Email notification when someone posts on your wall - to enable this setting, go to “edit page” then click on “your settings.” Check the box that says “email notifications.”

8. Username – Once you have 25 fans that have liked your page, you can set a username for your page. Go to “edit page,” then “basic information.” From there you can add a username, which makes it much easier for people to find you on Facebook.

9. Featured Liked Pages – this means that when you “like” another page from your page, you can specify which pages show up on the left side of your fan page when users go to your page. Perhaps you have a fan page for your youth group, women’s group, men’s group, homeless ministry…etc. You can set your preferences so that those specific pages show those pages. Go to “edit pages.” Then “featured.” Add featured likes to your page.

10. Advertising – You setup all kinds of advertising and promotion for your page. Perhaps you want to think about using this as a way to notify people about your church. Think of it as the new “door hanger,” if you will.  Go to “edit page,” then “marketing.” From there you can see all of your choices for advertising and promoting on your page.

Photo By: Ethan Bloch