Our guest blogger today is Jeremy Roberts, lead pastor of the Church of the Highlands in Harrison, TN. You may read his blog and listen to his podcast at http://jeremyroberts.org. I heard Thom Rainer speak this week about the value of Facebook ads for churches, so learn from Jeremy's post!
Outreach and marketing for churches are way more intricate than they used to be. I’ve found Facebook to be a valuable resource for reaching people in my community, and I hope this post will help you to leverage Facebook ads to reach more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
WHY USE FACEBOOK?
The answer is really simple: tons of people use it. Here are some fascinating stats:
- 1.59 billion monthly active users
- 1.038 billion daily users
- 72% of online adults visit Facebook at least monthly.
- The average Facebook user spends 20+ minutes daily on it.
- 91% of millennials use Facebook.
If that many people are on this social medium (and are on there that often), then go where the people are!
HOW TO DO IT
Here are some steps and principles to create Facebook ads for your church:
- Follow this practical way to create a Facebook ad:
- Post the content on your church’s Facebook page.
- Where the picture below says “Not Boosted,” click that so you can begin the process of “Boosting,” also known as “creating an ad.”
- Go through the step-by-step process it gives you from there.
- Post Content Natively within Facebook
I love the benefits of using Hootsuite.com to pre-schedule posts/tweets, but Facebook will make your post show up in more folks’ newsfeeds if they’re uploaded “natively” within Facebook. This means, you go to the actual Facebook.com page for your church, and upload a video or photo directly into Facebook. You can post content natively within Facebook, and it still gives you an opportunity to schedule the posts in advance (like Hootsuite).
- Know Your Target Audience
Facebook allows you to specify clearly who you’re targeting, so you need to determine who you’re trying to reach. I know some ages and people groups are more likely than others to go to the church I pastor as a result of seeing our Facebook ads, so we target them.
- Plan Your Budget
At the church I pastor, Church of the Highlands, we created a line item specifically for Facebook ads. You should consider doing this. When you create a Facebook ad, they charge you 25¢ per click on that post. If someone sees it, but does not click on it, you’re not charged at all.
- Measure Your ROI (“Return on Investment”)
Go ahead and post an ad. Then connect with first-time guests you have, and ask them if they saw your Facebook ad. This past Sunday, one of the guests who came to our church indicated on his connection card that he learned about our church via Facebook. Bingo! It worked!
- Determine how often to roll out Facebook ads.
Every church will have different times and scenarios to roll out Facebook ads. I’ve decided to release them for our church the week leading up to the launch of a new series, or leading up to a major event (e.g. Easter).
Let me know any additional thoughts in the comments section below. Do you use Facebook ads?
Thanks for the article! We boosted our Easter ad, but after running for a day the ad was disapproved. We were told that the picture can’t contain more than 20% text. Just something to keep in mind. Your article is helping us better utilize Facebook. Thanks!
Thanks, Dustin, for this information. Good to hear from you, brother!
The price per click varies – it’s not a flat .25 per click.
The only way to determine “return on investment” is to really connect with people in person and often something besides a church Facebook page does a better job at that.
I have a free article that discussed this at http://secretsignalsbook.com/sample
I use Facebook weekly to be invited to pray with people in their homes and tell them about Jesus and our church. It sure beats waiting for them to visit first!
Thanks, Chuck.