Hey there, Digivangelists. And welcome to our first “how to” walk-through.

Click here for the video version of this post!

This may be too basic of an article for many, but for those without a church Facebook page, it is a necessary article.

Especially if you put off making a Facebook page until now. You know, now, the time of *cue dramatic music* New Facebook coming into our lives.

Fear not! New Facebook or not, the process is really not too difficult. Not to mention, it is one that will quickly connect you with many of your people.

Some statistics from oberlo.com:

• 60 billion monthly active users use Facebook. It also has 1.73 billion users that are visiting the social networking site on a daily basis.
• 58.5 minutes is the average time users spend on Facebook each day.
• 86 percent of US marketers are using Facebook for advertising

Statistically, people are on Facebook – your people are likely included. This makes it well worth your time and effort to set up your own church Facebook page.

Facebook Profile vs. Page

First things first, you personally need access to a Facebook profile in order to create a Facebook page.

This might be confusing to some just getting on Facebook for the first time. They may wonder what the difference is between the two.

Facebook Page: a public spot on Facebook where anyone can see what your business, entity, or popular topic post is about. Followers or likers of a page will specifically be shown page updates on their newsfeed as the algorithm permits. Pages have one or multiple admins (people/Facebook profiles).

Facebook Profile: typically, a private spot on Facebook for each person to share about their history, their life updates, and add friends at will. Only those friends who the profile holder permits to see their information will see it.

Privacy

That means you can have a private Facebook profile with no friends or limited friends AND manage a public Facebook page for your church.

There is no risk that the people you are asking to follow your page will find the private profile that is behind it. Unless you intentionally interact with your public page’s content as your personal profile.

The best way to make sure you are not doing this accidentally is to ensure the church’s profile photo is always pictured next to the post or comment you are making (a very small version of it!).

If you do not see the church’s photo and instead see your personal profile photo, look for a dropdown arrow near that profile photo to select the church page rather than your personal profile. Note: Facebook does not always show this dropdown arrow. If you are on a mobile device, you may have less options. Thankfully, the default for a Facebook page is to post as a Facebook page.

Why Do I Need a Profile?

The reason Facebook has every page require actual people behind them is so there is always someone with responsibility of the page.

If you are the only administrator of your Facebook page, you would need to transfer administrator privileges over to someone else if you ever left that church.

Share the Roles

The nice thing about Facebook pages is that you can have multiple administrators, editors, moderators, and more. Rather than waiting to share Facebook leadership roles until the day when you leave your community, consider adding tech savvy members to your page’s leadership roles much earlier.

Having multiple people to post, comment, moderate, etc. will only increase your impact as a church. Just make sure you have agreed upon guidelines and/or branding guidance before everyone starts doing their own thing at the same time.

Where to Go to Create a Facebook Page?

Once you have created a Facebook Profile, it’s time for you to create a Facebook page.

Thankfully, “new Facebook” makes this very simple for users, no matter what Facebook screen they are on. Just look for the little plus sign in the top right corner!

Name your Page the name of your church – the full name of your church.

• No abbreviations
• No cute additions
• No acronyms

Quite simply, you want people to be able to find you if they are looking for you. So, include the full name of your church. If your church name is especially popular or unique, it might be helpful to include your location in the page name too.

For the description, consider listing your mission. If your mission does not feel particularly true for your church, talk with other leadership about what the best words to use to portray your church until you can redo the mission.

What to put as your profile picture?

You can use your logo. You can use a photo of your church building. You can even include a photo of some of your people in or around your church. It’s best to use a photo that is recognizable as this photo will be next to every post or comment you make.

A cover photo is another opportunity to upload a photo of your church, your people, or even a text graphic image of the sermon series that you are working on lately.

You can use Canva.com to build a text cover photo from various templates. This might even be a good space to showcase the mission of your community.

And with that, would you believe, you’ve done it!?

You have officially created a Facebook page for your church.

Now all there is to do is to share it. Share it, far and wide.

There are many ways you can accomplish this:

• Email all of your people and let them know of your page’s creation and that they should like and follow it.
• Announce your page in worship and how they can find it.
• Add the link to your church’s Facebook page to the bottom of your leadership’s email signature and church email signature
• Put a short form link or QR code into your printed announcements and/or bulletins
• Invite your personal profile friends through the “invite” feature on the page
• Make posts encouraging people to invite their friends and family members to like the page

As you are sharing the word about your page, it is important to keep in mind that your church Facebook page does not have to just be for your church members.

As long as most of your posts apply to and provide value to people even if they never attend your church services, you can position yourself as a page that seeks to encourage all people, connect the community, and share God’s love – whether or not followers are members of the church itself.

If you need some ideas of what to post that would engage your followers, check out our YouTube video of 8 ways to Connect on Facebook in 2020.

Alright, Digivangelists, we brought the knowledge, now it’s your turn to put it into action. Peace!