Is Your Church Social? Part 6: Facebook ? It?s Just So Easy

In our continuing our discussion of church marketing within Social Media, we’ve started looking at social networking websites, specifically Facebook. If you haven’t already created a profile on Facebook, either for yourself or your church, now is a good a time as any. It’s quick and it’s easy, but be warned…it’s also addictive.So How Easy Is It?You can setup a profile in Facebook for yourself in a matter of minutes. There are about 5 or 6 steps to the setup process and Facebook will walk you through not only setting up your profile, but also starting to find friends right away. Setting up a Facebook Page for your church is just as easy, maybe even easier. So, if you haven’t setup a profile for yourself or setup page for your church, do it now.Setting Up a Personal Profile:If you want to setup a Facebook profile for yourself, follow these simple steps:• Go to http://www.facebook.com/• The signup is on the Facebook homepage. Enter your name, email, password, gender, and birthdate. (All this info is required. If you feel uncomfortable having this info in your profile, you will be able to set your profile’s privacy settings later and can have information hidden.• Once you’ve created an account, you’ll start to find friends immediately.• One of the especially helpful features of Facebook is that it is able to interface with most email providers and retrieve your contacts list from your email account. So, if you have a Hotmail or Gmail account, you can import your contacts list and add them as “friends”.• Next you will be asked for your high school and graduation date. This helps you easily connect with former high school classmates.• As you have started adding “friends” to your profile, Facebook will show you some of your friend’s friends. You may find additional friends from your friend’s friends that you can add as your friends.• Lastly you’ll be asked for the city you live in to further help you network with people in your area. (Again, you can decide how much information is available and to whom that info is available in the privacy settings of your Facebook profile.• Once you have setup your profile, I’d encourage you to Edit Your Profile and add additional information, especially a picture. Their may be a thousand people with your name in Facebook. A picture will help your friends identify you.• If you are concerned about how much of your information is available, edit your privacy settings to the level of privacy you prefer.That’s it. Once you have your Facebook profile setup you can find more friends, write posts on people’s “Wall”, send emails, post pictures, and keep your family and friends updated on what’s going on in your life.Setting Up A Facebook Page For Your Church:• Go to: http://www.facebook.com/business/?pages• Click the “Create a Facebook Page” button• Select “Local” and choose “Religious Center”. You can also select “Brand or Product” and then choose “Religious Organization. (Be sure to select the correct category as it is very difficult to change that later)• Enter name of your org.• Enter you email and create a Facebook account. If you want, you can use your existing Facebook account• Update your Page’s image and info.• Click “Publish”. (If you don’t click “publish” people won’t be able to see the page. So, if you want to work on the page a little before you go live, you can do that.)Who that was hard. Now that you have your church’s Facebook Page setup, you an add news, post pictures, distribute your blog through the page, and more.In the coming articles we’ll talk more about how you can use your Facebook profile and your church’s Facebook Page for church marketing. In the mean time, spend a little time in Facebook, find your old college roommate, see what your high school friends are doing, and have some fun…just don’t forget to sleep.