Facebook: The new Yellow Pages for Catholic parishes
I know of a pastor who still buys a display ad in the Yellow Pages. Seriously. When is the last time you went to the Yellow Pages to find a phone number?
Most parishes are probably not advertising in the Yellow Pages anymore, especially since the recession, but how are you getting the word out about your parish? If your community isn’t already on Facebook, drop everything and set up a page for your parish this week.
Why Facebook?
Facebook has more than 400 million users, half of whom are online right now. Of those 200 million folks who are chatting, searching, and playing games at this moment, about 130 of their “friends” (on average) are watching what they are doing and saying. If one hundredth of one percent of them say something about your church, that’s 20,000 mentions, and each mention gets read by about 130 people. Try and get that kind of coverage in the Yellow Pages. And it’s free!
How to get started
Get help from your parishioners. A Facebook account is drop-dead simple to set up. And did I mention it’s free? So why do you need help?
Several months ago, I was at a diocesan meeting of priests and pastoral leaders. I told them it would take five minutes to set up a free Facebook account. More than half the room groaned. They all claimed they don’t have five minutes. If getting your parish onto Facebook seems exciting and energizing to you, you’re probably already there. If you are reading this post, it’s probably because you think you should be on Facebook, and you are looking for a simple way to do that without adding to your workload. Like calling up the nice sales lady at the Yellow Pages and asking her to run your ad for another six months.
So get help. Right now hundreds of your parishioners are on Facebook. Dozens of them have already set up pages for their businesses on Facebook. Make an announcement this Sunday asking for volunteers to create a parish Facebook page, and you are pretty much done.
Do it yourself
If you want to take a stab at it yourself, here are some simple steps.
- Go to Facebook.com and sign up. Sign up with your name, not the church’s name.
- Click on “skip this step” until you come to the Welcome to Facebook page. (You can go back and complete the steps later if you like.)
- Now check your e-mail for a “Welcome to Facebook” message. Open the mail and click on the green “Get Started” button.
- Now go to facebook.com/pages/create.php
- Click on “Local Business” and choose “Religious Center” from the drop-down menu.
- Enter the name of your parish in the “Page name” box.
- Click on the box that identifies you as an official representative.
- Click on Create Official Page.
That’s it. Your page will be pretty bare, but you can add to it gradually as you have time. Also, see above about getting parishioners to help. If you want to do something right now, click on the Info tab, then click on “Edit Information,” and start filling out the boxes.
Also, click on the big question mark on the upper left of the page and then click on “Change Profile Picture.” Then upload a picture. Many parishes upload a picture of the church building, but I think it’s better to put up a picture of happy parishioners.
There is a lot more you can do to promote your parish through Facebook, but the simple page you created with these eight steps is already way better than a Yellow Pages ad. If you want to learn how to do more, get some Facebook savvy parishioners together or Google “Church marketing on Facebook” or keep watching this space. I’ll post more ideas in the future.
Do you already have a Facebook page for your parish? Click on comments to tell us about it.
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Thanks for this post, Nick. While at the NCCL last week– myself, some fellow Coordinators of Religious Education, and our Diocesan Leader were discussing launching a Diocesan Religious Education Facebook page.
The parish in which I minister is beginning to use Facebook. I use it regularly for communication and as a presence.
It was good to meet you there. Continued blessings in your ministry!
Best of luck with that Laura. If I can do anything to help, let me know.