How do I get people to like and comment on my church’s posts on Facebook?
This is the “million” dollar question. Likes, comments, and shares are key to spreading the word about our church and sharing the story of God today. Every fan interaction increases the chances someone in your local community will be touched and wind up at your front door on Sunday morning. Even if they don’t show up on Sunday, your Fan Page posts may open a door for a life changing conversation.
Set the expectation on Sunday morning.
Getting your church members to engage with your posts on Facebook isn’t easy. If your Fan Page is like an echo chamber, I suggest that you start by setting the expectation on Sunday morning. Encourage your church during Sunday morning announcements to like, comment, and share posts. Cast the vision for the Fan Page and share how it is an integral part of spreading the word about God and your church community. After the initial mention, be sure to follow up. Keep it front of mind for a few weeks, celebrating successes and encouraging them to keep up the good work.
Now that you have their attention, you have to fulfill your end of the bargain. Post great content.
Ideas for posting great content to your church’s Fan Page.
I dance around this topic a lot because it has hard to make blanket recommendations for ALL churches. Every church has a unique population. What drums up dozens of likes for one church will yield less impressive results for another. That said, there are general recommendations or rules of thumb to help you share great content that gets your fans talking and sharing.
Think church member.
In order to get them engaged, you need to first understand your church members and fans. You need to know who they are (generally speaking), what they care about, and their current struggles. In other words, you need to be in a position to understand what kinds of things will challenge, inspire, entertain, and encourage them. Doing so adds value to your fans and will make it really easy for them to like, share and comment.
You probably know a lot about your fans and church members already. However, Facebook provides a host of tools and analytics to get to know them better. With the new Facebook Timeline upgrade, Facebook added some exciting new features. The new analytic tools show demographic data of fans and the people reached with your posts, as well as, detailed data about the “success” of each post. Understanding who your fans are and what content they’ve liked the best, will help you share more engaging content in the future.
Think front door content.
If you are at a loss for what to share with your fans, one of the first places to look is popular culture. Take a look around and find things that are happening in culture that will speak to just about anyone. For example, Obama announced his support for gay marriage . There are now thousands of articles and videos circulating around the web that offer thoughts and perspectives on this issue. Consider sharing one and I bet the conversation will roll. To be more specific, My pastor today posted a sermon from a few years ago entitled “My Friend’s a Lesbian” as a way to tap into this “front door” issue. People are talking. For some other examples see: “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” and “Kony 2012″.
Think questions.
If you are after more comments, you need to think about asking great questions. ”Yes or No” questions typically don’t get a very good response. Great questions on Facebook need to be open ended and leave room for an opinion. In most cases it is also best to ask a question with a supplementary link, graphic, video, etc. The supplementary content helps frame the question and makes it easier for people to respond. Everyone will be on the same page.
Some examples of great questions:
- Which restaurant has the burger in town?
- Which spiritual pathway resonated with you most on Sunday?
- How do you define marriage?
- What did you think of the Song Series?
Think great content.
Great content that starts conversations on your church fan page is going to be (a) relevant to your fans (b) accessible to everyone and (c) lead to a great question. This may be an infographic, photo from Sunday, article about baptism, fun fact, etc. The next question is where do you find great content. Below is a list of some suggestions.
- Setup google alerts to be notified via email of articles related to a set of key words.
- Follow people on twitter who share content that you like.
- Like Fan Pages on Facebook that share content you like.
- Use a site like StumbleUpon to discover new and interesting content.
Photo compliments of hebedesigns.
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