After a long hiatus (nearly 6 months) I’m back to share a few thoughts about how churches can use social media to help members of your congregation experience Advent in a new way.

Advent officially kicks off this Sunday. Many non-denominational protestant churches often trade any real discussion of Advent for a message series that is a little “hipper”. Bashing consumerism, stealing the spotlight back from Santa, or calling attention to the world’s poor and unfortunate may be more popular topics. My church was no exception, until this year.

Maybe this is a sign that in the protestant, non-denominational church world there is a revival of tradition. Is your non-denominational church using Advent to guide your Sunday mornings this Christmas Season?

Understanding the Meaning of Advent

Until a few weeks ago, my understanding of Advent was limited to lighting a candle each week and reading a verse-a-day from Jesus’ birth story in the gospels. I thought this was pretty bad, but it turns out, there are many people in so-called “non-traditional” churches that know even less about Advent. Let’s assume for the sake of this discussion that this is a bad thing.

Regardless of the content of your Sunday morning messages leading up to Christmas, there are some valuable lessons to be learned that I think only digging into Advent can teach. The most valuable is expectation.

This past Sunday at The Journey Church Community we kicked off our Advent message series by introducing “The Jesus Year”. The Jesus Year is my church’s new name for the Liturgical Calendar. Totally hipster, I know.

As the Pastor was laying the ground work for The Jesus Year and the meaning of Advent my mind started to wander…

What would our world look like without Jesus? What would it look like without “Church”? How would I feel to have the faith I currently have gone?

Would all hope be lost?

It felt empty. Jesus, faith and church are so familiar that their real power and worth are lost on me. I’ve had them in my life for almost 10 years now and it is incredibly hard to imagine a world where their existence is but a faint hope.

However, this is how things were when Jesus was born in a manger.

Hope of Things to Come

The purpose of Advent is to cultivate “expectation” – a hope of things to come.

Tucked away, in what has become to many, a lame Christian tradition, is a pathway to helping people to get in touch with the hope and expectation that was present in a world without Jesus. While I’m only at the beginning of my own Advent journey, I can’t help but think there are some really powerful truths that I may experience for the first time.

Rather than skirting around Advent, may you consider using it as a vehicle to impart some really powerful lessons to your church. And of course, here are some ways I think you can use social media as a tool to assist with your “Advent ministry” until Christmas.

Social Media Ideas for the Advent Season

1. Tweet or post your way through an “Advent Calendar” with links to supplementary videos/photos/info. This Advent Guide came highly recommended from a woman at my church.
2. Share how-to links for creating Advent candle wreathes, boxes, and other sundry crafts. Ask members of your congregation to share photos of their final creation. Check out this classic advent wreath.
3. Tweet or post Advent tips for families. Most families in your church will have no idea of how to get their family involved in the advent ritual. Suggest wonderful resources, like this Starwars Advent Calendar.

Do you have any other ideas?

Hootsuite announced two big pieces of news this week that really do make it the perfect social media management tool for churches. New this week, Hootsuite allows users to automatically schedule posts and has added Google + to it’s list of supported social networks.

That’s right. You can manage your Facebook (personal and fan page), Twitter, LinkedIn, and NOW Google + . As you read articles and see content you’d like to share, you can automatically schedule content to any and all of your social networks with the click of the little “Hootlet”.

These exciting updates have prompted me to share why I think churches should use Hootsuite to manage their social media accounts. I’ve been using Hootsuite as a paid user for over 2 years now, and can honestly say it is the best $6 (I got in early) I spend each month to help me get personal and “business” value out of social media.

Why use Hootsuite to manage your social media accounts?

What is wrong with logging into 4 browser tabs at once on three different web browsers? Nothing (I managed my social media accounts this way for a long time). You don’t necessarily need Hootsuite, but it sure does make things easier. The following are some benefits I’ve experienced:

#1 It saves me boatloads of time.

The primary time-waster and click-sucker on Twitter is bouncing between your Twitter user lists, hashtag streams, and custom searches. In order to see all these “streams” at once, you have to open a bunch of browser tabs. If you are active on a personal Twitter account, and managing your church twitter account, now you have to do the same thing in a different browser.

After a while, you’ll start forgetting who is who, what is what, and you are bound to make some mistakes or waste a lot of time.

This is a snap shot of a few streams that I have created on a “tab” inside of Hootsuite. The first column is a list of local tweeters and close friends that I interact with regularly. Next, is a list of my fellow community leaders on Michael Hyatt’s blog. The last one pictured, is a hashtag I follow for church and social media (#chsocm).

As you can see, it makes it easy to scan through the tweets and respond as necessary. I have another “tab” with streams for my businesses, church, etc. I work them like a job each morning and because they are all in one place, I don’t have to fire up additional browsers with a bunch of tabs. It’s all in one place. This allows me to manage all of my Twitter accounts in less than 30 minutes each day. Sweet.

#2 Manually scheduling and now automatically schedule tweets/fb posts/g+ posts/linkedin posts in one place.

Admittedly, I’ve been using Buffer App to handle automatic scheduling of tweets. Now with Hootlet, I can handle all of it in house. Whenever I know I’ve got a really busy day or am going to be off for a few days, I can easily manually and automatically schedule social media content to go out  to all of my networks.

I don’t have to worry about falling off the face of the social media earth.

#3 Learn more about people you are interacting with quickly.

When I run across an interesting tweet or see a new person commenting on a Facebook post, I can quickly look up a bunch of information about that person right inside of Hootsuite.

You can see here, that I learn a lot about the user and in the case of Twitter, I can follow them, reply, retweet, or add them to a list right inside of Hootsuite. This makes it easier to follow new people and learn more about them when you are replying and interacting, whether on Twitter, or on any other social network.

If you manage social media for your church, you need to consider using Hootsuite.

I’ve listed only three benefits, but there are many more, particularly if you are working with a team to manage social media accounts. The tool has made it easy for me to manage my personal social media accounts, church social media accounts, and all of my client accounts. It is an indispensable part of my daily social media engagement.

The best part is that you can use it for free before deciding to upgrade to the Pro account.

Happy Hootsuiting.

I was delighted to learn today that Facebook will soon be releasing read receipts for Facebook Groups. As someone who uses a Facebook Group to lead a committee, I can tell you this will make my job as committee chair much easier.

Facebook Groups are notorious for killing off time-sucking meetings and eliminating redundant communications. Can I get an Amen?

The only trouble is I can never really be sure EVERYONE saw the communication. For instance, when I put things to a vote or post extremely important updates, I want to be sure that everyone on the committee, at the very least, read the communication.

Hold people accountable for reading and staying current with group news and updates.

When new activity occurs in a group, Facebook: (a) prioritizes the update in the newsfeed (b) creates a notification (the red number) and (c) shows the number of updates in the newsfeed sidebar. Even still, I’m not confident that everyone got the message.

There’s the catch.

If people aren’t reading, then Facebook Groups are pretty much worthless for our churches. Now, with this new feature, people can be held accountable for engaging with Facebook Group content. I sometimes spend up to 30 minutes preparing documents and orders of business to be posted inside of the group and I want to be sure that EVERYONE took the time to read it.

If they don’t then what’s the point?

Read receipts for Facebook Groups are a big win for churches.

In our continued effort to relieve the burden on volunteers and manage our teams effectively, this new feature may be just thing to help us get the most mileage out of Facebook Groups (or decide if we need to try something else).

As leaders, we need to be able to see who is getting the message. We will now be able to identify people who are consistently not reading group posts. This will allow us to zero in on those folks to determine if there is a priority problem or a platform problem. The bottom line is that we need everyone plugged in and on the same page to make these newfangled social media group management tools work.

On the flip-side, people on your team will know that they can be “watched”. Their absence will be duly noted. This of course has a funny way of getting more people to read in the first place.

Net win for leaders. Net win for churches.

Photo compliments of incase.

Question: Do you believe read receipts are an invasion of your privacy?

Christians have never before been more visible. Our stories are everywhere. Your account on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google + is showcasing a face of the Kingdom of God. We need to walk worthy of that calling.

This week, there was an explosion of dialogue online about the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).

Much of what I saw posted on Facebook about the law was in point of fact – false. People made assertions and claims that had more to do with fear than with reality. In the process, they were sharing and resharing lies. Their words weren’t the truth. Lies of course spread much faster than truth.

The truth is not very popular and it’s hard to contain in 140 Characters.

As Christians we claim to know about Truth. We know truth is rarely convenient. It isn’t normally not very popular. We can also conclude that the truth can normally not be contained in 140 characters or in a two-sentence status update. This is particularly the case when we are addressing major political issues.

Know that when you engage in the public square, whether that’s through social media or in real life, people are watching you. You are a representative of the Kingdom of God and how you interact with others reflects the Father.

Admittedly, I engaged in the conversation about the Affordable Care Act half-cocked and intentionally vague. I asked a lot of questions, but felt like in order to be honest, to represent the truth, I had to be authentic about my position. There were so many alarmist and false statements coming from people in the Kingdom of God that I also felt the need to provide a detailed, humble and balanced assessment. This won’t spread very fast on social media, but I hope it served to kill off a few lies.

Below is my post from Facebook. The following link was attached to the post: http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/05/16/gvse0520.htm

May it be food for thought before you pound out your next status update…

I’ve been having a lot of conversations recently about the ACA (aka Obamacare). The most challenging aspect of the bill to me isn’t the bill itself, but the underlying assumption that all Americans deserve quality medical care regardless oftheir ability to pay for it.

This makes healthcare unlike any other market. Not everyone deserves to drive a car or own a home. Not everyone deserves to eat at a fine dining restaurant or own an ipad. If you can’t pay, you don’t play.

Healthcare is different. As a society (and by law) we have mandated that if someone shows up at a emergency room, they receive care, regardless of whether or not they have insurance or have the money to pay for the services rendered.

“In 2008, hospitals had 2.1 million hospitalizations of uninsured people. About 1.2 million, or 58%, ended up with hospital bills in excess of $10,000. Hospitalizations with costs of more than $100,000 accounted for 6% of uninsured hospital stays.”

Furthermore, uninsured families cannot pay hospital bills 95% of the time, racking up over $60 Billion in uncompensated medical costs. These costs are shifted to people paying for insurance, about $350 per person. This isn’t “fair”.

So, there is already a mandate, pre-obamacare, that we (those insured) pay for the medical care of others. We are taxed every year, already, just not by the Federal Government.

The goal of the ACA is to expand healthcare to more people, reduce uninsured medical care and provide broader access to preventative medical care that will reduce the need for as much costly, emergency care. It will require more people to pay to play.

If as a society we continue to agree it is fair that all Americans receive medical care regardless of our ability to pay, then this bill may help close the gaps in costs and care, while holding more people accountable to bear the burden of medical costs. We are all in this together.

My hope is that this bill will reduce healthcare costs by bringing more people into the insured-payer pool and providing greater access to preventative care. If it fails to do so, then we need to think about a new direction.

That new direction may be that we turn people away who can’t pay for healthcare just like we would someone who showed up trying to buy a car with no money and poor credit history. However, the thought of having that conversation with someone in my family seems perverse.

Sorry for the long post, but since I’ve made so many comments and status updates about this I thought I owed it to you all to share my “position”. There are of course a lot of uncertainties, so I’m going to wait and see to pass judgment on the new law.

I wish there was more in the law regarding preventative medicine and care. Much of what ails us as Americans is “preventable” (i.e. obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc.) I’m not so sure primary care physicians are equipped to inspire positive personal healthcare choices, but we’ll save that topic for another day.

That’s the honest, to goodness truth.

I’m having a really hard time justifying my investment of time, money and talent into doing church. There is no singular cause, nothing I can really pin point. I even absolutely love the people. The devolution of my desire and passion for church has been a slow progression, from a nagging sense that something is wrong to my current state of antipathy.

If I weren’t the Sunday Morning Host, I would probably have stopped showing up. Maybe…

Giving, tithing and the economics of church.

Even though my current, negative attitude toward church has taken a while to develop, there was an exercise I went through recently that really took the wind out of me. I’m on the Strategic Leadership Team at my church and was tasked with devising 3-5 short “Money Minute” talks, where I’d share about tithing and giving from different perspectives.

The first “perspective” I decided to tackle was dubbed, “The Country Club” view of giving. In other words, making church happen has real, hard costs. People understand that you pay for access to the internet and gladly hand over $100+ to their cable provider monthly to watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones. Often, these same folks bristle when you start talking about tithing and giving money to the church.

To reach these folks, I thought I would appeal to them in terms that they understand. You pay to play. The seats you and your family take up on Sunday morning have a price. Admittedly, there is more to giving and tithing than simply paying your own way, but for people who give little or nothing at all (and have the capacity to do so) should at least agree to paying their way.

Whether you agree or disagree with this, I can assure you it is a very interesting exercise.

Are the resources that go into making church happen really worth it?

WJPTPTGTYC. Would Jesus pay the price to go to your church?

While I won’t divulge specifics, I calculated a ticket price on Sunday morning based on our operational budget and average weekly attendance. I found that at cost, each seat we fill on an average Sunday costs us $18.63. Not bad, eh? However, if we were running church like a country club, we’d have to mark up our price to cover maintenance, improvements, and growth. Adding in a modest margin, our Sunday ticket price would rise to $23.29.

So, for an average family of 4, it would cost them nearly $100 to attend church each Sunday.

While this number falls way short of a true 10% tithe for many families, I still find the number staggering when I look at the ticket price v.s. community impact. Are my “talents” growing by investing them in my small church or am I wasting them like a foolish servant?

About 75% of churches have less than 175 Sunday attendees.

Maybe I should have titled this post, “Is Going to a SMALL Church Really Worth It?”, but I digress.

At my small church, we give away 10% of the total offering and the rest, almost exclusively, goes to pay a pastor and for rented facilities. That means only $2.39 of my ticket price goes back to the community to have life changing impact and the rest pays for administrative costs. You would never donate to a nonprofit with 90% administrative costs. Why? Because it is terribly inefficient. When I look around at other community organizations like Rotary, Kiwanis, Chambers of Commerce, and the like, it seems their “costs per seat” are far cheaper and yield a significantly higher return on investment.

I return to my initial question, is going to church really worth it?

When I look at the numbers, I can’t help but feel like we are being poor stewards of extremely valuable resources. On top of money, I spend many hours thinking, leading and serving for an organization that is only 10% efficient with it’s resources. This is not acceptable.

I want my money and time to help people. I want to meet needs. I want to inspire. I want to make a difference. I’m starting to think my investment of time, money and talent in church is keeping me from doing life changing work. 

Thank You

A special thank you to Andy Traub for giving me the courage to write this post.

Photo compliments of 401K 2012.

Question: How much does a seat cost at your church on Sunday?

The words “church” and “competition” are normally frowned upon when they are used in the same sentence. Prepare to be uncomfortable. Your church is competing with others  in your community to be clear about who you are, what you do, and why you do it.  To look at this another way, people who show up on Sunday morning need to know why they are there (as opposed to somewhere else) and what they are supposed to do. This is critical to developing congregational engagement.

In Albert Winseman’s “Growing an Engaged Church: How to Stop Doing Church and Start Being the Church Again”, he affirms that the secret to building an effective church is by fostering spiritual commitment and congregational engagement. He writes:

“Most church leaders confuse involvement with engagement. They believe the conventional wisdom: The way to get new members to really connect with their new church is to get them involved in something anything! But involvement is not engagement. Involvement is what you do in and for your church; engagement is how you feel about your church. This is a crucial difference. Engagement is about emotions. Good Soil churches have a climate that fosters a deep and strong emotional connection.”

It’s not enough to simply get people plugged in! In order to foster a deep, emotional connection to your church, people need to be able to clearly define why they show up to your church on Sunday, as opposed to the alternatives.

Your Facebook fan page is a powerful tool to help you reinforce your church values.

Most churches stick to communicating spiritual truths, bible verses, and church events. This isn’t bad, per say, it’s just incomplete. As you think about your fan page posts in the coming months, consider how you can use your statuses, photos, and videos to reinforce your church values (aka what makes your church special?). Don’t just cut and paste snippets from your mission statement. Try one of these three ideas…

#1 Share personal stories and testimonies from people who have been changed through your church’s ministry.

This showcases your mission in action. It is where your church’s mission meets flesh. There lots of ways you can get those stores out there. You might try on these options:

1. Shop My Church. People from your church can share their stories about how God changed their life on Shop My Church (www.shopmychurch.com). Visit the site and list your church. After it is listed, send the link to your listing out to your church members and ask them to share their life changing story. The site is integrated with Facebook so the word will get out!
2. Video Interviews. When people are touched by your church’s ministry, consider interviewing them and capture their story. Upload these videos to YouTube and share them on your church fan page.
3. Church in Action. Capture your church’s ministry in action! By taking and sharing high quality photos of bible studies, service projects, and sunday morning worship, you are showing, not telling what you church does and what makes it special. These photos show where the stories are made.

#2 Rotate your fan page cover photo to highlight core values.

Your cover image is the first thing that people see when they visit your fan page. Over the next year consider creating a set of cover photos that capture key elements of your church’s mission. For instance, my church’s core mission is Finding and Following God Together. We’d create one cover photo with that statement and a compelling graphic.

#3 Create a custom fan page Welcome Page. 

Be crystal clear. Create a “no bull” welcome page app for your church fan page. This custom app can house all of the essentials about your church in text, video, and photo. Everyone who visits the page will have the opportunity to experience the essential values, statements, and beliefs that define your church. Keep it simple, elegant, and beautiful. In other words, don’t post a 1,000 word statement of belief. Leave that for your website.

If you are interested in learning more about getting your congregation more engaged, I highly recommend Albert Winseman’s book “Growing an Engaged Church”.

Photo compliments of CreationSwap: http://creationswap.com/chariorozco

Question: What are your church’s core values and mission? Can you communicate them clearly?

Real Social Media Ministry Interview Highlights

Community Bible Church is a nimble, fast moving church located in San Antonio, TX. Their San Antonio campus has a weekly attendance between 12,000 and 14,000 and their online campus (CBC Online) has between 7,500 and 8,000.

If you are running out of parking spaces and chairs, you should consider starting an online campus. It is far cheaper to create an online campus, than it is to build a new parking garage or a building addition.

The tools to do online church are simple and inexpensive. CBC Online utilizes Media Social to create a social environment for their 24/7 Online Services and a Church Web Tools Facebook App to help people find and get connected to Life Groups. All told, CBC spends only $120 per month for these services.

They still recommend people connect with local churches. However, there are people in countries and contexts where CBC Online is their only church option.

Online church is great for lurkers and people in oppressive cultures. Sometimes people have been burned so bad by the church that they need to be able to experience God from a distance. Additionally, church online can be a safe place for people in oppressive cultures to hear the message of Jesus and discuss matters of faith.

Facebook is the master social network for outreach and ministry. Nils and I totally agree one this one. If a church is serious about using social media for ministry they’ve got to start with Facebook.

Facebook lists have gotten better. Nils currently uses two Facebook accounts to accomodate his face to face relationships with those he has formed online through his ministry. He is looking for ways to integrate his two accounts and use Facebook lists to keep things separate.

Stop overthinking your strategy and just start. It’s easy to get so focused on “getting things right” that you never actually start. Jump right in, create a fan page and start listening.

Storytelling may be the secret to increasing your giving. People need to see the work the church is doing to change lives. Sharing the story openly may help encourage people to give more, more consistently.

Connect with Nils Smith, Social Media and Young Adult Pastor of Community Bible Church in San Antonio, TX.

Nils helped kickstart and actively manages CBC Online, which reaches thousands of people from over 100 different countries each week. On top of being a fantastic guy, he is one of the leading practitioners of social media for ministry. Use the buttons to connect with him below.

Nil’s Website Follow Nil on TwitterVisit CBC Online

Today, I wanted to take a break from my regularly scheduled programming about building church community on Facebook to point you to a fabulous resource that will change the way you market your church online. Michael Hyatt, top-blogger and current Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers released a book this week called Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World. While it’s not explicitly about churches, it offers a step by step guide for anyone who has something to say or something to sell. Well, your church has something to say.

A step by step guide for building an online platform that will help you build and grow your church community.

The principles Michael teaches in this book are rock solid. He isn’t teaching theory, but practical steps that he has learned from growing one of the most popular blogs in the world. Michael Hyatt (admittedly) isn’t a celebrity, just a guy with powerful teachings about intentional leadership. His online platform connects him to 100,000′s of people around the world and in his new book, he reveals the art and science of how he did it.

If you feel like your church has hit a wall using the web to reach more people in your local community, Platform: Get Noticed In a Noisy World may be just the thing your church needs to regroup and rethink how you use the web to do ministry.

John Maxwell had this to say about the book:

“I have watched Michael Hyatt build his own platform from the ground up to become one of the largest in the world. And he has done so with the strategies and tips he outlines in this very practical book. Any author, speaker, or business owner who wants a blueprint for getting the attention and visibility they want, needs to read this book.”

Buy the book and get free stuff.

To celebrate the book launch, Michael is also giving away $375.98 worth of free bonus content for those who purchase the book between May 21 and May 25.

After you purchase, follow the instructions at http://www.michaelhyatt.com/platform to get your bonus content.

Disclosure

I am a Community Leader on Michael Hyatt’s Blog and am a part of his Platform Book Launch team. However, I really do think the book is great. I’ve put many of the principles he teaches to work already, building my own online platform.

We want people in our church to hang out, outside church don’t we? Sharing local news and events on your church fan page increases the opportunities for people to strengthen and build new relationships outside of Sunday morning. With declining local newspaper readership and long commutes to work, you may be your fans only source for important local news and events (outside of word of mouth of course).

How do you choose which news and events to share?

Obviously there are far too many news stories and local events to share without turning your church fan page into a news ticker and community calendar. Generally speaking, I recommend that you prioritize news that highlights community needs and events with the greatest outreach potential (i.e. events with volumes of people who aren’t a part of your church). My rationale here is simple: the Church should stand at the center of every community. By informing our fans of important community needs and drawing them to events with lots of “strangers”, we are creating more opportunities for the church to be, well, the church.

Serving people. Meeting needs. Doing life together.

Now that I’ve shared the news or event on my fan page, what do I do next?

Sit back and see what happens. Do people respond? If an article about a local catastrophe or a post about an exciting community event creates a swarm of likes and comments, you know you are on to something. Based on the level of fan compassion or interest, decide if the news or event warrants follow up.

For example, if the article about a local catastrophe resonated with a lot of people, alert the pastor or missions coordinator. Start a formal, coordinated effort, inside of the church, and promote it as a follow up on the fan page to solicit further action from your fans. Chances are, they will help you spread the word beyond your fan page because they have already expressed a heart for the cause.

Likewise for events, if people are fired up about the community carnival, coordinate a “Church Night Out”, where you invite people to go to the carnival together. Use your church fan page events tool to extend the invite. You should also promote the event in the bulletin and Sunday morning announcements.

Raise awareness. Capitalize on opportunities.

Using local news to bring people together around a community need or event on your church fan page takes some of the guess work out of building community. We often try to force needs or community events that may in fact only be on the heart of a few. Weak attendance and support are sure to follow. By “testing” news and events on your fan page, you find serious opportunities for ministry and building community that would have previously gone undiscovered.

Photo compliments of DVS.

Question: Where do you find your local news and events?

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:

1. Which restaurant has the burger in town?
2. Which spiritual pathway resonated with you most on Sunday?
3. How do you define marriage?
4. 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.

1. Setup google alerts to be notified via email of articles related to a set of key words.
2. Follow people on twitter who share content that you like.
3. Like Fan Pages on Facebook that share content you like.
4. Use a site like StumbleUpon to discover new and interesting content.

Photo compliments of hebedesigns.

Question: Where do you find great content for your church Fan Page?