Should Churches and Pastors Be on Facebook?
Facebook vs Blogging
A year or so ago announcing your presence on Facebook was the latest craze. Many Church leaders tried this route as congregations and regional bodies added Facebook pages.
We visited the Facebook page of one prominent church leader. It started with a hesitant attempt to engage the flock. Within one year, the Facebook page had deteriorated to nothing but announcements of press releases. One young person had posted a deep concern on the “wall.” The answer received to that post was obviously written by a staff person, someone monitoring this prominent leader’s Facebook page — a digital age blow off.
That points to a real danger of church engagement on Facebook. People reaching out expect a caring person online waiting to hear them and willing to answer. They expect the Facebook owner to be reading what they write and they expect that person to respond when they’ve invited the inquiry. A digital blow-off from a third party, offered days later, has the power to devastate.
People will sense phoniness and turn to active forums that really ARE listening and engaging.
As proof . . . after one year this church leader had NO friends and few followers. So what was the point of the big Facebook announcement?
Facebook requires more daily attention and commitment — more time than most church leaders are able or willing to give.
We visited dozens of congregational Facebook pages . . . again . . . mostly press release type announcements with no real engagement. Most had very little activity.
This is why we recommend that congregations enter Social Media through blogging. You can develop your pace and control the content much more easily. People can engage just as they do on Facebook, but are likely to be more thoughtful about it and more willing to wait a day or so for a response.
There is some value to being on Facebook. You can feed your posts through the various Social Media outlets and get some traffic benefits. But it is hardly worth the fanfare of announcing it.
If you make a big announcement about your Facebook page and then doing nothing with it, it is like crying Wolf. Don’t say it if you don’t intend to play it!