I know your church and pastors still believe that you should advertise through Newspapers and other Traditional Advertising. You must be investing in such advertisements and still, you don’t see any kind of results.
And it is ok. It is a change as soon as we realize it.
Hey, I’m your Ads Consultant! I’m here to help you with Facebook ads. I will also tell you about how to use Facebook to post and when to post. Also what kind of posts a church can post about?
But it is very important to first start with the basics. So let us learn why Facebook, a social media platform is important for your church.
Why Should Churches Use Facebook?
Facebook has more than 2 billion active users. Every login turns out to be an opportunity. With the help of this platform, one can reach out to millions. With such a big number lies an audience who is religiously following Christianity. Most of them are even looking for churches around. But you are advertising then how come they don’t know about you?
This is why we are talking about replacing traditional advertising sources like newspapers and getting online. And getting on a social media platform like Facebook to target people where all the people are at. More importantly, it is a place where people get to socialize and find people with interests and likings like them.
So why not you as the church leverage this platform to invite people to your church?
This is why you should be on Facebook where people are actually looking for churches like yours. But how to start the whole process?
Facebook, Ads and Churches
To start using Facebook with church comprises of two steps. With these two steps in the same order, people will be interested in being there at your church and interacting with you socially. The two steps include –
– Building Up your Church Facebook Page (Organically Backing up your Ads)
– Targeting people with Facebook Ads (With the strong back of Page skyrocketing numbers)
By using these steps we are ready to have more people to reach our Church. Let’s get started –
First, you have to set up a Facebook Page filling up all the details asked for. It will hardly take 2-3 minutes to set up.
Now let us start with –
What To Post On Church Facebook Page?
Posting on a church Facebook page is usually a query that nearly every church has. To clear your problem I’ve come up with a Post Planner. Here are some post ideas that will be helpful for you while posting on Facebook –
Gratefulness Video
Create a video where you stop your audience to take a 30-second session with you. In this video, you will ask them ‘What are you grateful for today? It can be anything.’ Now make them close their eyes and give them 30 seconds to thank God for it. You can also add some soothing music running in the background.
Now engage them by asking them to comment on how they felt after this little session of gratefulness.
Next up,
Bible Readings Template
Create a Template where you can put a quote from the bible. Then explain it to your audience. This type of content gets shared and new people get engaged with your content.
Next up,
Lesson for Problems
As this era is going from some kind of problem and dealing with something. You can post a lesson from the bible and address today’s problem.
Next up,
Trivia about your church
Ask them why did they start attending your church? When they started or at what age? Ask them to share their answers in the comments below. You will have n engaging post with comments telling stories that will be motivating others too.
Next up,
Bible lesson
Use Carousel Format to post scriptures from the bible and explaining them.
Next up,
Church Invitation
Create a post that invites your audience to visit the church. You can make it a specific day and you can mention “We will love to have you with us at (any day)”
Next up,
The Encouragement
This post can help the ones who need a certain kind of motivation or encouragement. It can be as short as “I’m praying to God for you today” or “You’re amazing“.
Now you be thinking about the frequency of posting. I’ve got you covered.
How Often Should Churches Post On Social Media?
It is totally up to you. When it seems suitable to post. There is no specific number. It also depends on your content. If it is engaging like the above-given ideas. You can even post for a whole week.
If not then you can keep it at least 3 times a week.
The time of posting your content can be ascertained from Facebook Creator Studio to know when to post. It tells you when your audience is online. So you can post accordingly.
Now as you know what to post and when to post we are finished with our first step.
Time to move to the second step, Targeting people with Facebook Ads –
Facebook Ads for Churches
Different Objectives for your Facebook Ads For Churches
Facebook Ads allows you to use different objectives to target people. This becomes helpful as the following features are available under the objectives. Objectives that are provided by Facebook are –
Facebook Events Ads
As a church Event-based Advertising can be really helpful. Just like you were doing it in the newspaper but scalable. You can create the following events –
- Free ChildCare Camp
- Fall Festival
- Marriage or Parenting Course
- Community Picnic
- Summer Camp
You can use this with the objective of Traffic or Engagement. This can be helpful by signing up events faster.
Custom & Lookalike Audiences
You can use the following audience to target differently –
• Custom Audience – This audience is that audience that has interacted with your social media page or website already. You can retarget them by showing relevant ads.
• Lookalike Audience – This audience is similar to your audience already saved. They have similar interests to your already interacting audience. It can be helpful to target a large number of people who are similar and can potentially be your audience.
Location Based Targeting
Facebook Ads helps you to target your audience based on location. You can target people around your church in about a 5-10 mile radius. You can also exclude some of the areas where you don’t want your ads to be shown.
Targeting (not found in newspapers)
Facebook Ads allows detailed targeting. In this, you can target people based on Demographics, Interests & Behaviors. Such type of targeting or I should say, any type of targeting was not available in traditional advertising.
You can now target New Movers in the area and target them so that they are familiar with your church. You can also target people with an interest in Christianity and other suitable Interests and Behaviors that match your church in the dropdown menu.
Concise Text with Amazing Creatives
Keep your ad copy’s Text concise and effective. You don’t have to write big paragraphs that no one will be reading. Type a short text that matches the creative.
Upload an amazing creative that catches the eye of users while scrolling down their feed. Make sure your creative doesn’t have more than 20% of the text. Otherwise, it will get banned.
Fun and Interesting Ads
Don’t feel like your Facebook ads need to be formal. If your church is fun, engaging, and family-friendly. You can use them and inject that into your Facebook ads. People are looking for fun and interesting content. Not the serious one.
Testing Your Ads
Test your ads by using different creatives. Turn off the ads that don’t show results. Run the one which is working and providing the highest click-through rate.
Landing Page
Make sure you land the targeted audience at a well-developed landing page. It has the same images or text as your ad. For a church, getting a phone number and email is the main purpose of a landing page. Retarget the audience who didn’t provide their information with a different set of ads.
Don’t forget to follow up on the leads generated.
Voila! You now have all the knowledge to run Facebook Ads that will work and will help you to reach the audience looking for churches in the local area.
Now let us finish this post by showing what already running church ads are using –
Facebook Ads for Church Examples
Church Ads Example 1
New World United Methodist Church has used an image of their church instead of some ad creative. This shows what you will join when you sign up for the event. They wrote a small and concise ad text with a call to action in the headline. You can click on the ad image to see the full ad.
Church Ads Example 2
Pineview Church used an event ad to capture the audience. It is a summer camp for both children and parents. This facilitates a good parent-child time full of fun and usually, action is taken on such ads. A landing page is linked where you have to sign up and provide the necessary information. You can click on the ad image to see the full ad.
Church Ads Example 3
Crossroads Dayton is celebrating their 25 years of servicing in the name of god. You can use such an example of celebrating any event. It is a fun ad and it really engages the audience. Say it, the preview image or the text or the engaging video. Crossroads did it right. You can click on the ad image to see the full ad.
Conclusion for Facebook Ads For Churches
Now you have learned what to post on your Facebook page and when to post. You also know that a Facebook Page backs up your ads too. With tips that can help you scale your ads you can now target the right audience at the right time.
We winded up the article by showing you Facebook Ads examples of churches already leveraging Facebook Ads.
Now it is your turn. Go and shift from Newspaper advertising to Facebook Advertising. Convince the members of the Church to invest in Facebook ads because you will see results for sure. Start today!
Amen!