We have a relatively active Facebook page at http://facebook.com/NewHopePowell. It's been quiet this week because I've been too busy to post (!), but normally I post at least once a day.

Although I post frequently, there's not a lot of two-way conversation on our page; I've tried a number of things to get people to participate more, but apparently haven't hit on the right strategy.

Thanks for the link. I'm the random Californian who just "liked" your page!

The more the merrier! I'll be posting up a storm there later today :)

http://www.facebook.com/SunriseAustin

Thanks so much. Great church website, too.

My church has a Facebook group but it doesn't get used too much.

I also post to the CRCNA Facebook page which, of course, EVERYONE should "Like" :-)

Why do you think they opted for a "group" instead of a "page"? I think groups predated pages, so perhaps it's just a matter of when it was started.

I found a post on the Facebook blog that talks about the differences. (HERE: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=324706977130 ) I think one advantage for a group is that you can set some areas to be private if you wish, although it looks like your church's page is public. Groups can be created by anyone. Pages, on the other hand are public by definition, and should be created by "the official representatives of a public figure, business or organization." 

Anyone want to chime in about the group vs. page question?

Thanks for promoting this thread, I appreciate the extra visibility!

Yes, it was started by a church member (not church 'official') and it was quite a while ago...so for both those reasons it was a Group instead of Page. When someone has time, we might switch it over...

I really appreciate that link about Groups vs. Pages. I hadn't come across that one before...it's a nice summary with up-to-date info about both.

Our Facebook page is doing all right. We have a good number of fans. But, like others have said, we don't get a lot of back & forth conversation. I try to post something at least once a week.

http://www.facebook.com/sjcrc

Thanks! 

facebook.com/telkwacrc
Usually something gets posted at least once a week. Same as New Hope above, "there's not a lot of two-way conversation on our page," but it's helpful for having an online presence and for alerting people to upcoming events.
Stanley

Thank you! I appreciate all the links, it's helpful to see what churches are doing with their Facebook pages.

As a regular Facebook user, I connect with a lot of news outlets and other websites on Facebook. Although I find the information very helpful, I almost never comment on those links and pages. Based on my own experience, I'm not sure that interactions are the best measure of success. I think, like Stanley said,  it's greatest usefulness may just be in having an online presence where people are anyway.

Don't know the exact link but here's ours from SD

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Corsica-SD/Corsica-CRC-and-Grace-Reformed-Church/154085967954719

Post almost daily. How do you get more people to interact with it? It feels sometimes like a one way conversation

Full circle: coming back to a thread I started to offer tips. :)

I did start a church facebook page for us at https://www.facebook.com/CrossroadsCRC

Also, for Josh's question about interaction, that IS tricky. Facebook has these algorithms so that pages for organizations/businesses don't always appear in everyone's feed. These pages behave differently from our friends in feeds. Facebook may omit a business or organization feed if you haven't shown interest (like, comment, share) in the posts in the past. All that to say, you have to try and post compelling information that will engage people and encourage them to interact by liking, commenting and sharing.

Our page is small with just a few likes, so it doesn't see much traffic, but we are a small church. I also heard somewhere* that if you have page likes = 10% of your "customer base" that's a pretty good target. I'm well over that for our page, as our official membership number is around 160 and our average weekly attendance is something like 200-225.

*Somewhere = Facebook Marketing Solutions https://www.facebook.com/marketing There are a LOT of case studies, articles, archived webinars, etc. at that page that might be helpful for understanding how to engage your audience. They will try to pitch you on advertising, but I just ignore that.

One thing I did when I learned this was send  private Facebook message to a handful of friends at church who I know are active Facebook users and specifically ask them to go out of their way to like, comment or share because that helps with our page visibility.

Hope that helps!

Rebecca

Our church doesn't currently have a Facebook page, but the Senior High Youth Group does (https://www.facebook.com/groups/crcssrhighyouthgroup/)  I'd like to know what folks would like to see their church Facebook page do.  Is this for internal chat's with associated friends just dropping in, or is it more an external meeting place?

Awesome post, inspiring. 

My church youth group has been using a facebook group for a few years. It is a great way to communicate. However the problem is some people "do not do facebook". So that got me thinking what about the others? My solution was to use a wordpress plugin to read facebook groups and post them on the church website site check it out http://www.terracecrc.org

Thanks Andrew