Check out this great interview with Jeff Widman, a Facebook and marketing expert, about how to use Facebook to grow your brand and business. He makes some great points about how to maximize your visibility on Facebook, and some of the distinctions between fan pages and groups.
How to use Facebook to Grow Your Brand: a podcast from Jeff Widman
Even though Jeff is talking about businesses, many of these principles apply to ministry too. The one point he makes that I don’t believe is as applicable to ministry on college campuses is when to use a Facebook fan page versus a group. I would contend that ministries seeking to maximize their visibility, brand equity, and increase their overall reach on a college campus should use both, but for different types of communication:
- Fanpages: A many to many engagement level. Mass public communication. This is where you would engage and communicate with EVERYONE in a movement or campus. This also includes people who are casually involved, or are just curious about what your ministry is all about.
- Groups: A one to many engagement level. More specialized communication to a smaller and less public group. This is where you would engage and communicate with smaller core groups of people like, for example, your lead volunteers or student leaders. This can be very useful in communicating information that you wouldn’t necesarily want to broadcast to the masses, like time or location changes for your next planning meeting, because it’s not applicable to everyone.
If nothing else, at least listen to the interview to catch Jeff’s tips about some of the nuances of engaging people through status updates and the News Feed.
Check out this article from Mashable for more info about the differences between fan pages and groups.
Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference?
And check out these other posts for more info about using Facebook in ministry:
Facebook Training for Ministry–When to Use a Group Page
How to Set Up a Facebook Fan Page–Step by Step Screencast
Facebook Event Promotion Basics
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Great points.
Jeff is the leader in this space. You can check him out at http://brandglue.com
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