With so many things fighting for the attention of the average college and high school student, it can be a struggle getting students to show up for anything, including class. The social media landscape, however, can make it a lot easier for your ministry to cut through the noise by greatly increasing the number of people you reach, and making it easier to promote and organize an event.
Here’s a tutorial from Mashable.com about how to organize an event with Facebook. Facebook Events Guide
Social media, and Facebook specifically, give your ministry the opportunity to:
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Go Viral With Every Event and Outreach
People you invite through Facebook can invite their network of friends. Your ministry’s event also shows up in their news feeds, all of which serves to increase the visibility of your ministry. Not only is your ministry gaining visibility to a much larger audience this way, but each Facebook invite is much more effective than a random flier because it’s a personal invite from a friend.
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See Who’s Been Invited
Facebook lets you see who’s attending, who’s not, and who hasn’t replied to the invite. This is great if you have friends in common with other people involved in your ministry. Now you can avoid having someone get the same invite from you and 30 of your friends. Seeing who’s invited can also help you make sure that nobody gets left out or falls through the cracks.
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Send Event Updates
With a Facebook event, you can send messages to those attending your event to let them know about changes in plans, venue rules, or background information about the guest of honor. And if your ministry is doing a really big event that requires you to do a lot of early planning and promotion, like a spring break or missions trip, an occasional message can help maintain excitement and build buzz for your event.
Do you have any other ideas for using social media to organize and promote an event? Let us know.
Related Articles:
Event Promotion Basics on Facebook
How to Use Facebook to Grow Your Ministry
Facebook Tip: Save Time and Maximize Your Ministry
Fan Pages vs. Groups – What’s the Difference?
photo courtesy of frozenchipmunk CC BY 2.0
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Hello,
I like what you are writing here for Church media. Can you do an article on designing your facebook page to match the Church website? I am looking into “branding” our Church and want this to follow the social media.
Thanks.