Church Web Solutions Pt. 1: Facebook

This post is the first part of a series of posts that I will be writing about web solutions that are viable for churches.

If you do church communications then you might have experiences with a limited budget, or limited knowledge especially when it comes to designing and creating a good website. It may seem that a professional-looking website might just be outside of your budget. Well hopefully this series can provide you with some resources that look good, and are functional, but are still very budget-friendly.

Today I want to talk about Facebook, and not just using Facebook as a complement to your website, but using Facebook as your website.

You may be wondering:

“Can Facebook be used as a substitute for a website?”

Well, lets see…

I was talking to a good friend recently who is in the beginning stages of a church planting movement. He was asking me about good solutions for a website, and he started talking about how important interaction is. I told him he was spot-on with his thoughts on interaction. In the church today people crave conversation. There shouldn’t be one-way conversation happening in your church, and if that is happening then it needs to change (we’ll save that for another post). There should be two-way conversations happening inside your church, as well as outside your church, this means online.

I started talking to him about Facebook, and how easy it is to interact with other people on Facebook (ironically this conversation was taking place over Facebook chat). There are just so many ways for people to interact on a Facebook page, i.e. “Posting,” “Liking,” “Commenting,” etc. He said this would be perfect for their needs.

So let me go ahead and answer your question:

“Yes, I think that a Facebook page can be substituted for a website.”

Obviously, I don’t have concrete evidence that this is possible yet. I’ve never heard of a church that has used a Facebook page to replace their website, but hopefully I will be able to have my first experience with it soon.

If you work in or attend a church that currently uses a Facebook page to replace your website, please let me know. I’d like to talk and see what your experiences have been.

So why do I think that this is possible?

A couple different reasons:

1. Welcome Page: With the capabilities of a Facebook page today I think you can create a pretty good welcome page, which could act as your homepage, and then from there you could link to a different section of your page for different ministries, service times, etc. Check out our welcome page at Park Community’s Facebook page. Obviously the links on our page direct to our website, but you could just as easily direct them to another section of your Facebook page.
   
2. Update capabilities: With a Facebook page it does not allow you to send updates directly to your “fans” inboxes, but it does allow you to send “updates” which actually go to a separate section of your Facebook inbox. Unfortunately Facebook has not made the “update” section inherently obvious, so you might have to let your “fans” know that you might be sending updates to them through there on a frequent basis.
3. Calendar capabilities: There is a Facebook app you can install on your page called My Google Calendar which you can use to schedule events, etc. Also with the default “Events” app you can see who is attending and who is not attending, and send an update to attendees, etc.
4. Videos & Photos: You can easily upload videos or photos for your congregation to see and interact with. And you can even take this a step further and allow your congregation to upload videos and photos from different events or ministries. This is a great option if you aren’t able to capture media from a certain event.
5. Interaction: Then of course there is the interaction, which we have already talked about somewhat. But just to let you know about everything you can do: The Wall, Comments, Photos, Video, Likes, Events, Sharing, etc.

So there you have it. 5 good (or what I believe to be good) reasons why I believe it is possible to substitute your church website with a Facebook page.

I do want to make it clear, obviously this solution is not for all churches. There may be some that may need more functionality than Facebook provides, but for some, Facebook may be a viable solution.

O yeah, and let me just say, everything I just talked about is absolutely, 100%, positively, awesomely, indubitably, and any other adjective you can think of FREE!!!

That alone may be enough for some of you to go ahead and check it out.

Also, creating a nice welcome page on your Facebook page might take a bit of work, but it can most definitely be done for free. Also let me say that you might find it difficult to use Facebook as a website substitute without the help of some other free services, so here is a list of links to everything that I have mentioned in this post, as well as some other free services that might be of some help to you.

Some helpful links on creating welcome pages:

• http://www.kimwoodbridge.com/how-to-create-a-custom-facebook-fan-page/
• http://mashable.com/2010/02/22/build-facebook-landing-page/

Some helpful Facebook page apps:

• My Google Calendar
• Extended Info
• My Stuff
• FBML

Also, thanks to Bobby Chandler for tweeting this link, but if you really want to get creative, Smashing Magazine has just released a Free Facebook GUI PSD Kit that you can use to create a Facebook app, or custom page.

Some other helpful services:

Vimeo – Free video hosting

Twitter – Updates & social interaction

Does your church have a Facebook page?

Does your church use a Facebook page as a substitute for a website?

If not, how does your church use your Facebook page primarily?

Seriously though, if your church uses a Facebook page alone, please let me know. I’d be interested to get your insight.