Youth ministry website?!?

[JoshGuerette]

Originally Posted by TheWordSpreader

That's true and I will say lucky for me I get a few domain names free with the hosting service I'm using! But thanks for he heads up and I haven't used facebook much for making a group, just my personal profile, but what features does facebook give you?

Facebook allows you to do things like email all the group members at once, have your updates appear on all the group members' homepages, and you can have some things available only to members of the group.

Realistically, Facebook is the place youth are the most, so why not capitalize on that?

[BrianAltenhofel]

Originally Posted by JoshGuerette

Facebook allows you to do things like email all the group members at once, have your updates appear on all the group members' homepages, and you can have some things available only to members of the group.

Realistically, Facebook is the place youth are the most, so why not capitalize on that?

A Facebook Page is a better option than a Facebook Group. "Groups" are meant for unofficial support of a product, cause, or service, while "Pages" are meant to be official non-personal presences on Facebook.

Pages also allow you to email all Fans of your page. And if you have a large group or multiple campuses, you also have the option to narrow down what age range and locations you are emailing.

As for updates appearing on group members' home pages, it's not that simple. Facebook uses an algorithm to determine what appears in your newsfeed. It's based on three factors: how much you interact with a connection, the level of your interactions with a connection, and the time since that update was posted.

With kids friending everyone they meet on the street on Facebook, this makes that newsfeed a very competitive place for getting their attention. You'll have to approach Facebook the same way any B2C business would: engage them with great content.

Pages also allow something else that groups don't: targeted advertising. Most churches advertise their events to the outside world in one form or another. Facebook offers another quite affordable avenue. When you create an ad, you can specifically target people by age range (13+), location, gender, interests, and most other things that would appear on their Info tab. So if you're having a Girls' Night and inviting other members of the community, you could target all girls ages 13-19 (inclusive) within 10 miles of your city. If it seems like too broad of a target, you could narrow it down to people whose friends are connected to your page so you generate a more qualified lead.

So if a church, youth group, or most any other ministry is going to be on Facebook, then 95% of the time they should have a Page rather than a Group. Absolutely do not create a personal profile for that purpose, as I have seen Facebook enforce their terms of service and not only delete the "fraudulent" profile, but also a person's personal profile if they could reasonably conclude that they were two profiles operated by the same people.

[RyanScott]

Facebook is a must. A website isn't important anymore but, if utilized, is far from inconsequential. Facebook is where the first impression should be made but a website is a place to store some great stuff that isn't just a wasteland.

I am a student pastor and have found the internet to be the perfect tool to getting kids involved. We have a youth band that takes a lot of my attention. Sometimes the other members feel disconnected because a lot of our events center around the youth band's performance.

I have been able to find places for all of our youth to connect. There were two guys, rednecks, that just weren't much interested in the high-tech youth ministry. So I had to think real hard and I came up with a conclusion:

I did weekly video episodes for "Hawg & Dawg." They became wise advice givers who would address questions much like "dear abby." These video episodes would be placed onto our website. Every so often, Hawg & Dawg would disagree on their advice and hold a poll on our website.

We found a lot of traffic headed there to comment and vote.

Things I use our youth ministry website for:

- Blog (mostly stuff for parents to read to make us sound spiritual)
- Event Marketing

Marketing videos, Event Registration, Event Information

- Funny Videos (Also posted on facebook)
- Photo Galleries (also posted on facebook)
- Hawg & Dawg Section
- Youth Band section with recording downloads (original songs only)
- Forms & Registration Downloads
- Newsletter Downloads

You have to be creative but there are plenty of uses for a website. Posting a video on Facebook gets a lot of initial attention but after a while nobody sees it anymore. Keeping a gallery of videos on the website is a traffic maker.

Keep the website and Facebook linked closely and engaging each other.