Leveraging Facebook for Online Church During COVID-19
Nona Jones, head of faith-based partnerships at Facebook, shared the following advice for churches.
Good morning, everyone. For those I haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet, my name is Nona Jones and I serve as the Head of Global Faith-Based Partnerships at Facebook. I have received a large volume of emails and social DMs from concerned pastors around the country who are scrambling to try and move services online given growing concerns with in-person gatherings due to COVID-19.
I want to first assure you that we have been working earnestly over the last week internally to enhance our products that are most relevant to churches and I will share more about that once they are shipped (within the next two weeks, hopefully sooner). Today I want to offer thoughts on what you can do right now to leverage our tools for online church beginning today. I will do my best to respond to comments and questions on this post as well.
MORE THAN A PROGRAM
Church is more than the weekend gathering and, because of that, while a resource for Facebook Live will be shared below, I encourage you to pay close attention to Facebook Groups. If you think of your Facebook presence like a house, your Page is your front porch, Facebook Live is you opening the front door, and Facebook Groups is you inviting people into your living room for a conversation.
Groups is what will keep your church connected beyond the live stream, so if you haven’t created one yet, do so and link it to your Page. With that framing, please see below.
ONLINE CHURCH STRATEGY
NOTE: Links at the bottom of this post for resources to learn more.
Page: Your Page is the public face of your organization and, as such, is accessible by anyone on our platform. Use your Page to share information about your organization, including upcoming events, messages of encouragement, and general updates that would be of interest to your followers.
Live on Page: When you use the Facebook Live tool from your Page, your followers will have the opportunity to tune in and watch your broadcast while also providing their feedback through questions and likes. They will also be able to share your live stream to their own profile or Page. IMPORTANT: If you link a Group to your Page, you will be able to enable a Join Group button on your Livestream so people can join your online church and connect with others after the livestream ends.
Group: While the Page is where you share information about your organization, your Group is where you build relationships, engage in conversations and grow together. Create a Group and link it to your Page and, when you go live from your Page, you will be able to select a Group for people to join so they can connect with you after the livestream ends.
Live in Group: When you use the Facebook Live tool in your Group, your members will be able to tune in and engage with you through comments and likes. Lives in Groups can’t be shared outside of the Group. Use this feature for bible studies and other online gatherings that you would have with your members during the week.
Learning Units: Use this tool to create sequential, modular learning in your Facebook Group. This is a great tool to help members learn together and you can build units for any topic, including bible studies, sermon series, devotionals and more.
Donations: If you have not already applied to be able to fundraise through Facebook, see below for the link to do it today and to learn more about this feature.
LINKS TO MORE RESOURCES
Linking a Group to Your Page
https://www.facebook.com/help/742706805906818?helpref=uf_permalink
Best practices for going Live from a Page
https://www.facebook.com/help/publisher/626637251511853
Best practices for creating and leading Facebook Groups
https://www.facebook.com/community/getting-started-with-groups/
Leveraging Social Learning Units for teaching
https://www.facebook.com/help/184985882229224?helpref=faq_content
Fundraising on Facebook
https://socialgood.fb.com/charitable-giving/
