Posted by Matt Harrell on March 2nd, 2010 
This may seem a little crazy at first, but I wonder, should churches and nonprofits buy Facebook ads? Our business has been running some ads on Facebook and finding some great success. It’s easy, hyper-targeted and based on demographic information in your Facebook profile. So I started to wonder if I should share my experience with creating Facebook Ads..and we will, in another post. But for now, I’m wondering what would it look like for a church to be “advertising” on Facebook? Why would a church ever do that?
I’m sure this topic has been debated somewhere on the Internet before (although a quick search didn’t reveal anything fascinating) but I think it’s brilliant. Why not pay for clicks on Ads in Facebook? Why not target people in specific zip code and draw attention to your organization…to your ministries, events, message…your website. Think about it, I bet for roughly $1/click you could have your specific message being place on Facebook and reaching folks right where they are: Facebook. You could have literally millions of impressions and pay for only 5 clicks a day. Would it be worth it?
- Would it increase the likelihood of that one guy that drives by your church everyday to actually show up one Sunday?
- Would it increase the participation in a local outreach event? Think service project or Good Friday festival!
- Would it bring recognition to your organization on a local level that may ultimately lead to serving the community on a greater level?
I think so. I think it’s worth a try. Have you ever considered this? What churches and nonprofits are doing this and finding success? Leave some links to interesting posts or thoughts below!
(Note: The image above was produced by Church Ad Project. Check them out: http://www.churchad.com)
We use facebook ads for our church. The demographic targeting is a perfect fit for us. We use facebook ads two ways. The first is awareness ads the point of this ad is not necessarily to get a click but to get all the pertinent info out there to our public. Works toward brand awareness in our area. The second is ads that we want to get clicks on. so far it has been a cheap way to build brand awareness.
That's awesome Dale. That's exactly what I'm talking about. So it sounds like your main goal is awareness. What's different about the ads you *want* clicks on?
Less info so they have to click to figure out what it means. Typically a face shoot of people from the church so it looks more like a personal profile link. I currently have one that is running that has received 93 clicks over the last week. I also mainly target people outside the churches network for these ads.
Love it :).
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