Why Facebook?

Oh pages of people, what shall we do with you. Facebook can be a tool wielded or ignored by a children's minister, but it largely depends on your church dynamics as to whether it is worth your time. My church members stalk Facebook, and therefore make Facebook a wonderful communication tool for me. Here are some ways that I utilize Facebook that seem to work best:

1. Event Advertising- Just put all your information on an event, and invite you people. I have a lot of parents respond to these, which at least gives me an idea how many to expect.

2. Building Community- People comment back and forth on status updates and various other things on the site. I hope people are connecting off-line as well.

3. Picture Sharing- I when children check in for the first time in our area, we have the parents tell us what arena's we can use their child's photo. We have the option of Facebook open (which let's anyone that's our friend view) and Facebook closed (which is only by select people such as parents and volunteers.)

I've thought about using Facebook to send out newsletter or other types of information, but haven't ventured into that so far. And for those of you wondering, we have a site and a page, but use the site mostly. I like the site better because it has more ways to interact with people.

I'm sure there are much more Facebook posts to come, but Why do you use Facebook?