How to Reach More People Through Social Media Ads

Most, if not all, brands, businesses, and churches are using social media to reach people today. Social media has made marketing easier to reach people in your local community. Michael Hyatt is one of the most popular bloggers in the world and his entire business is based on his blog. He has said about a third of his traffic comes through Facebook. That doesn't even count other social media sources that drive traffic to his site.

While there are many social media platforms we can use in ministry to connect with people, Facebook still has the greatest reach. It recently hit a huge milestone as well, announcing 1 billion users. The By The Numbers study I referenced in that previous post indicated most churches have their biggest following on Facebook, and that following is at least 2x greater than what they have on Twitter, which is also 2x greater than what they have on Instagram. It's not even near that close for us.

Boost Posts on Facebook and Instagram to Reach More People

Facebook has made multiple changes over the years to make sure they're profiting from organizations using their platform to reach people. You might have 1,000 fans on Facebook, but because of how their algorithm works when you post you might only reach 10% (100) of your audience with that post. Facebook requires you to pay to “boost” the post for it to stick in people's timelines. The upside is you can also have Facebook share that with friends of your fans or even target a specific group of people based on age, location, and more.

Business pages on Facebook link to a corresponding Instagram Ad where you can also boost posts and run local ads to targeted groups.

How We Had Our 3rd Highest Attendance

As our church prepared to kick off a new series entitled God For the Rest of Us (based on Vince's book), we paid to boost posts on Facebook and had our 3rd highest attendance of the year (including Easter). While it would be great if Facebook allowed all of that for free, fortunately, it doesn't cost much. We boost a post to push a new series in C3 Kids & C3 Students each month for about $5.