Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Facebook as a Ministry Tool - Profile Banners

One of the things I love about my job is that I get to spend time building relationships, both with our church partners and with people in our community, both face to face and online. We've discovered that Facebook is an incredible tool to help accomplish this. Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting some of the best ways we've discovered to use Facebook for ministry and mission.

I'll start first with something that I'm still working on. One of the changes that came about with the latest Facebook upgrade was the collage of five photos that now spread across the top of profiles.

It literally only took a few days for somebody more creative than me to figure out how to build "profile banners", a series of five photos that make up one single graphic that people can upload and use for advertising, marketing, or just to share more of their personality.

I began seeing more and more of these banners pop up, people advertising their personal business, telling the world of their love for Justin Bieber, asking people to think and pray for Japan...and, I began wondering, is this something that people in our church could use to let their friends know about upcoming events, like a small group party, a surf camp, or Easter Sunday? So, I started searching online, and I found this video...



So, I followed the instructions, and within about 20 minutes had created the banner below.

The tricky part now is trying to figure out how to pass these five graphics onto others in our church to do the same...

I'd love to find out if any other churches have taken advantage of this same idea, and if they have been able to easily pass this onto members in their church. Is this something you'd consider using as a tool for communication in your church?

Nate

4 comments:

MadMaude53 said...

Facebook and other social networking sites are great tools for reaching people... Our church recently piloted a "e-Bible study" for those who can't make it through the week due to work. This all makes me think of a line in "Jesus Christ Superstar".... "Now why'd you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?

If you'd come today
You could have reached the whole nation
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication"

Will Morrisette said...

I just recently came across your blog on here. I'm in charge of all the graphic design and social media for Liberty Christian Fellowship in Colington. Throughout the past year or so we've begun using Facebook as a way to communicate events in our church, and it's really become quite effective. While we don't use this banner technique now, it's definitely something to consider. It looks really cool!

Thanks for sharing!

Andy Lawrenson said...

every youth event we do has an FB event page. I do click off the option to show who is not attending for the same reason we stopped doing sign up sheets. Kids would see one popular teen "not attending" then decide they didn't want to attend also.

We also have a group for our students and one for our parents.

Unknown said...

We just started using the group pages for our bible study groups and youth pages...one for the youth and one for the parents. I love the idea of using the banners, too! Thanks for the idea and tutorial:)