Last week I went to see a movie and I noticed something pretty interesting. There was something different about how movies were being promoted online. In the past, movies would direct you to a unique website where you could connect with the upcoming production.
This isn’t true anymore.
Of the six previews I watched, five of them didn’t have a dedicated webpage. Instead, they offered a Facebook page as a way to connect to their content.
I thought this was really fascinating. It felt like I was watching a shift in how companies promote and interact with the public right in front of my eyes! I know that movies and other companies have been using Facebook for a while now to interact with people and this is part of their “social media strategy”.
It now appears that social media is the strategy.
I talked with a marketing executive this week at Show Case Marketing and she told me that some companies are dumping their entire websites and they are moving their products, information and sales to a dedicated Facebook page. There is a trend of organizations and events landing on facebook vs. dot com address.
This has got me thinking. Should our churches make it so that their first online connection with the public is through their Facebook page instead of through the traditional website? This is something that we are going to be trying out. Right after Easter we are going to be doing a church-wide teaching series that is going to have a big push for people to visit or invite their friends to EGC. We’re going to have a billboard up and it won’t have our web address on it. Instead, it will direct people to our Facebook page.
Let me add a couple of more thoughts here.
First, this is most likely not a permanent strategy for connecting with people online. Digital and social media trends are changing rapidly. What works today might not work three months from now. But the point is, it seems to be working right now. Second, using Facebook to interact with people is not as simple as putting up the link to your Facebook page. It’s important to think about with that experience will be like when they get there. Having content on the page for them to interact with, posting discussion questions and investing into having our page designed professionally are important to utilizing this as a strategy to connect people to your event or organization.
