Did you know that First Church has had a presence on social media for over four years? The First Presbyterian Church of Bonita Springs Facebook page was started by Jim Croley in March 2015 and managed by him for over seven months. With no designated staff member at that time to be responsible for publishing content, the page lay dormant for over a year. In February 2017, Pastor Brad Rogers became an administrator and posted periodically. When the Communications Ministry was launched in August 2018, we finally had the team in place to implement a social media strategy and  schedule.

Did you know that our Facebook page had only 94 followers in May 2017 and has grown to almost 300 over the past two years? At the end of 2018 we  had approximately 180 followers, so our fan base has increased by almost 120 people since January of this year! When someone chooses to follow our page, they are choosing to see our posts and events on their own Facebook newsfeed without having to go directly to our page for updates.

Did you know that, outside of paid advertising, engagement is the most effective way for an organization to reach the highest number of people? Engagement is simply regular people, like you, liking, commenting or sharing our posts and events. The more people we engage with, the more people who will see us. If you were to comment on a post or share an event, then everyone who is your friend on Facebook will see it too. So far, we have had a single post reach (people who saw it) as many as 1,400 people and one post’s engagement reached 314 people!

Did you know that tagging others in a post will also increase reach and engagement? If you think of the old schoolyard game of tag, this is the modern-day version. It’s digitally tapping your friend on the shoulder and saying, “Hey, look at this.” So how do you do it? In the post or comment you are writing, simply type the @ symbol and begin to type your friend’s name. If they are on Facebook, their name will pop up and you can click on it.  Facebook will then send them a notification that you tagged them, and they can click on it and go straight to the post!

By Michaela Carson, Director of Communications