Facebook – How to write powerful and effective posts

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  1. Make a PRAYER LIST of areas where more money is needed and each amount. Pray over the list. Put in order of priority.
  2. Have a “Brain Storming meeting” with people on your team who can help you write up a number of good stories at one time. Each ministry needs to feel the weight of raising 100% of the money Home Church does not promise money – only training.
  3. Take a great picture to go with a story. A picture is worth a 1000 words. Smiling. Bright light.
  4. The first sentence is the most important to get the reader’s attention and want to read more. Write it – re-write it to be short and powerful. Follow Home of Hope and learn how we post and see what works: facebook.com/HomeofHope.
  5. Keep the post POSITIVE – try NOT to say you are in a crisis with URGENT needs. Example, many people contact and ask us “What is our present need with Home of Hope.” So we try to use the word NEED in a positive way. Try to find words other than “need.”
  6. Keep it Short. KISS = Keep It Short Simple. Most posts that are longer than 3 sentences do not get read.
  7. Pray for creativity. Look through other people’s Facebook posts and note what caught your interest. Work on making a great post that you would want to read yourself.
  8. Tell a STORY. Most people don’t want to know there are 100,000 children dying. They want to read about ONE child and what is happening to them. Or ONE single mother in crisis.
  9. Success Stories are great to show that people’s gifts are changing lives, but, I suggest you could still have a key ASK in the post. Example. “If you want to help more children like this, please contact us.”
  10. Get in a creative mood and write many at one time. You can put them on Facebook and date them to appear a day or week later.
  11. Send some of your best stories to other people and ask their ideas of how to improve them.
  12. Always give people in your country the phone, email or ways they can give. For example, in Kenya, people can now give through their phones. The staff in Kenya should be using this tool to help generate more money for Home of Hope, not a church. PayPal is great internationally as well. Always put what the dollar amount in US Dollars or Canadian CAD.
  13. Evaluate: Let’s believe for some of our posts to go “VIRAL” which sends the post to millions of people. If you posted something and only 10 people clicked on it, or 2 people shared it … then it was NOT a successful post. If you post a need and get no reply, you have to start over and pray – brainstorm – ask others to help make it better for next time.
  14. With a good Facebook post you can pay money to boost it. After the post is made, at the bottom, there will be a “boost” option that will allow the post to be shown to more people for a few dollars.
  15. VERY IMPORTANT – get the post “SHARED” by as many people as possible.
  • Put it on your personal Facebook.
  • Ask people to share the post at the top or the bottom of the story – PLEASE SHARE
  • Share it yourself to other ministries on Facebook.
  • Text or email many of your friends and ask them to share it. Just a few people who have 1000 or more friends, can have the post go to 10,000 possible people. Have a staff meeting and all people go on Facebook and do it all at the same time in the same meeting. It is best to do the sharing in a small timeframe. Example: 10 or 20 people share within 30 minutes of each other.
  • Personally ask your staff and friends to LIKE your post.
  1. Link the Facebook post to the website and make sure it is linked to a good spot where people can find the right place quickly on the website.
  2. You can link your Facebook, so when you post on Facebook, it can automatically share on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. IFTTT.com is a great website to help post to all of these sites at once.
    We are also using SnapChat, with short videos to update our followers. Always be looking for ways to use social media better.
  3. Watch the insights tab on your HOH FB page – the page should be posting something daily. The insights tab will tell you when your users are not only online but interacting with your posts. You can also see who your current followers are or aren’t (For example: someone looked at their Church Facebook and found out that over 70% of the people who like the Facebook page are female.)
  4. Interact with people who share and comment (this is time consuming but I think that is how you will get donations rather than just re-shares. The goal isn’t just to have a viral post; the goal is to raise money and EXCEED your goal.)
  5. Pray over every post – that God will use it anywhere in the world. Pray that people in another country will see it and donate.