As social distancing and shelter in place orders began to take effect across North America this past spring, our analytics team took a look at traffic on parish Facebook pages. The week over week numbers from March 10-16 vs. March 3-9 astounded us. (You were probably growing your following at this point too!)
- Average 834% increase in page views
- 162% increase in number of people reached
- 402% in post engagement
- 996% increase in video views
- 1906% increase in followers gained
If your parish Facebook page is still booming, one question you may have is, “How do we turn these visitors into followers?” It’s extremely easy:
Step 1: Choose a high-engagement post, one that has a lot of likes and shares. Then click the number next to the reaction icons. (In our example, we are using a live-streamed Mass that is now complete.)
Step 2: This will open a screen showing everyone who reacted. Many will have a “liked” or “following” button next to their name, indicating they are already keeping close tabs on your parish. But some will have an “invite” button next to their name. Click that button and you’ll invite that person to like your page!
You can see in this first screen alone there are two people who are not followers of the page we can invite.
Do this on a regular basis and watch your parish’s Facebook following explode. Day by day, week by week you’ll be gaining followers – folks who will see your content as they log in to Facebook, folks who are likely to click “share” and get your parish better known in the newsfeeds of people in your neighborhood. Growing your following is one of the best things you can be doing right now!
