“Only 1 out of every 500 updates makes it into your fans’ critical Top News feed, which is how 95 percent of Facebook members get their updates (excluding mobile users), according to Facebook itself. (The percentage of Page updates visible in a user’s Top News feed may be even smaller today.)”–business2community.com
If your ministry has a blog or website but the content residing on those sites is not optimized to be shared, liked, or commented on in the Facebook news feed then it’s reach is drastically limited.
The form and weight of leaves allow them to float extremely well in streams. Similarly your ministry content must not be too light (text only) or too heavy (excessive words, long videos, multiple images) for Facebook’ stream. The posts that receive the most likes and comments are often short, with an engaging image or video, and a carefully crafted title.
The article from business2community lists 10 tips to become more effective on Facebook. Here are two of my favorites that they mention:
1. Use the 80/20 Rule: “As a rough rule of thumb, post four status updates on items about outside news items or discoveries for every post promoting a product.”
2. Tailor Your Content to Mobile Users: “Mobile users (via the Facebook app for iPhone and Android) see the Live Feed, identical to the Most Recent firehose that contains virtually all updates from friends and Pages. That means almost all your updates will make it to your users’ mobile devices.”
If the majority of your online media leans towards one type (text, photos, video) then consider breaking those up into chunks (blog posts or separate pages on your site) and adding complementary content around them. This will make your online content less like a stone and more like a leaf!