Blog

In the dark of the night, while Church Juice was asleep, our Facebook page magically loaded a map of our physical office location.  After weeks of canceling out of a request box to add our address, we saw that it just suddenly appeared on our page.  And while it’s a mystery to us how it happened—our leading theory is Mark Zuckerburg was up late on a programming binge that resulted in him taking a personal interest in Church Juice—the addition of our street address to our information did result in a new feature for our Facebook page.

On the right hand side of the page, there’s now a “Recommend This Place” box.  Someone who likes Church Juice can type in a short recommendation message to share it with their friends. This recommendation is also published to their news feed. Lastly, anytime a friend of a recommender visits the Church Juice Facebook page, this box will show that recommendation. 

While this feature doesn’t make a lot of sense for us specifically since Church Juice’s physical space consists of a single desk in a big cube farm, it could be really useful for your church.  First, it’s just another easy way for your members to share your church.  They make a recommendation and their friends can see it.  Simple.  Second, it adds a level of social proof to your church.  As a list develops of people who recommend your church’s page, it’s like a growing endorsement of what you’re doing.  Folks who come to your page will see that not only do people like the church, but their willing to put their name behind it and give a recommendation.

According to InsideFacebook.com, the Recommend This Place box doesn’t show up for everyone.  It only displays for people who live in the same city, or within a 12 miles radius, of your address.  Again that’s another reason why it makes more sense for a church that in does for an organization whose community it spread out across the globe. 

Anyway, it’s a cool feature you should know about for your church.  This new box also seems like a way Facebook is better integrating the Places feature into the official Pages.  By adding your address, you’re not only getting access to the recommendation box, but you’re also making your Facebook Place clearer.  As people check-in to your church using the Places mobile feature, a tally of those check-ins show up on the left side of your page next to your total number of Likes.