The LDS Facebook page and the new Facebook profiles

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timmkd-p40
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The LDS Facebook page and the new Facebook profiles

#1

Post by timmkd-p40 »

I apologize if this has already been raised but I have not been able to find anything about this on the forum and I thought it particularly important to bring up.

Recently Facebook have updated the profile pages, including every ones 'Info' section, which is where anyone can list their Religious views. Facebook has changed the way they are linking to 'Religious views' and are now linking to an actual page that they have created.

Previously, when people could select their religion, the church was listed as an option 'Christian - Latter day saints'. This has since changed, and everyone previously listed as that, is now listed as 'Latter day saint' with a link to this page. Please not that they have removed 'Christian' from all references to this.

So suddenly pretty much every member of the church that had correctly listed their religious views, now has a link pointing to a page which lists us as belonging to a religion that "follow at least some of the teachings of Joseph Smith, Jr". Suddenly there are hundreds of thousands of members linking to a page that is no longer identifying them as being members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but being members of a "group of religious denominations".

The church does have it's own page here for when people list themselves as "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" which does have more specific details on the church. I have changed my profile page to link to this, but the information is still coming from Wikipedia. The information does not have to come from Wikipedia though. As with any page, the owner, or official representative of the church can take it over.

The official church page on facebook is actually a local business page. The page I have pointed out is listed as a Religion Page. And it is not being controlled by the church. But it can be. The appropriate person just needs to contact facebook by clicking on the link provided on that page.

Here is where we are missing a tremendous opportunity to teach people what we really believe. If members were able to change their 'Religious views' setting on facebook to the churches name, and if the church controlled this page, as it appears it should be able to, then anyone interested in the religious views of any member on facebook can have easy access to the gospel, on a page controlled by the church! As it stands, people cannot link to the churches current page in 'Religious views', because the churches page is listed as a small business and not a religion.

This is a new change to facebook so I don't think that anyone has really picked it up yet and cottoned on to it's potential.

Shouldn't someone be thinking of making the 'Religion page' the churches official page, instead of the 'Local business page' we currently use?

Perhaps this has been noticed already but I have not seen anyone point it out yet.
jessestay
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#2

Post by jessestay »

Tim, we're aware of this and are working with Facebook to resolve it. If you look though, only 296 people have listed that Page as their religious interest. You can change it back to http://facebook.com/lds by just liking the Page and adding it to your interests. We hope members will modify their profiles to point back to the official Page of the Church, as many are already doing.

Regardless, we're aware of it, and we're looking into the best option to approach this - also note that this is not the only Page like this. There are other "Community Pages" that are also being listed under various forms of our Church's name, so we have to consider all of them.

--Jesse Stay
Manager, Social Solutions
timmkd-p40
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Liking does not neccesitate 'religious interest'

#3

Post by timmkd-p40 »

Thanks for the reply Jesse

I have noticed also that there are only 297 people that have 'liked' Latter-day Saints, but that is not the same as what people have listed it as their religious interest. From my own research of my own member friends, most people have it listed as their Religious preference (and these are people from all over the world), but for a page like the one we are referring to, 'like'ing it will only add it to the "Activities and Interests" section of their profile.

In regards to the "Religious views" section, you do not 'like' the page to make it your Religious view. You can press 'like' but that does not make it your Religious view. Have I explained the properly?

What I am saying is that it is linked to by far more people than 'Like' it.
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thedunsons
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#4

Post by thedunsons »

This is very concerning. I hope the timeline on this is short. So to clarify, what (if any) is the church's OFFICIAL Facebook page? Is there a complete listings somwhere for all of the church's official social media presence?
-mike
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thedunsons
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church social media listing

#5

Post by thedunsons »

Not sure if a better on exists, but I did get this from the September 2010 ensign via the website.

http://lds.org/church/share/sharing-the ... a?lang=eng
-mike
jessestay
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#6

Post by jessestay »

thedunsons wrote:This is very concerning. I hope the timeline on this is short. So to clarify, what (if any) is the church's OFFICIAL Facebook page? Is there a complete listings somwhere for all of the church's official social media presence?

The official Page targeted towards members is http://facebook.com/lds - there are several official pages though, and those are listed on that Page. If they're not listed, they're not "official".

On another note, Unfortunately Facebook won't allow us to change the category of our official Page, so unfortunately that won't appear in the list of religions at the moment. If that ever changes we'll make the change. We're working on a solution for the other community Pages that do appear when you try to list the Church as your religion. I agree - it's all very confusing, and there aren't a whole lot of good options for us right now.
jessestay
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#7

Post by jessestay »

Yes - that is the official location for this stuff. I wrote the content for that page. You can also like the official Facebook Page right from that page on lds.org.
jessestay
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#8

Post by jessestay »

thedunsons wrote:Not sure if a better on exists, but I did get this from the September 2010 ensign via the website.

http://lds.org/church/share/sharing-the ... a?lang=eng
Yes - that is the official location for this stuff. I wrote the content for that page. You can also like the official Facebook Page right from that page on lds.org.
timmkd
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#9

Post by timmkd »

The church can take control of the page on the religious category version of the page though.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Ch ... 1325849342

there is a link that says "Is this your page?" and an official representative can take it over. This
jessestay
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#10

Post by jessestay »

timmkd wrote:The church can take control of the page on the religious category version of the page though.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Ch ... 1325849342

there is a link that says "Is this your page?" and an official representative can take it over. This

Yes, we're aware of that - we're actually working on some better alternatives with our contacts at Facebook.
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