We are limited in our outreach to countries that have sizeable amounts of their population on Facebook. Here is a great list that give you the numbers of Facebook users per country (from 2012).
2 good resources for finding a language/people group are the Joshua Project website, and People Groups. They both do a good job of showing the religious status for a country. Ideally these lists, the list previously mentioned, and the Holy Spirit should guide you in where to evangelize.
You are limited by 2 things:
- Must have Facebook in your chosen country.
(China for example has banned Facebook)- Must have the Good and Evil book available in your chosen language.
Get a current list of languages for Good and Evil here.
If not, you can still evangelize this language group, but you must find your own resource/page to point your ad to. For example: if I want to evangelize Spanish speaking people, when people click on my Spanish FB ad, it will go right to the Good and Evil -Spanish webpage. (You can also find your own page to use)
Hi, my name is John D. and I really have a burden for the Chinese people. They live in a vast country governed by strict laws and Communist ideology. I am a (happily) married father of 5 young kids, and cannot afford to move to China and do mission work. That’s when I saw the iMissionaries concept that someone was talking about on Facebook. I checked out their website, and immediately new this was something doable right now. I really want to reach out to the people of China, but how can I when Facebook has been banned there by the government?
After a little research on Wikipedia, I found that there are sizeable Chinese populations in Singapore and Malaysia. These populations speak Simplified Chinese which works out great because the Good and Evil book is only available in this language. I could also target Chinatowns around the world, the biggest in North America being the one in San Francisco.
I’m running an ad right now on Facebook targeting Chinese speaking people in these countries. So far, my ad has 124 clicks on it, and my total cost is only $4.50. I plan on continuing this form of outreach and am grateful to have an outlet for ministry right from my own home! I am going to explore other options for reaching mainland China. They have Facebook alternatives (approved by the government) like Renren, Qzone and Weibo.
I found these infographics here and here that do a good job of showing the social media options in China.
I’m Erick, and I am 23 years old. I’ve gone on several mission trips, and have been to Latin America twice. I had just got back from Mexico where I was doing mission work, when I heard about the iMissionaries project. I placed an ad on Facebook targeting the countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
I was down in Mexico around the Day of the Dead festival or Día de Muertos. This is a time when people’s hearts and minds are tuned towards the afterlife. When I arrived back in the US and decided to place a Facebook ad for the iMissionaries project, I knew that this was the perfect time to target Spanish speaking countries. I placed an ad that read (in Spanish):
¿What happens when you die?
goodandevilbook.com
Do you know where you are going when you die? Get the answer here with a FREE online graphic novel.
Within just 4 hours of placing this ad, I had 18 clicks on it.
So far I’ve spent $5.45 on my ad, and have had over 240 clicks. Timing can be everything when placing Facebook ads. If you can touch a person when their heart is soft there is a HUGE chance of success.
Arabic speaking peoples
60% of all people in the Middle East speak Arabic. The Qur’an is written in Arabic, and all Muslim prayers must be said in Arabic. This is a wide audience just waiting to learn of Jesus and His saving power.
Well if I want to reach Muslim people through Facebook, where do I start?
Well, you should first find what countries predominately speak Arabic. I found a good list on Wikipedia –List of countries where Arabic is an official language.
After looking at several different countries, I settled on Egypt, although Saudi Arabia would also be a good choice. (I looked up Algeria (this would be a good option), Iraq (might be better to target this country with a Kurdish language ad) and Syria, which had no option for advertising.) The Wikipedia Facebook list tells me that there are approximately 12 million Arabic speaking people in Egypt.
If I Google Language of Egypt I get all sorts of informational links about the official language. Of course, Wikipedia had the best article (in my opinion).
Upon doing some more research about Egypt, I find that Egypt has the most FB users in the Arab world. There is also an article on the Techloy website that says Syria is the 3rd fastest growing Facebook country.
It’s all looking pretty good to start evangelizing this country through Facebook. Now lets go place an ad.
