Today’s post is a really practical way you can get your church’s message out to more people.
In order to accomplish this, you’re going to need a Facebook group for your church.
If you don’t have one, it’s easy to create one, and it has multiple benefits, which I talked about in my last post.
When setting up the group, you need to do two very important things.
- Invite everyone who is an active participant in your church.
- Don’t invite anyone outside of the church.
This is very important because you’ll have people who see the group, or who get invited by those in the group, who may like the church, but they’re not actively involved in the church. Don’t let those people into the group.
This group isn’t meant for those people. It’s only meant for those who love and participate in your church on a consistent basis.
Why is this so important? Because the right people, will bring you the right results.
Once you have the right people in the group, you can then start communicating with them and encouraging them to do certain things.
For instance, you can ask them to invite their friends and family to church by sharing a post that appears on your Facebook page.
Your Facebook page is your opportunity to speak to those in your community.
Your Facebook group is your opportunity to speak to those in your congregation.
If you can encourage your congregation through the group, to share posts from your page to their friends and family in the community, you’ll have a much greater chance of seeing new guests visit your church.
Do you know why? Because most, like 80% or more, guests who visit your church were invited by a friend or family member.
So, let me show you a comparison of how this worked recently at our Westmoreland Campus. First, I want to show you a post that we didn’t encourage people to share.
This post reached 361 people and had 20 engagements with 0 shares. Engagements are likes, comments, and shares, and they determine how many people see your posts in Facebook.
Now, look at this next post, which was done on the same day and time, just a week later.
This post reached 3,164 people and had 117 engagements with 40 shares.
The reach increased by a whopping 876 percent.
What was the difference?
On the first post, I never mentioned it to anyone. It appeared on our Facebook page and that was it.
On the second post, I encouraged people inside our Facebook group, people who love our church, to share the Facebook post on their own pages.
And since it was a big day for our church, I incentivized them to share it with the chance to win a $25 gift card.
So, what happened on that Sunday?
Glad you asked.
We had more kids attend that day, than any other day this year. And we had a total of 13 first time guests that day.
Not too bad for a $25 investment.
Now, you could make the argument that because it was our Trunk or Treat event that many of those families would’ve came to our church anyway.
And you may be right.
But, I just happen to believe that anytime we can get our people excited about inviting others to church, it’s a really good thing.
