Easter Q&A with Dave & Justin

Facebook live notifications and promotion? Best film clips to use on stage? Are yard signs still effective?

On today’s show, Dave and Justin take the hot seat and answer your Easter questions LIVE!

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Why can’t we get notifications on our Facebook see who’s watching on Facebook Live?

easter q and a facebook live notifications

When you’re live on your page, you’ll get notifications when people are watching your video only if you’re connected with them. Even though you’re the admin of the page, if your personal account has no connection to someone watching, you won’t know they’re watching other than the view count going up. You may find this ironic, but Facebook is protecting the privacy of people that are watching your live stream by doing this. The connection doesn’t have to be friends though, even just following someone will let you see when they watch your live streams. 

The exception to this is when you’re in a Facebook group. When you go live in a group you can see who joins even if their not your Facebook friend.

 

Should we promote our Facebook Live service as an option on our Easter landing page or in our ads?

easter q and a landing page

The answer to this all comes down to answering the question, “who is your target audience and what is the goal of your advertising?”

If you want to reach people who are able to come to your service and connect in person OR if the goal of your campaigns is to get people to visit in person…then advertising the live stream may work against that.

The Facebook Live stream may especially work against you when you have more events that Sunday morning in addition to the service. When you have an Easter breakfast, an egg hunt, or photobooth, you want people to attend those events…so why advertise how they can stay at home?

Your church members will know that there’s a live stream for them out of town. And you can email them the live stream info too, so it doesn’t need to go on the Easter landing page.

That said if your goal is to get the Resurrection story into as many ears as possible, then absolutely put your live stream info on the promotional materials! That fits your goal, so do it.

If you do include your Facebook Live info on your advertising, don’t just leave it with stating that you have one available. Still, plan to collect info or grow your audience. Instruct them to follow you on Facebook and turn notifications on, or even better, collect their email address and notify them by email when you go live. Email is the best for your church because you can send a follow-up campaign to share more about your beliefs and values…possibly changing their mind to visit in person.

One more thing you can try is to use Facebook ads to promote your live stream on Easter Sunday. Set your targeting how you want, local or nationwide, and run an ad to reach those last few who can benefit from hearing the Easter message.

 

Any suggestions for 30-60 second film clips to show on Easter morning (not backgrounds)?

easter q and a stock footage use storytape

Capturing your own video footage is best. But it’s understandable that not everyone has the resources to do so. So here are our favorite places:

 

Are yards signs still effective?

easter q and a yard sign

If your yard signs were ineffective…how would you know?

In order to call something ineffective, you have to have some way to measure against it. We know when a business is profitable because they’re earnings outway their spending. We know marketing is effective when we spend $10 and sell a $100 product. So you really need to find a way to measure how many people are coming in because of a yard sign.

This is easier said than done, but here are a couple ways you can do it.

The first is really simple, include a “how did you hear about us” section on your connect card. This will allow visitors to indicate what marketing avenue brought them in. If people check yard sign, then you know!

A little more advanced is unique contact points on your yard signs. These are website addresses or phone numbers that are only on the yard sign. So if someone goes to that URL or calls that number, you know they saw the yard sign.

In Justin’s last church, they used yard signs to promote VBS, but the yard signs were specifically for bus pick-up. So the staff knew that if someone called asking for bus pickup, it was because they saw the yard signs. And yes, they were effective.

Separate from Easter, you can also run a test by promoting an event only by yard signs. Take an event that’s usually internal, like a youth game night or church potluck, and add yard signs to the mix. If more people show up, you know the only way they could have found out was from yard signs. And there’s your indicator.

 

Is the Easter service title “Fear Not” too Christianese?

Yes. It’s inside baseball. It’s like walking to a random person on the street, “are you saved?” Or like telling someone that the clear Gatorade tastes like, “Glacier Frost.”

There’s no information there, there’s nothing compelling, so it’s not really inviting.

If someone has to ask, “what’s that?” … it’s too Christianese. Don’t be cute or treat the day like a birthday theme. Instead, just be clear.

 

How can we use Facebook Live to promote and hype up Easter?

easter q and a facebook live hype

Facebook Live is definitely a great way to stream your church service and events, but it for sure doesn’t end there.

Facebook Live is best used to show what’s going on as you’re getting the event ready:

  • Interview your staff and Pastor on what’s planned for Easter.
  • Show how you’re preparing for events of the morning (what candy is in the eggs or where do you shop for supplies)
  • You can even go live when you’re setting up your sanctuary lighting!

Facebook live isn’t long content exclusive. Even just going live for a few minutes is enough to showcase your church culture and get people excited for Easter.

 

Conclusion

Church Training Academy is all about equipping you and your ministry to harness technology to spread the Gospel and maximize your media ministry. So when the idea came to us to do an Easter Q&A, we jumped on it.

But the party doesn’t end here, leave your Easter question below and let’s talk it over.

What’s your biggest question or obstacle with Easter coming up? Leave a comment below!

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