Most churchcoms (and marketers) are blind to the hidden reality about social media followers, likers, and subscribers.

The truth is, you don’t own those contacts.

It’s 100% true!

All those followers, likes, and favorites you’ve worked so hard to get…

All those hours, days, or weeks white-boarding and implementing killer social media strategies…

All that engagement you work so hard to get…

It only takes 1 slip and it’s all over.

The unknown, unclear, constant policy changes. A person who takes offense with something you said or posted and gets you “cancelled…”

One false move and you’re banned from a platform.

And just like that, it’s all gone.

You have no way to communicate your message to your hard-earned social media audiences.

You’re silenced.

The fact is, the platform owns your contacts. Not you.

Now what?

Stop Doing This

OK… you’ve put a lot of energy into creating content, figuring out what works and doesn’t work.

And you finally have people consuming and engaging with your content on a platform.

Great work!

But here’s the bad news.

This relinquishes control to the platform.

And they can take your audience away with no warning, making it near impossible to communicate with the audience you worked so hard to get.

Start Doing This

Rest easy… a simple strategy shift can protect your church from losing its valuable contacts.

All you need to do is use your social media posts to drive people to your content where you can collect contact info.

So your goal needs to become collecting email addresses and phone numbers (for text messaging).

Now you own the audience.

Facebook loves Messenger. People love Messenger chatbots.

Facebook has been pouring a ton of its resources into making Messenger business- and user-friendly (your church is your business).

From integrated shopping, a revamped inbox, a new desktop version of Messenger, to ads that push “clickers” right into automated Messenger conversations…

Facebook is putting major horsepower behind Messenger!

They’ve even made it so people don’t need to be logged into Facebook to use Messenger.

But, Facebook can be sicklers about frequency of sending messages through Messenger, which can make it a bit restrictive.

Fortunately, in recent months, chatbot-building platforms have added capabilities to send email and SMS through Messenger!

This is why Messenger marketing (aka conversation marketing) has become a very popular means for receiving traffic, collecting subscribers, and communicating with audiences.

Messaging apps and chatbots have also become the preferred means for communicating by most people.

At ChurchPush we call Messenger marketing and chatbots the new “tip of the spear.”

Imagine this scenario:

You make a Facebook post.

You deploy the “Facebook Comments” growth tool inside your chatbot.

Anyone commenting on your post receives an automed message through Messenger.

You ask for email address/SMS number for follow-up.

Your chatbot not only interacts with that new subscriber automatically…

But it simultaneously sends that contact info to a GoogleSheet as a backup, into your email platform, and anywhere else you need it.

This is the new reality with Messenger marketing.

[RELATED POST: Should Our Church Use a Chatbot?]

Now, this doesn’t mean it’s all “Wild Wild West” now… you’ll still need to abide by best practices of the media you’re using to communicate (permission being the most important of them) and the terms and conditions for the platform you use to deliver your messages.

But even if you run afoul and lose access, you still have access to your contacts.