Growing Your Church, Facebook Places, & Free Coffee

Ok – my head is exploding with this idea so I’m typing really fast just to get it all out (overlook grammatical errors).

If you go to church, or you are a church leader, and you are looking for ways to leverage technology to grow your church, then this might be an idea for you to use because it will bring massive free exposure and “high quality advertising” to your church –

ahh hem… this one is free, my next idea is $10,000… (just kidding!)

I’m going to put my thoughts out in a step by step format – for some reason I think better that way ans will stay more focused.

Here’s what you need to implement this strategy – Facebook Places and free coffee – it’s that simple!

Facebook Places & Free Coffee

1)  Promote your church’s Facebook Places location

Start telling everyone you can, everyone you know, and even those you don’t know, to make sure they when they are at your church they “Check In” via Facebook Places.

2)  Offer a FREE cup of coffee to those who check in

Give everyone an incentive to “Check In” via Facebook Places when they get to church by telling them if they come up to your coffee bar (table, room, whatever…) and show you that they’ve checked in to your church location on their mobile phone, then you’ll give them a free cup of coffee.

Why Do This?

Great question – let me break the numbers down for you now so you can hopefully see what I’m getting at here.

First, the average person on Facebook has 130 friends.

Second, when someone “Check’s In” somewhere via Facebook Places, a message goes out to all of those person’s friends letting them know they just checked in to your church – along with a link to your church’s Facebook Places listing which includes your address, phone number, a Map listing, and other info about your church.

Power of viral marketing and exposure

So let’s say you announce to your church that you’ll give a free cup of coffee to anyone who “Checks In” to your church via Facebook Places on Sunday.

And now let’s say 10 people “Check In”.

Based on the fact that the average Facebook user has 130 friends, your church has just been exposed (marketed, branded, whatever you want to call it…) to approximately 1300 people.

If you’re like me and live in a college town (Go DAWGS!!!), or somewhere that people have WAY MORE than 130 friends, then the 1300 people could easily become 10’s of thousands.

FREE, High Quality, Mass Exposure For Your Church

And guess what – this “exposure” and “marketing” is 100% free (except for the cup of coffee) – and because it’s “friends” checking in, the updates to the thousands of people are not perceived as “ads” – which is REALLY big deal.

So if you want to start marketing your church to thousands of people a week for the price of a cup of coffee, then I strongly recommend you start implementing Facebook Places into your Sunday morning routine!

Plus, people will love getting a free cup of coffee because guess what – they are “Checking In” to your location anyway – with or without your permission – so we mine as well embrace this new technology and use it for God’s glory in growing the church.

Thoughts?