Do's and Don'ts of the "Everyone" Group
Please note: Through our experience with thousands of churches, we've compiled a few tips for Super Admins to use the "Everyone" group effectively. However, we recognize that every church is unique and has different needs and communication styles, so we encourage you to consider these strategies in combination with your church's own personal needs.
If you want to learn more about the different types of groups on Flocknote and how to create, edit, or delete them, check out the articles at the bottom of the page.
Quite literally, the "Everyone" is exactly what it sounds like. This group houses everyone in your entire network! When someone joins any other individual group in your network, they are also automatically added to this group; a member cannot be part of another group without also being part of the Everyone group. If a member leaves (or is removed) from the Everyone group, they are leaving the network entirely. To prevent that and keep your flock engaged, here are our suggested do's and dont's for this group:
DO
1. Limit messages to this group to 2 times per week.
While you want your members to stay informed, you also want to be careful not to overwhelm them with too many messages because this may lead to them unsubscribing from this group or leaving the network altogether...and then you've lost your ability to reach everyone at a moment's notice if needed. Instead, be mindful as to how frequently you are sending notes to this group.
2. Keep it fairly simple and concise.
Pretend your members are reading your message on-the-go or in a hurry (because oftentimes they are!) and you have just a few minutes to give them the "need to know" information or express a sentiment quickly. If they don't read anything else from your church that week and aren't part of other groups, what information do you really want them to know and/or what sentiment do you really want to express to them that week?
3. Use this group to share/encourage members to sign up for other groups.
The great thing about Flocknote is that you can set up an unlimited number of groups. While we still recommend keeping things simple, creating individual groups and subgroups helps to ensure the messages you send are curated and relevant to each recipient. We recommend periodically advertising the various groups on your network with a message to the "Everyone" group that includes Smart Buttons! You can assign these buttons to link to specific groups (whichever one you want) and when members click on the button, they'll be taken to the exact place to join that particular group -- all without ever having to log in or create a password. Pretty nifty! 👍
4. Use this group to send alerts/updates.
Need to contact everyone in a hurry? Whether there's a last-minute cancellation, inclement weather, change of location or time—you name it! This is the group to go to so that you can keep your members both up-to-date and informed.
🚨 Please note: While Flocknote is speedy and reliable, and we manage hundreds of thousands of emails and text messages being sent and received successfully in a timely manner every day—as with all technology, there can be rare times where unforeseen delays in emails or text messages being sent out or successfully delivered occurs. This can be due to a number of reasons (usually blockages or outages from email providers or cell phone carriers).
That said, Flocknote can be used for text messaging (or emailing) in emergency situations, but it's our responsibility to inform you of possible delays. And in an emergency, every second counts.
If you're communicating with your members as a church, ministry, or school organization in an emergency, we encourage you to utilize additional means of communication outside of Flocknote to reach your members and ensure the safety of your community.
DON'T
1. Use the Everyone group for all your messages.
While daily bible verses, funeral announcements, and prayer requests are all content that is pretty typical for churches to send, it's best not to send these to everyone by default and instead send it to those who have specifically requested this content; they can request this by joining various groups under easily-identifiable names (i.e. "Funeral Announcements" or "Verse of the Day" groups).
Learn how to create groups here.
2. Send messages that are only relevant to certain people or small groups.
Let's say the Youth Ministry group is canceling their upcoming meeting/service...you wouldn't want to send a text update to the entire church about this, especially when some members don't have kids or have anyone they know in that group. Consider instead creating a group called "Youth Ministry" with a subgroup for "Youth Ministry - Teens" and a second subgroup for "Youth Ministry - Parents." Then, send a text to the "Youth Ministry" group which will reach both of these subgroups.
These are examples, but feel free to set these groups up in a way that is best for your unique church.
💎 Want to send out texts to teens in your church for youth events, and have parents/guardians receive the text automatically as well? Check out our Proxy Contacts feature with the Flocknote Complete subscription.
3. Use this group for a daily email or text series.
While you may find a particular series very interesting, not everyone may share your interest and want to receive a daily text or a particular series. Instead, it's best to let your members choose whether or not to receive that content. Try creating a separate group for a particular series and advertising this new group with a Smart Button (see more info in DO #3 above).
4. Assign too many Super Admins.
If someone is made a Super Admin, they are given access to see everything in the network and send messages to the "Everyone" group. While the dynamics of each church are unique and sometimes you may need several Super Admins to keep communication humming in a larger church, it's best to limit this privilege to those that truly need to see everything and be able to contact everyone.
Tip: Need to send a series to "Everyone" but don't want to risk them turning notifications off for that main group, or leaving the network entirely? If needed, you can create a new group, and then utilize the Filter & Bulk Action tool to bulk-add all your members to the group. This way, if the members decide to turn notifications off for this new group (or leave the group entirely), these settings changes will not affect the "Everyone" group and they will still receive all of your main communications. 👍
Have any additional questions or need help? Feel free to email us at help@flocknote.com.