Resource Directory

<- Back to all Guides

How to Launch flockNote at your Parish
A Quick 5-Step Guide

This quick, easy guide will take you through the basic steps of launching flockNote at your parish. If your parish leadership still need to be convinced of how much and how easily flockNote can help your parish, check out our free Explaining flockNote Guide here. That will help! If your parish is already convinced...please read on!

In order to create a Network on flockNote for your parish, diocese or organization, you'll need a personal flockNote account you can log in to, first. These are free and you can create one in about a minute (create one here now). It is through your personal flockNote login that you'll be able to create and manage your Network.

Once you're logged in, you need to create a Network. This requires a credit card to set up, however, we do offer a free 30-day trial. Click here to create your Network (if you haven't done so yet). It will also take you through completing a description for your Network, tagging it with your proper country and diocese (so that others can more easily search and find your Network), as well as a number of other options.

As part of that, you'll want to add a nice looking image for your Network. It's best to use a square image for your main Network image and you can upload it under in your "Edit Network" tab in the "Change Network Picture" section. Don't forget to click SAVE.

Next you'll probably want to create some Lists for your Network. To do this, go to your Network page and click the "Add List" link. You can do this as many times as you like, creating Lists for each of your different ministries or groups within your parish. You can remove or edit Lists later at any time. And you can always add more later, too.

After you've created your basic Lists to get you started, it's a good time to bring in some of your other parish ministry leaders or staff who will be using flockNote. The first step is getting them into the system.

One simple way to do this is to send them a link to your new Network and ask them to simply register and JOIN your Network on their own. Once they are registered, ask them to subscribe to whichever Lists in your Network that pertain to them.

Finally, once they are subscribed to the Lists they're supposed to be involved with, it's time to make them into List Admins. To do this, simply go to a List, then click the "Subscribers" tab. There you'll see everyone currently subscribed to that List. Next you'll want to click the grey/orange shield out to the right of the appropriate person's name and turn them into a List Admin for that List. Once you do that, that person will have total control over that particular List and the ability to send out Notes, add/manage their own subscribers, etc.

Repeat that process for each of your Lists in your Network.

Now that you've got your ministry leaders and staff set up as List Admins on the appropriate Lists, it's time to get your parishioners on board. There are two primary ways to do this.

1) If you or your List Admins already have an existing (legal) email List, you can simply import (by file) or add them manually onto any List for which you're an Admin. To do this, go to the "Subscribers" tab for the List and then click the "Add Subscribers" button. Once you add them in, you can immediately start posting Notes and your subscribers will start getting them via email.

2) You can invite your parishioners to register themselves. To do this, you can a) simply share a link to your Network, b) you can embed the registration form into your website or c) you can use our Text-to-Register feature.

The key to a successful flockNote launch, and any communication strategy is getting the team on board and making deliberate attempts to enforce using it. Once you get over the initial learning curve and "resistance to change" barrier, you'll really start to reap the rewards of using flockNote across your parish.

Here are a few ideas to help get it going:

1. Use Text-to-Register. It's the easiest way to get people initially plugged in and to make it easy and immediate for them to start using your new communication system. Make up some banners, print some flyers and at your next big gathering or after Mass, ask them to txt in your keyword. It will work. And they'll probably be impressed with your tech-savvy leadership, too!
2. If you don't use Text-to-Register, you can still print out flyers and put info in your bulletin to make it easy for your parishioners to quickly register online and get connected to your ministries and activities.
3. Embed the flockNote registration form for your Network into your website. It only take a minute to generate the code and paste it into your existing website.
4. Have a short meeting to show the staff and ministry leaders how to use flockNote. A quick hands-on demo goes a long way in making people comfortable with new things. You can easily share our flockNote videos with them, too.
5. Take the leap and commit to trying something new. If you enable people to continue getting information the old ways, they probably will (people naturally resist change, even if it's good for them). If you give them some incentive to buy into something new, they'll almost always adapt. And then you make exceptions for the few who are unable to. But flockNote helps you do that easily too.
6. Be creative. Make it fun. Be original. Be yourself. Be the Church. Ultimately, people don't get involved with things because they use a cool tool like flockNote to communicate. Ultimately, people will want to connect with your ministries because they are vibrant, active, inspiring endeavors that people long to be a part of. flockNote just makes it all easier, more practical and more effective.