Community Manager? What’s that?
Community Managers coordinate the various Social Media used by your church, whether it be the blog, Facebook, Twitter or the web site. It’s a new job description even within the corporate world. Churches using the internet will need to address this new societal role as well. Within a decade, this may be one of the standard church positions along with pastor, sexton, music director, organist, or youth leader.
Social Media is a powerful ministry tool which must be managed to be effective. It is not enough to simply advertise that you are on the web or have a Facebook page. These are tools that must be used in real time!
Our Ambassadors have explored the Facebook presence of a number of churches we visited. Most have very little interaction on their Facebook pages. We were surprised to see that one of the smallest churches had a much higher “edge rank” than larger churches. It was not surprising to us that this church had impressed us with their connectedness to their neighborhood even before we saw their internet stats.
In contrast, a denominational internet presence can reveal very little interaction with readers — typically a few posts in the months after the site was announced and not much but announcements from the denomination since.
We are all learning to use this new tool.
As you develop your internet usage, think about the day when you might need someone to coordinate things. Social Media must be managed. It is a role which is important enough to fund and can promise a measurable return on investment (to borrow a business term).
- A Community Manager must be a social person. Look for a person who would be interacting with members and visitors even without the internet.
- A Community Manager must have good communication skills. He or she will be writing a lot and the ability to express your church values clearly and accurately is paramount.
- A Community Manager must be nice. People won’t interact with an authoritarian, judgmental, didactic or sarcastic moderator. The church forum is not a place to show cleverness but concern.
- A Community Manager must care and be prepared to act on their concern. If people pose a problem to your church on its internet forums, they are looking for more than offers of prayer. A Community Manager must be prepared to channel important inquiries to appropriate leaders for action. Some action must be taken or your internet presence will become dormant.
- A Community Manager must be able to work with many people. The information gleaned from the internet must be channeled to others.
- A Community Manager must be flexible. This is territory where the best planning can go out the window at any time. Planning is important, but the ability to respond to the realities of the present is also vital.
- A Community Manager must like technology. They don’t have to come into the role as an expert on all the resources and techniques available (no one in this field knows it all!), but they must embrace learning, be willing to become engaged with online experts and communities and adapt as things change…and that is often! They must be willing to try ideas an honestly measure their effect. They cannot be tied to one medium. Facebook might work best with one community. Twitter might be more effective in another. Blogging might work with all.
- A Community Manager must reflect the values of your church. He or she may be the first person outsiders come to know. Of course, every member is a face of the church, but the Community Manager will be in the spotlight.