Engaging successfully with social media and technology for the Christian industry isn’t that different from a secular business’ approach. In fact, that’s what’s so great about social media because in general the same elements and principles can apply, which in turn provide a common ground for meeting the needs of users online (both who are believers and non).
One particular issue is that of the Community Manager. Jeremiah Owyang has a great little tidbit about what a Community Manager does for a typical business:
- Listen: Use listening tools like Technorati, Talkdigger, read blogs, forums, wikis, to find out what customers are saying
- Respond: Depending on what’s being said, respond quickly when appropriate
- Inform: Tell the right stakeholders in the company what’s happening, this can range from Engineering, Product Management, Product Marketing, PR, Marketing, Bloggers, or forums moderators.
- Shut up and sit back: One of the most important jobs of the CM is to connect the right internal people with customers and let them work it out, stay out of the way if you don’t understand the problems.
- Listen more: Keep on listening, responding, informing, and connecting the right folks. A community manager is an odd looking being, big ears and eyes, and a small mouth.
All these are valid and with a little spin, can be quickly applied to the local church and ministry that needs a little community management (for example, “find out what customers are saying” translates to “find out what people are saying out our church/ministry, get a pulse on where we sit digitally and with what quantity and quality of online equity… etc).
But, the issue of translating a secular business’ approach isn’t the issue: The biggest need in the community space for the christian church is that the “community manager” does not formally nor officially exist.
Now, a lot has to be said about bandwidth and staffing issues, but the fact remains that if you want to successfully engage with social technology and community, you have to have a dedicated staff to manage it. It’s the only way a business can leverage it appropriately and even make use of the technology as a whole.
The pastoral staff (who have other obligations) can’t do it. A dedicated community manager can.
Or, the other option is employing a crowd-sourcing lay-person led team. But, that requires a lot of training and not to mention a large amount of education.
But it can be done.
Some more food for thought from Jeremiah:
The Four Tenets of the Community Manager
In the following, I’m not going to list out all my findings, but it was clear there were 4 number of Tenets, or beliefs that each role holds. In nearly all the job descriptions, the following beliefs were spelled out as requirements for the role.1) A Community Advocate
As a community advocate, the community managers’ primary role is to represent the customer. This includes listening, which results in monitoring, and being active in understanding what customers are saying in both the corporate community as well as external websites. Secondly, they engage customers by responding to their requests and needs or just conversations, both in private and in public.2) Brand Evangelist
In this evangelistic role (it goes both ways) the community manager will promote events, products and upgrades to customers by using traditional marketing tactics and conversational discussions. As proven as a trusted member of the community (tenet 1) the individual has a higher degree of trust and will offer good products.3) Savvy Communication Skills, Shapes Editorial
This tenet, which is both editorial planning and mediation serves the individual well. The community manager should first be very familiar with the tools of communication, from forums, to blogs, to podcasts, to twitter, and then understand the language and jargon that is used in the community. This individual is also responsible for mediating disputes within the community, and will lean on advocates, and embrace detractors –and sometimes removing them completely. Importantly, the role is responsible for the editorial strategy and planning within the community, and will work with many internal stakeholders to identify content, plan, publish, and follow up.4) Gathers Community Input for Future Product and Services Perhaps the most strategic of all tenets, community managers are responsible for gathering the requirements of the community in a responsible way and presenting it to product teams. This may involve formal product requirements methods from surveys to focus groups, to facilitating the relationships between product teams and customers. The opportunity to build better products and services through this real-time live focus group are ripe, in many cases, customer communities have been waiting for a chance to give feedback.
So what can we do? We’re understaffed and undereducated…!
Take small steps. Dream big, but take small steps. A blog is a great first step. Then multiple-authoring of the same blog. Tiny steps.
I’ll write some more about next steps, but, the point is that if you want to use technology successfully, you’ll have to make sure you have the resources to manage it.
The Christian Community Manager is essential, although it may take a number of different forms.
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