I love the idea of collaboration with others to empower people to do something amazing, serve a church, and share the Gospel with a community. So the concept of Google+ Communities is a natural fit for me and the community I created with Church Tech has become a flourishing group of people who post an average 10 posts a week asking questions, supporting each other, and sharing something amazing that is happening in their world.
We want to help you create a great community for those that make their own Google+ Community.
Here’s how:
State the Purpose of the Community
Be up front, clear, and concise about what the group is about. Put together a paragraph that you can put into the About section of the community and live by it. Here is what we put together:
This is a group to discuss technology in the broadest sense including church IT, mobile, social media, web, blogging. At the same time, we can look at how our ministry’s volunteer and staff interact and what are the best options for your church. Ask your questions, offer up solutions to other people, and lets make this community a place of encouragement, resources, and networking!
Make Great Categories
This is not something that you will probably get right the first time. Our community went through three revisions before we had something that works great. Don’t have too many (15 or more) but also do not have too few (4 or less). Think about the discussions you would like to have in this group and set your members up for success.
Prevent Self-Promoting Spam
Self-promotion will kill your group faster than self-sabotage. No one wants to go to a community or group that is full of links to people’s blogs and have no comments. I recommend putting a self-promotion policy in your About section and then enforce it and when it comes up.
Please do not make this a place of self promotion. You may share links when they are assisting someone, but leave the self promotion for the welcome board only. At the same time, videos that are self-promoting and not furthering dialogue will be removed. Repeat offenders will be asked to stop and banned if they do not comply. All decisions will be made by the moderators at their discretion.
Be Active As Owner, But Not Insufferable
I have found the more I am involved, the less others want to talk. But if I do not contribute anything, I seem impersonal. There is a nice little balance you will find, but be intentional about what you post and how you respond to others.
There are several other things you can do to have a great Google+ Community, including good icons, celebrating members, having community specific Hangouts and more.
What do you think makes a great Google+ Community?
Speak your mind...