You probably have a pretty passionate core group of congregants who oversee and care for much of what your synagogue provides: a core group for your religious school, a core group who attend services, a core group giving back to the community, and on and on. The opportunity you have is to enhance and add onto these core groups that are the cornerstones of your community.
Just like adding an addition to your home or your synagogue, your efforts to enhance your website and social media connections with your congregants must begin with a blueprint. The first step with any community-building process--big or small--is to identify the need, the purpose of your “addition.” Once this is clear, you’ll be better equipped to assemble the right team to transform the goal into a reality.
Congregations are jumping into online adventures with little planning and often lacking a coherent road map. Having a Facebook page is great, but can be a missed opportunity if you don’t take the time to ask good questions: What purpose does it serve? Who are you reaching with it? What are you offering? Are you making the right connections? Blogging is also one of the most effective online communication tools, and again, the same questions apply. Purpose? Audience? Offering?
Your online audience is just as diverse as your offline audience. You need to look at all the social tools, including your website, and decide which tools are the most effective for reaching your audiences, those very cornerstones of your community: kids, young adults, parents, active boomers, retirees, etc. One way of approaching this is to go back to your core groups, those congregants that have a passionate reason for connecting. What can you provide them that would increase their connectedness, their desire for engaging and meaningful Jewish experiences? Whatever you do you should start slow. Be sure to be consistent with your communication. Communication effectiveness, whether it be a sermon, a blog post, or a tweet, is all about connecting through content.
Stop and think about your own personal life. Chances are good that you feel overloaded with news and media, be it the latest out of Japan, the Middle East, or our own economic roller-coaster. Many of us are regularly asking ourselves how to minimize, even retreat from, information--not add to it. This craziness of life makes synagogue communication--both the content and how that content is delivered and presented--more critical than ever. For most congregational members, the synagogue sits on a priority list with other optional "activities.” What you say and how often you say it determine whether congregants will be listening, looking for your communication, and responding by increasing their own engagement and participation in Jewish life.
