How Elevation Church Creates An Active Online Community
A Facebook group that I feel is successful in creating an active community is Elevation Church. I have been a part of the Facebook group for years and wondered how they stay so active. I have noticed the numbers in members continuing to grow too.
After researching how this group does it, I see that their leaders (admins) and their members take an active part in fostering engagement within this online community.
While scrolling through the group, it is obvious that admins take the time to welcome every new member. It is important to publicly welcoming new members to keep the group feeling connected. The first step to being present is to let members know who you are and that you’re there to help.
When I first joined the group, I remember an admin making a post tagging me welcoming me to the group so everyone else in the group can see. By them doing that — it made me want to make a post introducing myself. That sparked a conversation just by doing a simple introduction.
The admin would post a new group member post and would ask a specific question: What music is on your playlist this week? There would be hundreds of replies on this post alone. Members would then talk to one another because they noticed they had the same taste in music and loved the same artists.
The church made a poll that got a lot of votes. It asked: What city do you watch Elevation Church Online from?
Elevation church has a lot of small groups hosted by members of the church. For example, an admin would be posting other member’s groups upcoming events so that the entire church can see. By posting these event invites, members would be able to find out how they can connect in real life. There’s a crossover into the real world that gives an added benefit to engaging with this group.
There’s another part I notice that creates a lot of engagement. Leaders of groups have been posting live feeds on how they were unsure if they should start a group within the church but then later realized they are so glad they did. These posts have helped people within the church community get connected to others with similar interests.
Elevation Church’s Facebook group has simple but effective Group Rules from the Admins:
The first rule talks about how connecting with each other through the comment section of posts is the best way to get to know each other.
It’s important to know that communities are ultimately going to create themselves. Elevation Church’s Facebook group is successful in active engagement because they are growing and evolving based on what is resonating with the members and where they are headed.