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ENGAGING WITH PEOPLE IN A TIME OF CHANGE
The need to communicate and engage with residents and other stakeholders has rarely been more imperative for Housing Associations. Welfare Reform and public spending reductions have created a climate of uncertainty for residents, staff and stakeholders. In this environment, Housing Associations must be true to their principles, be genuinely inclusive and reach out to everyone. However, this need to reach people comes at a time when the means of reaching people are shifting. Many of our traditional methods of communication are losing their reach. The over use of direct mail combined with other factors has made posting material directly to tenants less effective than it once was. Meanwhile, the readership of local newspapers, a time honoured way to spread news to stakeholders, has dwindled. When it comes to face-to-face engagement, many Housing Officers will be familiar with the same old faces taking part in events.
The Challenge is getting younger people engaged. Traditional media doesnt seem to work as well with the younger generation.
- Housing Association communications Assistant For a growing number of people, and not just the young, the preferred method of obtaining information isnt material that comes through their letterbox but the Internet, and in particular social media. These new channels provide powerful new ways to interact with residents, staff and stakeholders, and to promote new services and developments. Evidence suggests that because they are so versatile, online communication channels can also be more effective than conventional ones in communicating with people with low literacy levels and those for whom English is not the first language. There is a strong prima facie case for investigating social media as part of the communications mix of Housing Associations, to amplify key messages across more channels and to stimulate effective and positive engagement with a wider audience. This paper makes recommendations for discussion about how Housing Associations can use social media effectively and safely to contribute to achieving these mission critical organisational and communications objectives. The recommendations in this paper are based on research of best practice in social media within the communications industry, the public sector and the affordable housing arena. The paper also draws on the authors experience of implementing social media programmes in the housing and regeneration sector and beyond.
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PROOF THE PROBLEM EXISTS
8 out of 10
British internet users are active on social media
The Drum 2012 Social media is a phenomenon that is difficult to ignore with more than half of UK adults using social networking sites (Ofcom 2011). Many organisations have reached a point where they feel the need to better understand how social media relates to them and to look at the opportunities and risks of developing a social media programme.
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Duncan Hopwood Ltd 55 Regent Road, Leicester LE1 6YF Tel 0116 2855725
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RISKS OF FAILING TO ADOPT SOCIAL MEDIA
The conversation is happening anyway. Wouldnt it be better if you were in the room? Many organisations considering using social media for communications for the first time find it easy to imagine things that might go wrong, and we deal with how to manage risk later in this paper. However, the risk to organisations rom failing to embrace these new communications channels is every bit as real. Housing Associations may also be missing out on efficiency savings by relying on conventional media and websites. Posting information on the organisations website and then trying to drive people there is more resource hungry than making information available where people are already online. An increasing number of consumers prefer to interact with organisations via social media, notably Twitter and Facebook. As one young person puts it: I mark down websites that dont offer a link to their Twitter account. Its an easy alternative to contact them that way by having to fill in a form on their Contact Us page. Many professional people look for information about organisations on LinkedIn. It makes sense for Housing Associations to be where people are looking for information or wanting to communicate with them. Similarly with advertising, the blanket approach of press advertising was more effective when newspapers reached the majority of people. Digital advertising, for example on Facebook, makes it possible to target advertising based on location, age, interests etc., with advertising budget only being spent when the reader clicks through to a specified web or social media page. Many organisations struggle with keeping their websites current, which makes them dull for visitors and unattractive to Google and other search engines. Those who have adopted and integrated social media into their web presence are instantly more dynamic. They are more likely to be updated because it is easier for employees to log in to social media feeds than it is to wrestle with Content Management Systems and HTML. Dynamic content embedded in a website not only propels that website up the search engine rankings but increases the visibility of social media feeds, attracting Likes, Followers and Fans and making those feeds even more useful as communications channels. Staff, residents, stakeholders and other important audiences are already active in various forms of social media. It makes sense for Housing Associations to join them and to take part in this communications revolution. As with all forms of public relations, it makes sense for organisations to manage their visibility on whatever channels are reaching their target audiences. Finally, just because a Housing Association does not have a formal presence on any social media channel does not mean . This is that it is not being talked about in the blogosphere an idea that is neatly summed up in the quote from a social media seminar at the top of this section.
inevitable
so finding an optimal relationship and use pattern is a continual process
University of Cambridge 2011 Many Housing Associations will have already experienced the damage from falling behind with digital communications. Those who were late adopters of the World Wide Web may have found it impossible to secure the domain name they would have liked for their website, or there might be a sense of being constantly behind the curve on the technology. For example, we know of one county council where employees are forced to use a version of Internet Explorer that has been discontinued by Microsoft, making it impossible for them to properly access useful websites and fully cooperate with other organisations. Failure to adopt new communications technologies can negatively impact on an organisations image by making it appear outdated or unwilling to explore all avenues of communication, which could be particularly damaging for any Housing Association trying to challenge perceptions of being old fashioned or failing to engage effectively. Social media can alert organisations to situations that need attention before they escalate into formal complaints. These channels whether public or not can help Housing Officers not only to manage suggestions and feedback but be seen to be doing so.
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HOW IMPLEMENTING SOCIAL MEDIA IMPROVES ENGAGEMENT
Organisations such as the Metropolitan Police have recognised that social media provide a powerful means of reaching people and engaging with them. Ten ways social media benefit Housing Associations 1 Enhancing communications with residents 2 Connecting with stakeholders 3 Building partnerships 4 Monitoring customer opinions 5 Complaint handling 6 Carrying out opinion surveys 7 Education, advertising and promotion 8 Recruitment 9 Amplifying PR by providing additional channels for press releases etc. 10 Attracting new customers, contacts and opportunities by raising the visibility of the organisation on search engines
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THE RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendation: Develop a social media strategy To ensure that social media are used to achieve the organisations objectives, it is important to have sight of the bigger picture. For this reason, some organisations produce a social media strategy. A word of warning here: Social media do not exist in isolation. These channels may have different characteristics to conventional media notably their richly interactive features but they are means of communication nonetheless, and it follows that the Housing Associations social media strategy belongs with its communications strategy. Of course, if a communications strategy does not exist, this is a useful trigger to create one. Organisations should also avoid confusing strategy with policy. (There is a section on social media policy later in this document.) Though it forms part of the communications function, remember that populating social media with content may well involve people who are not otherwise involved in the communications function. So it is important to keep the strategy accessible, to make it a workable document. Housing Associations may consider using an external consultant to help to produce a social media strategy. The best way to begin this process is to look at the organisations vision and objectives. Its also important to consider what led the Association to consider implementing a social media strategy and programme in the first place. A good strategy will contain most of the following elements: Whose responsibility? If you see social media purely as a PR tool then making the communications team solely responsible for generating content and populating social media could appear to be the logical way forward, but if you see it as an extension of all of the organisations interactions with its various audiences involving many different contact points and staff - then a devolved approach makes more sense. To the authors, this second approach, while harder to implement, looks to offer the most promise of value. We envisage a model where the communications team (perhaps with external support) is responsible for providing an overall framework, monitoring, advising and organising training. However, the bulk of social media activity would be undertaken by individuals throughout the organisation actively contributing to social networking sites in ways that are appropriate to their roles for example, communicating with residents, stakeholders or customers. The following is an example of how such an approach might look as part of the social media strategy document. How we will attract residents and stakeholders to our social media presence. How we will enshrine value How we will keep feeds current, including using automated updates. How we will monitor effectiveness. How we will ensure safe operation (social media policy)
people [at all levels] within the organisation to communicate professionally and effectively with people in line with theirroles. The communications team will provide a framework plan around which individuals can actively participate in social media. Usage of social media will be monitored rather than prescribed. We will put in place a social media policy and introduce/retain ICT safeguards if necessary but our aim will be to keep our social media access flexible and open.
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Recommendation: Focus on the right social media
As with conventional PR, there are several methods for identifying where to focus the organisations social media activity. Finding out where the audience is online Matching the kind of content the organisation can generate to the channel Understanding where to expect the most reach and response Seeing which channel best fits requirements for interactivity Monitoring results and refining the social media activity accordingly (see section below on monitoring and measurement)
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Recommendation: Develop a basic framework Like other organisations working in multi-stakeholder environments, Housing Associations will find it easy to come up with numerous objectives and audiences for social media communications. At the early stage of the organisations involvement in social media, it makes sense to keep the structure as simple as possible. A regular stream of activity on a few pages will be more effective than a larger number of under-utilised pages where content and resources are spread too thinly. A social media agency can help the organisation to set up such a framework. Access to the page may be opened up further still so that anyone may post on there from their personal Facebook accounts. These postings would be subject to moderation by authorised members of staff. In this scenario, customer service teams would also be given admin rights to respond to online comments, questions and complaints from residents and members of the public. To allow for the use of Facebook internally, and for the upload and sharing of YouTube content, some organisations may need to relax permissions, increase bandwidth or both. People will be encouraged to Like the Facebook page. Ideally, the Housing Association adopting social media would review
its website to ensure it is social media friendly. This is not a requirement, however, nor need it be particularly onerous or expensive. For example, the simple addition of Facebook and Twitter buttons linking to the appropriate feed is an easily achievable first step. Other ways of promoting the Facebook page include advertising via digital and conventional communications such as customer newsletters. Ultimately, the social nature of these media are the best form of advertising as residents who are Facebook Friends with fellow residents see each other interacting with the page. In this way, much as news spreads by word of mouth in the offline world, communities of people will quickly learn about the existence of a new Facebook page that is relevant to them.
Comms
Staff
Information may flow both ways, from customers as well as to them There are several permutations of social media configurations that Housing Associations might adopt. In this model, content is posted by a variety of authorised people to a Company Facebook page. The page is branded with the Housing Associations logo and colourways etc. Designated staff post updates on the Facebook Company page, and these posts automatically also appear on Twitter. Involved residents may also be given access rights, at the organisations discretion, to post on the Facebook page.
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Model for business development
Monitoring activity on the various social media channels can be illuminating, especially the feedback and input that comes from residents, prospects and customers. While the level of activity by residents and other non-staff users is not likely to be sufficient at the outset to see patterns developing, individual comments can still help the organisation to respond
and develop. It is important to have a monitoring function in place with a designated moderator and systems for ensuring that customer services do respond to legitimate enquiries. Management should monitor the effectiveness of whatever arrangements are put in place for this process. The communications team should also review progress against targets and think about how the organisation can adapt and improve its social media programme in line with the changing technology and the developing priorities of the organisation.
Comms
For teams within a Housing Association that have products or services to sell, social media is a natural extension of the networking that they already do offline . In this model, business development staff use their own professional profiles to link with potential prospects and customers via LinkedIn and join and participate in relevant LinkedIn Groups. Communications staff help to keep the organisations corproate LinkedIn page regularly updated, and prospects and customers are encouraged to follow he LinkedIn page by the business development staff.
Example targets for a resident involvement programme Gain 50/100 Likes on Facebook per business Find 50/100 Followers on Twitter Staff to post a minimum of three updates a week Comms team to post a minimum of one update a week Involved resident to post a minimum of one update a month Ensure at least three quarters of updates include a link
Example targets for business development programme Recommendation: Monitor, measure, respond and evolve Gain 25/ 50 LinkedIn company page followers per business As with any communications programme, it is important to have objectives and targets for social media activity, and to regularly review progress against them. In the fast moving world of new media, this is perhaps even more important than with other forms of communications. Staff to post a minimum of one update a week to company page Comms team to post a minimum of one update a week Ensure at least three quarters of updates include a link
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Recommendation: Managing Risk In our experience, there are two common concerns among organisations of all kinds about getting involved with social media. The first is that it will involve extra work for already busy management and officers. The second is that it will provide a platform for public criticism of the organisation. Most people new to social media correctly predict that the majority of the time required to manage them is in generating content. However, as previously noted, Housing Associations already generate a great deal of content that can easily be uploaded as is or in an edited format. Several online tools make it possible to update multiple social media channels with the same update while moderating feeds can be made a simple by setting up email alerts to the appropriate personnel. Some other risks are that staff could accidentally post information that because of its content or tone offends some customers. This is no more of a risk with social media than other forms of communication and can generally be easily corrected. In organisations where firewalls prevent access to social media, managers may worry about staff wasting their time on Facebook and other social media. Again, staff motivation and distraction are not issues unique to social media but a clear social media policy can help to create parameters that prevent staff from misusing social media during work time. Risks involving employees highlight the need for a social media policy within an organisation. This should ensure professional behaviour and legitimate usage of work tools in the same way as do codes of conduct for customer service and email usage policies. A growing number of personnel are likely to use social media more often in their work to reach their target audiences as these media become more widespread, more influential and the preferred communication media for their audiences. Thanks to the rise of smart phones, this is already happening, even in organisations that prevent access to social media sites via their networks. Since people are already using social media for professional reasons and likely to do so in growing numbers, it makes sense to look at giving direction, coordination and support so that their interactions with service users and stakeholders strengthen, and are consistent with, other professional communications.
We have created our own Social Media Policy which means we can remove offensive comments or people at any time, and take concerns offline.
- Housing Association Marketing Manager To deal with the second concern first, it is of course easy to imagine a nightmare scenario where one particularly hard to please resident launches a tirade of abuse about a Housing Association on its Facebook page. Then because of the social nature of these media, others could jump on the bandwagon and social media might then be seen to be inflaming a situation. There are three lines of defence here. Firstly, Housing Associations should consider whether or not to allow residents to post onto their pages. If customer relations are in particularly bad shape, this may be a sensible strategy while things are sorted out. Secondly, the page should be moderated. Abusive comments can be removed with an explanatory comment that posts must confirm with social norms and Facebook policy. This is a strategy successfully employed by at least one major retailer. Thirdly, any criticism or complaint can be turned to an organisations advantage if it is dealt with publicly, demonstrating via social media that the organisation is genuinely engaged and responsive. It is or this reason that, as previously mentioned, organisations may wish to involve customer services as well as communications teams in monitoring their social media feeds.
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Recommendation: Social Media Policy Housing Associations may choose to set either a policy with fixed rules covering all areas of social media use, or more general guidelines, allowing people to exercise their judgement in particular situations. Either way, these are a natural adjunct to the organisations Internet policy and wider rules at work. The policy should define, ideally with clear examples, what can and cant be posted, creating safeguards in areas such as commercial sensitivity, use of appropriate language, sensitive subject matter and privacy. It is worth remembering that Facebook is officially open to anyone over 13 years of age but that younger children may also be online. Social media is about conversations and human interaction so the enlightened organisation will want to give a human face to those posting on its behalf. Just as it is good to get to know people on a personal level before doing business with them, it is advantageous to allow some posts about personal experiences and life outside the organisation. Clearly, this is an area where some ground rules need to be set. Similarly, those posting on behalf of the Housing Association should be aware of the rules of copyright and avoid passing off other peoples material as their own. The social media policy need not be an epic tome. A simple extension of existing rules regarding communications in general, and online communications in particular, in the organisation should suffice.
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BENEFIT FROM HOPWOOD PRS EXPERIENCE
Harness the power of social media: Where next? Whether or not a Housing Association has taken any first steps into the world of social media, it makes sense to review the situation to ensure the organisation benefits fully from the opportunities of social media and addresses all the risks. Hopwood PRs consultancy team can assist with this process and ensure the organisation has a clear way forward to make the most of these powerful new media. Please contact us for more information about our consultancy services. to be. Rapport creates the groundwork to build a really effective presence on social networks including LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, making connections that wouldnt happen through ordinary communications, and lifting the Housing Associations community engagement to a new level by harnessing the power of social media.
Train your people to use social media as a powerful engagement tool Hopwood PR provides bespoke training sessions for organisations wanting to discover more about, and make better use, of social media. It follows on well from Rapport, with trained staff able to deal with all aspects of managing social media, including managing risk and monitoring results, and fully equipped to take over the running of your new social media infrastructure seamlessly from the hopwood team.
Get everyone involved and focused on your priorities Every organisation has different priorities. One thing all organisations have in common, however, is social media champions , newbies and sceptics . A good way, in our experience, to get everyone including residents representatives - involved and buying in to the idea of using social media effectively is to run a workshop. This helps you to identify ways that social media can be particularly effective in your organisation and get people on board with the idea. Hopwood PR has run a number of successful workshops and training sessions introducing social media to a range of organisations. To look into organising a workshop for your Housing Association, please contact us.
Conclusion Using social media channels is a natural extension of the organisations existing communications. It is a cost-effective way to extend the ability to communicate, influence and engage. Hopwood PR can help you to make it happen.
The painless way to manage risk with a social media strategy and policy Writing strategy and policy documents is time consuming, especially in new areas of activity such as social media. An external consultant with experience in the field can work with you and prepare a social media strategy and policy for you. Please contact Hopwood PR to access our social media planning and risk management expertise.
Call Claire at Hopwood PR on 0116 254 4472 or email claire@hopwood.co.uk to start planning your social media campaign.
Create a new way to engage with communities with Rapport Hopwood PRs social media package, Rapport, is a powerful yet affordable suite of services, taking your online presence to the next level. Rapport covers set up, design, content management, interaction and reporting across all the major social media platforms, making sure your organisation is seen - and in on the conversation - everywhere you need
Duncan Hopwood Ltd 55 Regent Road, Leicester LE1 6YF Tel 0116 2855725
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