An initial overview with a national housing developer on use of social media. The concerns for using social media in the housing market and the possible steps to take next.

1. Social Media Concerns & Steps
HOUSING DEVELOPER

2. What opportunities does social bring?
• Reach wider audiences
• Improve rankings, ratings and SEO
• Increase brand engagement
• Build relationships with prospects and customers
• Research and development
• Build your voice of authority and ownership in the housing market
• Be ahead of your competitors

3. HOUSING DEVELOPER
Concerns

4. What concerns should I consider?
• Reputation
• Security
• Time
• Content
• Organisational buy-in

6. Manage your reputation
• Our networks are bigger
• Check reviews regularly
• Thank publically on your social channels
• Apologise publically on your social channels (we‟re only human after all)
• Retweet, repin and like positive comments
• Claim your venues on Foursquare, Facebook, Places etc.
• Keep your brand voice consistent
• Create brand guidelines and policies
• Have a crisis management plan
• Prepare pre-planned scenario responses (accidents/fatalities on construction site, issues
with parking, snagging, boilers exploding etc.)
• Listen and monitor
• 61% of world class brands have a dedicated social media strategist/manager
• 45% of world class brands create content specifically for social media
Source: Weber Shandwick and Forbes Insights 2011

7. Security
• Using third party tools prevents direct access to account information and gives you
greater control
• Change passwords periodically
• Develop policies and train those who are going to contribute
• Tools allow you to monitor sensitive content being posted on your social networks

8. Time
• Determine internal versus external support
• Make your audiences aware about when you‟re going to be monitoring your
channels (manage expectations)
• Involve the wider organisation
• Use tools to schedule content delivery

9. Content
• Develop a content plan and prepare as much as possible in advance
– Video and infographics
– Facebook applications
– Competitions
– Polls and questions
– Seasonal campaigns
– News stories
– Competitions
– Events, public exhibitions
• Produce original and unique content
• Share user generated content
• Retweeting, sharing, repining information from employees
• Engage in conversations; answer questions and give advice
• It‟s bigger than Facebook and twitter

10. “Are new homes
more energy
efficient?”
“How much will it
cost me to heat my
new house?”
“Should I buy a new
or old house?”

11. Organisational buy-in
Make people part of the process
• Employees are your biggest advocates
• Listen to their ideas
• Give them access to the right tools
• Lead from the top (CEO blog?)

12. Bovis Homes
Next Steps

13. Social media takes two things:
Bravery and Budget

14. Take it in steps
1. Build the social infrastructure
2. Understand the landscape
3. Build a strategy
4. Train your people
5. Launch campaign
6. Tweaking, amending and support

15. Social Infrastructure

16. Corporate
Comms
Northern
Sales &
Marketing
SE Region
Sales &
Marketing
SW Region
Sales &
Marketing
SWales
Region Sales
& Marketing
Central
Region Sales
& Marketing

17. Content
Social Media
Blogs, stories,
responses to
questions, videos,
seeding, responses
to consultation and
construction queries
Customer service
Responding to issues
eg snagging, car
parking etc,
construction issues
Sales
Purchaser questions,
open days, events,
campaign follow-up,
images, plans, offers,
development
updates
Marketing
Campaigns, surveys,
e-mail marketing,
pay-per-click
Central Mktg /
Comms
Corporate updates,
financial/city
updates, reputation
management
PR
Corporate and
regional news,
business profile,
awards, reputation
management, CSR

18. Building a strategy

19. Building a strategy
• What you are trying to achieve
• How you will measure success
• What resources will be required (internal and external)
• Roadmap to the future
• Small steps…
…pick a region

20. Strategic frameworks
Centralised
Social media policy
and strategy derives
from a single
department or
person. Often a
higher-level
department in the
organisation.
Features:
• Consistent
• Not seen as really
authentic
• Slow
Distributed
Less coordinated
than Centralised. At
department-level,
solutions and
initiatives can be
decided and
implemented for the
sake of message
authenticity. This
also ensures a higher
responsibility to the
departments /
individuals. Features:
• Organic growth
• Authentic
• Experimental
• Not coordinated
Hub-and-spoke
Tactical framework
comes from the
centre.
Implementation is
executed in the
decentralised units.
Features:
• Policies and
procedures come
from a central
point (often high-
level)
• Spreads across
the complete
organisation
• Takes time
Multiple Hub-
and-spoke
Similar to the hub and
spoke environment.
Decisions are made at
a product-, brand- or
unit-level, which are
then coordinated at
the same level.
Features:
• Rules and
procedures are
decentralised from
multiple points
• Spreads across the
complete
organisation
• Takes time
Holistic
Each individual
within the
organisation has the
freedom to engage in
social media
initiatives. Not just
„experimenting for
ourselves‟ it is an
holistic approach,
where individual
actions are
coordinated.
Features:
• Each employee is
empowered
• Unlike organic,
employees are
organised

21. Elements of a social business strategy
Planning Presence Engagement Formalised Strategic Converged
Listen to learn Stake our
claim
Dialogue deepens
relationships
Organic for scale Become a social
business
Business is social
Goal
Understand how
customers and
prospects use social
channels
Prioritise strategic
goals where social
can have the most
impact
Amplify existing
marketing
activity
Encourage
sharing
Drive considerations
to purchase
Provide direct
support
Internal employee
engagement
Set governance for
social
Create discipline &
processes
Strategic business
goals
Scale across business
units
Scales into sales,
customer service, HR,
finance, supply chain
Senior level
involvement
Social drives
transformation
Integrates social
philosophy into all aspects
of the organisation
Metrics
Mentions
Sentiment
Share of voice
Fans, followers,
shares
Brand metrics
Traffic
Path to purchase
Lower support costs
Customer satisfaction
Process efficiency
Link to department
Business goals and
ROI
Enterprise metrics Deep analytics tied to
functions & lines of
business
Insights lead to adaptive
and predictive strategies
Initiatives
Listening /
monitoring
Internal audits
Pilot
Social content
Risk
management
Training
Campaigns & long-
term programmes
Social support
communities
Create centre of
excellence
Enter social network
SMMs to scale
employees
Social is part of
planning process
Redefine processes
Organisation-wide training
One strategy process
managed through disparate
but complimentary teams
and efforts
Organisation
&Resources
Monitoring platform
Part-time resources
Agency support
Dedicated
manager
Content
management
Social strategist
Small dedicated teams
SMMs
Staffing up
Common technology
Investment
CoE coordinates hubs
Dedicated „spoke‟
head count
Social is everyone‟s
responsibility

22. Launch Campaign

23. Content
Social Media
Blogs, stories, good
news, videos,
seeding, responses
to consultation and
construction queries
Customer service
Responding to issues
eg snagging, car
parking etc,
construction issues
Sales
Purchaser questions,
open days, events,
campaign follow-up,
plans, offers,
development
updates
Marketing
Campaigns, surveys,
e-mail marketing,
pay-per-click
Central
Mktg/Comms
Corporate updates,
financial/city
updates, reputation
management
PR
Corporate and
regional news,
business profile,
awards, reputation
management, CSR

24. Tweaking, amending and support
• On-going support and training
• Support with researching, writing and scheduling copy
• Monitoring and evaluation
• Training new staff
• Developing new platforms

25. Public Consultation
• Case-by-case
• Use diversion tactics to focus opposition
• Identify and mobilise supporters

26. HOUSING DEVELOPER
Tools for the job

27. Crowd Control • Set up and manage multiple social
profiles
• Audit trail for all content posted on
behalf of the organisation
• Ensure that password policies are
robust to stop the „twitter hackings‟
• Allow multiple users across the
organisation to feed content
• Alerts about content by keywords are
directed to specific individuals meaning
you are aware with the ability to then
respond
• Content can be signed-off before it
goes live
• Collaborate as a team flagging content
to the regions to enable a local
response.
• Set up timely alerts to ensure that both
inbound and outbound content is
flagged to teams / individuals.
• Accessible via PC and mobile devices

28. Monitoring tools
• Google Alerts
• Hootsuite
• Advanced twitter search
• Brandwatch
• Facebook search
• Social mentions

29. Questions?