Social Media
Candid Advice for Smooth Surfing
By Sarah Hoey, CMCA, AMS, PCAM S
ocial media can be a valuable conduit for connection and affirmation in our communities. However, conditions online
are not always favorable to smooth surfing. Social media is notoriously unhelpful for working toward cooperative solutions to complex common-interest concerns. Undaunted, the occasional ill wind should never blow us off course from serving our communities by managing common resources to the best of our abilities.
I am not a fan of being glued to every post or scrolling through negative comments. The community I manage has over 4,700 homes, with a wide mix of residents from tech savvy to outdoor enthusiasts and young families to retirees. So, what’s a winning combination when it comes to communicating with a diverse community? Collaborative, positive, messaging.
Don’t be glued to every post or scroll through negative comments.
Our community is unique in that the HOA is supported by another onsite organization, which was created by the developer to handle all community-official social media, website hosting, eblasts, and blogs. This organization has a social media specialist and graphic designer on their team. We collectively work with the city, county, sheriff,
26 Community Associations Journal | April 2023
commercial properties, and builders to push appropriate, timely and meaningful messages out to the community on a consistent basis. In addition, we have adopted a custom stand-alone mobile application for the community which allows all owners to have HOA information in the palm of their hands. With one click we can send out messages to the entire community and they in turn can contact us and upload photos to report items such as a damaged tree or downed signs. The communication loop is constant between all organizations involved and the result is more efficient, transparent reporting, with timely resolutions.
The result is efficient, transparent reporting, with timely resolutions.
Official Sites and Online Conduct
Our strategy has been to host an official social media page that allows outside posts. However, we have strict rules and any inappropriate posts on the official page are promptly removed and individual accounts can be blocked from the platform for violation of those rules. Of course, we cannot regulate unofficial posts on the more than 100 million other platforms that exist. Since it is safe to assume that some form of social media is actively used by most people, your organization might consider creating a social media policy for board members, committee members, and staff to restrict posts that display a conflict-of-interest or breach association confidentiality on unofficial media. Below is a generic example of social media language that might be included in a confidentiality and conflict of interest form distributed
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