Coastal Housing using Social Media

‘Find us on Facebook’, ‘Follow us on Twitter’ and ‘I’ll Facebook you’, have become common phrases used in our day-to-day lives.

Social Media has now become part of everyday life and there is nowhere to hide! With more than 800 million active users on Facebook and over 300 million tweets being sent every day, we’ve decided to get involved and have started using Social Media to communicate with our tenants


We launched our Facebook page at the AGM back in September, with the help of local Social Media Coach Natalie Reynolds (www.natreynolds.co.uk).

Natalie has helped us understand the benefits of using Facebook and Twitter to communicate important and interesting messages to our tenants.

Similar to HomeFront, we will be using Facebook & Twitter to send out regular updates, including the latest on our developments, photos from the social circle events, services and important local information, such as changes in waste collections, snow closures etc.

We’ve had a great response from our tenants so far, with a range of people ‘liking’ our page proving that it’s not just for the ‘youngsters’ - Come and join us at:
www.facebook.com/CoastalHousing
www.twitter.com/CoastalHousing

Even if you don’t have an account on Facebook you’ll still be able to see the latest updates! We’d love to hear what you’d like to see on our Facebook page!

Here are some Top Tips to stay safe on Facebook:

• Don’t put your personal information on your Facebook profile

Edit your profile to limit the amount of information you display on your profile, to prevent identity fraud. These include your birthday, address and phone number.

• Be careful when posting photographs of you or your children on Facebook

Ensure you visit your Privacy Settings to restrict what visitors who are not your friends can see. It is advisable to set all of your settings to ‘Friends Only’.

•   Don’t accept all Friend Requests
  If you do not know someone who has sent you a friend request, then do not accept it, as unfortunately some profiles are fake or people have a hidden agenda. When you accept a friend request, you are allowing them to see your personal information, pictures and updates.
  
  
  • Watch out for friends tagging photos of you
  All sorts of photos get posted to Facebook including those you wouldn’t want your colleagues or
  family to see. Either change your privacy settings so that you have to approve the tag or imediately remove the tag.
  
  
  • Be cautious about what you write on your wall
  Without realising it you may not only be telling your ‘trusted’ friends that you’ll be taking your two weeks holiday. If this information gets into the wrong hands you could have an unwanted visitor whilst you’re away. If your friends are people that you know and trust, then this shouldn’t be an issue.
  
  
  • Make sure you log out from your account
  If you’re accessing your Facebook account in a public place, make sure you log out as someone may find it funny to post an update pretending to be you, which could get you into
  trouble!
  •  Report any form of bullying or abuse
  If you see any form of hate speech, threats, graphic violence, bullying or spam you should report it immediately to Facebook.
  Here are steps that you can take:
  • Unfriend the person to remove them from your friend list
  • Block the person from contacting you
  • Report the person if their behaviour is abusive
  • Review your privacy settings
  For more information about Safety on Facebook, visit: www.facebook.com/help/safety where there are also some useful resources for parents.