Why should housing associations use social media to reach their residents?

For many tenants, contacting their housing provider can feel like a chore. Long waits on the phone, confusing automated menus or the uncertainty of whether an email has been received, these experiences are common across the housing sector. 

Yet, at the same time, communities are having daily conversations online, sharing concerns, ideas and support through Facebook groups, WhatsApp chats and even TikTok videos!

This raises an important question: if tenants are already talking online, shouldn’t housing providers be listening and responding there too?

The UK housing sector faces significant pressures: rising demand for affordable homes, stretched maintenance budgets and increasing expectations from tenants. Customer service sits at the heart of these challenges. It’s not just about answering queries. It’s about trust, safety and people’s homes.

Traditionally, housing providers have relied on call centres, letters and office drop-ins. While these remain important, they’re often costly and don’t always reflect the way tenants now choose to engage. For many, social media is their first port of call when something goes wrong, whether it’s a repair request, a rent query or simply to find out what’s happening in their community.

Social media isn’t just a marketing tool. When used well, it can transform the relationship between housing providers and their tenants. Here’s how:

• Cheaper reach: One post can update thousands of tenants at once. For example, notifying residents about bad weather disruptions or system outages
• Speed and visibility: Quick, public responses reduce frustration and show accountability
• Accessibility: Younger tenants and digitally active communities expect to interact online, not just over the phone
• Community building: Social channels create space for dialogue, not just one-way messaging, which can strengthen trust and connection.
  

By treating social media as an extension of customer service, providers can move from being reactive to proactive. This means they’ll be addressing issues early, spotting trends and showing transparency. Building trust is all about closing the feedback loop and showing that not only are you listening to your tenants, you’re acting on what you’re hearing and communicating that back to them.

A strong example comes from Valleys to Coast, a housing provider in South Wales. They’ve gone beyond seeing social media as just a communications tool and have built it into their customer service approach.

• They have a dedicated team managing social platforms daily and responding to queries much like a call centre would through Orlo’s inbox feature
• Using the Orlo platform, they can track service-level agreements (SLAs), report on sentiment and analyse trends in feedback and comments
• The insights gathered aren’t just for show. They actively inform organisational decisions, helping the business understand tenant concerns and improve services.
  

Valleys to Coast demonstrate that when social media is taken seriously as a customer service channel, it can provide both immediate value to tenants and long-term intelligence for the organisation.

Of course, there are hurdles to overcome:

• Digital exclusion: Not every tenant is online or confident with digital tools. Social media should complement, not replace, traditional channels
• Sensitive issues: Some conversations will always need to move offline for privacy or safeguarding reasons
• Consistency: Staff need training and clear processes to ensure tone, response times and escalation routes are professional and reliable.
  

The key is balance: using social media as part of a wider service strategy, not in isolation.

If you’re a housing provider wondering where to start when it comes to building your social media strategy, here are some key things to consider:

1. Audit your current channels: Where are your tenants already active online?
2. Resource it properly: A dedicated team (not just comms staff “on the side”) makes all the difference, if you can afford it. If you can’t, tools can help.
3. Invest in tools: Platforms like Orlo can help manage conversations, track performance, and extract meaningful data all in one place. This boosts efficiency and makes it easy to communicate with your tenants through multiple social channels at once.
4. Train your staff: Equip teams to handle queries with empathy, consistency and professionalism. Our blog on when to reply to comments is a great place to start.

Use the data: Beyond resolving individual cases, look at the bigger picture and ask what are the recurring themes and what can they tell you about your services? Once you’ve got that, make sure you put the data to use and take action on improving the services that tenants complain about the most (or do more of what they love!)

Housing providers are under growing pressure to do more with less. Social media offers an affordable, accessible and transparent way of engaging with tenants,  but only if it’s treated as a genuine service channel rather than an afterthought.

As Valleys to Coast show, the benefits go beyond quicker replies. Social media can provide rich insights, shape organisational decisions and build stronger, more connected communities.

The real question is: if your tenants are already online, can you afford not to be there with them?