From 1-31 October 2024, we ran a survey to ask residents what they thought of Hastoe residents’ Facebook page and whether they had ideas for using it differently. We were also interested to know if more residents would like to join the page.
We did this because Hastoe’s Facebook page was originally created as a way to help residents share information, ideas and activities, as well as for Hastoe to share news and updates. However, over recent years, we have noticed there has been less interest and most of the posts by residents are about issues that have already been reported to us online via MyHastoe or over the phone to our Customer Service Centre. So we decided to survey residents and this seemed like a good time to do it because the Facebook page is coming up for its 10th anniversary.
We promoted the survey to all tenants via the October edition of our tenant e-newsletter (4,027 recipients) and on our Facebook page (371 registrations).
Results of the survey
Total responses:
- 18 tenants
- 0 home owners
Of the 18 tenants who responded:
- 7 are registered on Hastoe’s Facebook page (38.9%)
- 11 are not registered on Hastoe’s Facebook page (61.1%)
Of the 7 tenants who are registered:
- 3 found it useful (42.9%), 4 were not sure (57.1%), no-one said it wasn’t useful (0%)
- 1 person said it couldn’t be used differently (14.3%)
- 6 were not sure if it could be used differently (85.7%)
- 1 said “I feel you need to maintain the page as a point of contact regarding issues which, although as you say should be or have been resolved.”
Of the 11 tenants who are not registered:
- 4 were interested in registering (40%)
- 4 were not sure (40%)
- 2 were not interested in registering (20%)
- 1 didn’t respond to the question
Of those who said they were interested in joining, one person said they would like to “keep up to date and maybe contributing”, another said they would like to use it for “communication with other residents and hearing about repairs, etc”.
Conclusions
The very low response rate makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions especially given the responses were mixed.
- One interpretation could be that the low response rate indicates there is very little interest from residents in our Facebook page. This is also reflected in the fact that, of the 7 tenants who are currently registered, only 3 said they find it useful and that, of the 11 tenants who aren’t currently registered, only 4 said they are interested in registering.
- Another interpretation is that there might be greater interest from residents if the page could be made more useful. After all, none of the 7 registered tenants said it wasn’t useful and around 80% of the 11 tenants who weren’t registered were potentially interested in the page.
In light of this, we have decided to review how we manage the Hastoe Facebook page and aim to share more content which may be of interest to residents. We will also make greater efforts to support residents to share information, ideas and activities with each other.
You can see some examples of where we have previously done this and worked with residents to publish their top tips and advice on our website:
How to furnish your home at little to no cost by resident Nina Raisbury
How to transform your garden on a budget by resident Angela Holland
If you’re a Hastoe resident and on Facebook, but not yet registered, please consider signing up!
