Association Website or Association Social Media page or both, which does your Association use and why?

My Association currently has it's own website.

There will be discussion at the next board meeting concerning having a social media site. Personally, I'm unclear at this time if it's in addition to or instead of.

So I can make a more informed decision, I would be curious what internet presence your Association has and why?

If you chose one (website/social media) over the other (social media/website) why?

If you don't have a presence, why not?

Thanks to everyone who participates.

Tim

My HOA has a private web site. It is accessible only by login of Members. I think it is about five years old. It has governing documents, Minutes, financial statements and similar on it. Facebook has never been considered. There is no inclination to change. Were someone to propose switching to Facebook, I would vote no. This is despite the reality that the HOA would save money by "using" it. Not everyone has a Facebook account. I have a phony Facebook account so I can access certain other Facebook sites. Otherwise, I find Facebook hard to navigate. I feel Zuckerberg built Facebook with the sole goal of maximizing page views. That means it is still an online platform catering to a clientele whose interests I do not particularly share. Also anytime Facebook changes the way material is presented means HOA members would have to make an adjustment.

We have a website - very underutilized in my opinion because it's quite outdated and the current board really doesn't do much to promote it, although the web address was posted on the new community signs we got last year.. Given the lack of participation among the homeowners in my community, I think having a Twitter or Facebook account would likely be a waste of time.

A few homeowners, including myself, did join a group on the NeXT Door website - our now deceased president started it after sending invites to everyone on the homeowner list who had an email. Around the time he passed away, I think there were only 7 people on it and I don't think his wife knows the password or whatever you need for someone else, perhaps a board member, to take it over.

If your community does go the social media way, NextDoor might be a great way to start, as several communities in our area participate and everyone shares all sorts of information, ranging from new restaurants to coyotes (that was yesterday's announcement). The city and county have also begun posting information, which makes it more useful.

Our HOA has an HOA-owned website where business documents, announcements and social activities are posted. It is only for members and is password-protected. About 15% of the entire membership has asked for password access. It is a very expensive website for so few people and the board must maintain parallel paper records for those who refuse to sign on.

There is an owner-owned Facebook site which is a private group; it is only available to those who are looked upon favorably by the owner and is perceived as a clique worse than the Pool Gossipers.

There is an independent forum that is owned and administered by an owner that shadows all business content and in addition hosts interactive discussion about all community matters. Registration is optional but reading is open to all. Unregistered Guest posts are monitored prior to publishing. It has a higher following than the formal website.

The HOA continues to post business records on an outdoor, glassed in bulletin board for passers-by to squint at. Few elderly will tolerate standing in a public area in the hot Florida sun and/or rain, competing with people trying to get to their mailboxes, to read business in 10 pt font size. But, it fulfills the statutory requirement to post notices!

Among the three, Facebook has the most active group on a daily basis but it is mostly "yakking" about nonsense. I do not participate on Facebook and I do not believe it has any place in legitimate association business. Florida is mandating that ALL condos have a formal website by July 1, 2018 and it will probably be followed by a similar requirement for HOA's. This is another reason to avoid using public social media as a primary means of business communication. One cannot post business records, contracts, minutes and financials on a Facebook page.

Our retirement community is still one that is largely cyber-impaired/scared but as attrition happens among the elderly owners, more owners utilize the websites. HOA's directors could do a lot more to welcome the digital learning curve and transition away from paper if it chose to do that--or are forced to by new statutes!

Take a look at home much extra your MC charges for that. Ours wanted $750 a year for an outdated, insecure website of questionable usefulness. We passed.

We have neither a website or a FB page. Well, the new secretarty did set up a FB page and started a "friends" group, or whatever they're called, where we'll share our basic un-classified and public information such as copies of our governing documents and our Disclosure Summary. This group will be composed mainly of realtors in the county. For more sensitive things such as our budget, monthly financial reports, meeting minutes, list of owners, etc., we eventually want to put these online behind some kind of password restricted access. We have a third category of sensitive and/or privileged documents that consist of more private information such as owners emergency contact info, executive session minutes, delinquency reports, employee evaluations, etc. and we want these to be under ANOTHER password-protected area of the website.

We're not there yet since we're fairly certain nobody (except for myself and a few others) would use it.

Florida condo associations with 150 or more units must have a website by July 2018. Notably, the statutory requirements seem to rule out using FB since a modicum of ownership and control seem to be necessary and with FB you have none of that. Post something to FB and while you retain ownership, FB reserves the right to scan it, data mine it, aggregate it, and share it with anyone they want including advertisers. If this bit of condo legislation is carried across to HOAs in the future, it would still not apply to us since we've got less than 150 homes in the association.

I have never logged onto FB. For what it's worth, they track you even if you only use a "fake" account. They build a profile of you based on what websites you visit, what you like to buy, what your interests are, who your friends are, etc. Your real name is essentially irrelevant. They know you by your online travels, not your name.

If anyone in my HOA ever entertains the idea of storing our official records on FaceBook I will blow a gasket. I don't want to risk my private payment history, for example, to the entire world. And I'm sure those who have been delinquent in their assessments from time to time over the last 7 years wouldn't be too happy about that either.

We have a private website run by our MC that requires a unique login and PW (i.e. not shared between users). We don't have a Facebook or other social media site, though I suppose nothing's actually stopping anyone from creating an unofficial one. But for official use, I would not use social media due to the lack of control an HOA would have over it.

I envision our future website as being non-interactive as well. One-way communication from the association to the outside world and homeowners. In a perfect world it would have some sort of ticket-tracking system where owners could track the status of their architectural, maintenance and landscaping requests & work orders.

We are on Next Door that is all .I would like a web site because I feel we could have things on it like the CC&R and By laws and any future updates to those .
I also think it would be nice to let others know
How you get the street light replaced ( when the light burnt out we had no real idea on who to call )
Who we contact when the well we have is down ( which happens a lot and we are the only subdivision in the town who is on a well ) ( oh and its not free like I and others assumed when we moved in )
Who we contact for power outages .

Who is the president vice president etc... how to contact them

plus other things which may come up

Current pmc has a very basic web site its not very well done so I would definitely not want them to do it .

If we could switch pmc then we would have one made for us

My association has all of our documents (CC&Rs, Bylaws, Meeting Minutes, etc.) posted on OneDrive with access allowed to members of our community.

The community (but not the HOA) also has a private Facebook Group for social interaction only. No HOA business is allowed on the Facebook group. Rumors can start and propagate so fast on social media it really has to be watched closely. Also, things can become negative very quickly which is why no HOA business is allowed. The types of things that are often seen posted on our Facebook group are pictures of wildlife (we are a rural community with minimum 5 acre lots), people looking for walking/exercise partners, questions about vendors (internet, plumbing, heating oil, etc.) or the latest antics of the neighborhood gnomes. The Facebook group also serves as an excellent means of communication for an unofficial neighborhood watch. We have found our Facebook group has really helped to build a sense of community.

We have looked into Next Door and were not impressed. There seems to be limited local control--Next Door makes the rules.

My thanks to everyone who responded.

It seems that a majority of respondents prefer a website over social media because of the controls the Association has.

This will help me at our next meeting.

Tim

Tim,

I have a website that is controlled by only me. We have a voluntary, unregistered, Unincorporated, Nonprofit, association. Our president doesn't like me having secured the domain name "Xxx.org, and registering the "Xxx Neighborhood Association" as an Unincorporated Nonprofit Association with the Secretary of State.

He announced to the neighborhood that

"... any neighborhood information that goes online is neither approved nor endorsed by the Executive Committee. Also, any official information about the Special Meeting in January, our Annual Meeting in March, or our status as an HOA will come from me."

I included this disclaimer prominently on the home page. I also included the statement: This site does not speak for the HOA, and may express different views than those expressed by the HOA.

Gary

I own the website for our neighborhood. It was previously owned by another owner but wasn't updated. Its now more current and free to bc it was set up on the original google sites when it was free. We also have a Nextdoor and FB group. ND being the highest participation with about 25% of the neighborhood joining.

As we are still developer controlled we don't have board direction on any of these.