Are You Embracing Social Media?

Affordable Housing Finance has taken baby steps into the social networking world over the last couple of months. The magazine’s Facebook group has more than 225 members, it has almost 300 followers on Twitter, and it just created a group on LinkedIn this week.

And the magazine is not the only one in the affordable housing industry out there in the social media world. Mercy Housing, Enterprise Community Partners, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), as well as many industry organizations and state housing agencies are on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Last week, I read an interesting article in Time magazine, http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1896482,00.html?cnn=yes, about President Obama’s administration taking the plunge into social networking. The article said about 30 federal agencies, including HUD, joined Facebook recently. And HUD has also opened up employee access to the social-networking sites, which had previously been off-limits.

It certainly is a sign of the times to see HUD updates when I log into my Facebook account. And it brings up a good question about what these sites mean for you in your day-to-day business.

In my view, it’s a great way to stay updated on new legislation and policy on a state and federal level as well as to see what is going on behind the scenes at the industry’s trade organizations. It’s also a good way for you to get out the news about your developments. Enterprise did a play-by-play last month on Twitter from a ceremony celebrating the renovation of Ontario Court Apartments and the Jubilee JumpStart Early Childhood Development Center in Washington, D.C. Enterprise is proud of the work and the people who helped to make the project happen, so it’s an excellent way to share that news.

There are many ways to utilize these sites to make it informative for you and others. How are you handling the social-networking craze for your business? Take Affordable Housing Finance’s social media survey. We want to know what tools you’re using, what your reservations are, what you want to see from Affordable Housing Finance in terms of social networking, and what you want to learn more about.

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