YOUR TRUSTED COMMUNICATIONS PARTNER
From the long term strategic journey to mapping out reputational challenges, Social is trusted by C-suite and in-house teams to handle housing sector communications. Your partner for protecting reputations, navigating the sensitive issues facing the sector and communicating complex change.
As you work hard to win hearts and minds, change perceptions and engage residents and stakeholders under the scrutiny of the media, government and the regulator, we work with you to develop robust communications strategies for:
- Your purpose and impact through Environmental, Social and Governance commitments
- Reputational issues such as quality, health and safety, cladding and tenant empowerment
- The regeneration and development of your estate considering net zero ambitions
- Your preparedness for the future through mergers and acquisitions
- Cost of living crisis and tenant engagement
- Capacity challenges that you face
Out of hours crisis support
Our out of hours support service can provide the urgent assistance you need in a reputational crisis. With a dedicated team on-call to help you with:
- Crisis communications strategy and counsel
- Media responses and statement development
- Horizon scanning
- Social media monitoring
Your expert team
Our team of housing sector communications experts, built environment specialists and former journalists, including the editor of Social Housing magazine, is trusted by the affordable housing sector for its strategic insight and creative delivery.
Luke Cross
Luke leads Social Invest, a communications consultancy working both investor-side and sector-side in the placemaking and built environments, supporting organisations with how they tell their story around ESG, socially responsible investment and purpose-driven finance. Former editor of Social Housing magazine, he was also a director at Ocean Media, where he led the launch of a housing business intelligence platform.
Luke has worked with the likes of Hyde Group, The Housing Finance Corporation and The Good Economy, across a range of ESG focused initiatives including ESG strategy and reports, investor relations content and resident engagement.
Becki Ord
An NCTJ accredited former journalist, features editor and CIPR Diploma qualified practitioner, Becki combines a sharp sense for newsworthy stories with excellent writing, communication skills and storytelling ability. She is extremely knowledgeable about property, regeneration, built environment and corporate PR.
At Social she heads up the PR team and leads strategic PR and media relations campaigns for several high-profile clients including The Growth Company, Care Leaver Covenant and One Manchester, as well as supporting clients with crisis and issues management.
An experienced media trainer, Becki uses her journalism and PR skills to advise senior management teams and the C-suite to help equip them with the skills, confidence and techniques to communicate more effectively and get their messages across in all kinds of media opportunities.
The Social Invest team has helped us to define and communicate our environmental, social and governance messaging. We were really impressed with their detailed and extensive knowledge of the social housing sector and in particular, their understanding of social housing finance and the ESG landscape. It has helped us to get our message across more clearly to stakeholders and investors and to showcase the benefits our work makes to Hyde residents and the wider communities in which we operate.
Carol Jones Director of Communications, Marketing and Public Affairs, The Hyde Group
Communication was at the core of our merger plans and Social worked closely with us to ensure this was successful.
They understood the communities and the sector and were able to adapt to changing circumstances to deliver a flexible programme during lockdown.
Their support for our Community Fund was testament to their collaborative approach and helped to make a lasting impact in the city.
Anna Klimczak Chief Executive Officer, Brighter Places
Hexagon first engaged Social to assist us with co-ordinating our communications in response to an unexpected “sink hole” that opened up on a new build development. This necessitated the decanting of the entire development and significant remedial works. We were very pleased with their work, and we have gone on to engage them to help co-ordinate communications relating to fire safety remedial works on two of our larger estates. We have found Social to be insightful, flexible, and easy to work with and we have been very pleased with their input on all three projects.
Tom McCormack Chief Executive, Hexagon Housing AssociationWho we work with
