This week, communications professionals from across the housing sector came together in London, for the Inside Housing Communications Conference, including Social’s Head of London office, Matt Geer.

Here are his top 5 takeaways from the one-day conference:

1. Trust is becoming the currency of housing communications

The housing sector remains under great scrutiny after the tragedies of recent times, which leaves communicators needing to play a central role in rebuilding and protecting trust of providers, especially with residents and customers.

This means moving beyond simply telling people what your organisation is doing and starting to demonstrate that your communications are informed by resident experience, insight and feedback. Are you demonstrating that you understand their priorities or best articulating where services have been co-produced?

There was a strong theme across the conference on the need to focus on customer voice while building your reputation through authenticity and transparency.

2. AI should enhance communications not replace the human connection

Of course, AI remains a hot topic for communicators in any sector. It’s firmly part of the communications toolkit now, but there’s still a conversation to be had about how to use it responsibly and effectively.

Sessions at the conference reflected what AI can bring – improved efficiency, content creation, insight generation and smarter working processes – but also the need to retain human judgement, authenticity and editorial oversight.

The need for balance between human storytelling and AI tools was highlighted in one of the earlier sessions and conversations throughout the day kept returning to the impact of AI. As we say at Social, you need to speak fluent human – so use AI tools to make communications better and more efficient, not make them less human.

3. Content needs to cut through — relevance beats volume

In a world where we are bombarded by content all day, every day, the answer to achieving cut through isn’t to just add to the noise by producing more content and hoping some of it will work.

Quality, not quantity is what will get your messages out there, and this conference raised the following questions you should ask:

• Who are we trying to reach?
• What matters to them?
• What do they need to think, feel or do?
• What channel and format will work best?
• How can we make this feel relevant to their lives?

Going back to our first takeaway, your communications need to be audience-first, not organisation-first. Make your content distinctive, human, visual and place-based to make it relevant.

4. Resident experience and communications are increasingly inseparable

One of the biggest strategic points for housing comms is that communications can’t fix a poor service, but poor communications can make a poor service experience considerably worse.

Repairs, complaints, safety and customer service are all communication moments. Setting expectations, explaining what is happening, listening properly and closing the feedback loop are therefore part of the resident experience, not simply a comms function.

With the Tenant and Resident Engagement Conference also happening this week exploring some similar themes, around repairs, the importance of embedding learnings from resident experience in every aspect of communications, engagement and experience appears paramount.

5. Communications professionals need to become even more strategic

This conference brought together communications, engagement and public affairs, reflecting how interconnected these disciplines are in 2026. The housing communicator of 2026 is increasingly needing to be a strategist + storyteller + adviser + insight specialist + reputation manager.

That brings me to what felt like the overarching message from another fascinating Inside Housing Communications Conference:

Housing communications in 2026 is less about communicating what the organisation is doing, and more about understanding what people need, building trust and influencing meaningful change.

As we begin looking ahead to what 2027 will bring for housing following party conference season and the Autumn Budget, the importance of cultivating space for communicators across the sector to connect, learn and innovate remains vital.

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Written by Matt Geer, Head of London Office