Using Social Media to Move Home

Social media is a great platform to quickly share and communicate with friends and family, and where we can discover lots of useful information.

Moving home is both exciting, stressful, and usually a life-changing event so you will likely want to share the highs and lows of your home-moving experience on your profile.

And if you have never moved home before you may turn to social media for advice or recommendations for removal firms.

But whilst social media can be extremely useful, it is also filled with less desirable elements of society who use the information you post online for illegal activities.

So in this week’s home moving blog, we will look at how useful social media can be when moving home, but we will also highlight the things you should not use social media for when moving home.

You may also like to read: How AI Can Make Your Home Move Easier. In this guide, we explore how using artificial intelligence can make your home move easier but also highlight the risks of trusting AI.

Using Social Media to Help You Move Home

Social media can be a really useful source of information and help when moving home, especially if you are moving to an unfamiliar part of the country or abroad.

So how can you use social media to make your home move easier, cheaper, and less stressful?

Using Social Media to Decide Where to Move To

Using a search engine such as Google to learn about an area you are moving to will give you lots of results.

The problem is that often the information you are presented with is old and outdated.

The beauty of social media is that it is instant, it is in real-time.

Most cities, towns, and even villages have their own Facebook pages for example.

This is a great way to discover what is going on now and to find real-time information from people who actually live in the place that you are considering moving to.

So let’s say we want to move to Devon.

How can Facebook for example help us do that? What Facebook pages might we find useful to help us decide where in Devon to live?

The local council’s Facebook page is always a good place to start. Devon County Council  

From their profile page, you could click on the groups tab which loads a list of local groups in Devon.

So Tavistock looks interesting.

I click on there and it loads the community pages for Tavistock.

A scroll through the photos and it looks lovely.

I think I will rent a place before I decide exactly where to relocate in Devon, and on the Tavistock page I find a country house that has rooms to rent. Perfect.

10 minutes on Facebook and I have found a place I really like the look of and a room to rent.

Just on today’s posts, I can see recommendations for local builders, cleaners, volunteer work, and a job vacancy at the Tavyside Health Centre.

Lots of useful contacts and information that a person moving home might need.

Your search will obviously be more considered than the one I just did, but as you can see, there is an untold amount of useful, real-time information right at your fingertips which you can find without leaving the comfort of your settee.

Join local Facebook groups to ask questions that concern you about moving to a certain area and to find out from locals what it is really like to live there.

Don’t forget to seek out the local neighbourhood watch Facebook page where there will be lots of useful information about crime levels in the area you are thinking of moving to.

You may also like to read: How to Decide Where to Move Next. In this guide, we suggest 12 questions to ask yourself when deciding where to move to.

Using Social Media to Prepare Your Home Move

Now that we have decided where to move next, we now need to find out how to move home.

So that we can find out exactly how much our removal costs will be we could search for local removals in Romford Facebook on Google.

That returns 87,000 results and we have no idea whether these are real or legitimate companies, we are leaving ourselves open to the possibility of being scammed.

Next, we search for a reputable removal company review Facebook page.

Facebook.com/removalreviews/  loads and from here we can get a quote for our home move.

We can also see that there is a ton of useful home moving advice, from how to pack moving boxes to how to negotiate with a removal company.

Click on the link at the top of the Facebook page we can instantly get an estimated cost for our upcoming relocation.

We can see that the removal firms are prevetted so we know that they are legitimate companies.

Click on the link to the removalreviews website and we can search ourselves for local removals in Romford, read their reviews, and request a quote.

One of the most important things to do when moving home is to declutter so that you only move the things you really need to your new home.

This will save you time and money when moving, and make your new home less cluttered.

You may also like to read: How to Declutter for a Home Move. Nothing will make your home move cheaper and easier than decluttering. In this guide, we take you room by room through the process of decluttering your home.

You can use social media to find local charities where you can donate the things you no longer need.

So, for example, a quick search on Facebook for places to donate furniture to a charity in Romford brings up Lighthouse Furniture Project .

You may also like to read: Where to Donate Things When Moving Home. In this guide, we have listed places where you can donate household items by the type of item you wish to donate.

If you are planning on doing your own packing for your home (consider this very carefully, it is a very time-consuming and potentially expensive part of moving home to do yourself) then use your social media friends and family group to seek out moving boxes.

You could also contact local firms through Facebook to see if they have any free boxes they would be willing to let you have.

If you have valuable items that you intend to move then you should consider investing in some good quality boxes to ensure your items are well protected.

You will also want to update or add friends and colleagues to your friend list on social media before you move so that you can keep in touch with them once you’ve moved.

Doing a self-move will require lots of willing hands, so using your friend list on social media will be a great way to reach out to potential helpers.

Just make sure that you set your profile so that only those selected friends can see the post.

For your safety, ensure that it is not a public post.

You may also like to read: Why Social Proof Matters. In this guide, we look at why reviews, and the opinions of other people moving home, are so important when choosing a removal company for your home move.

This brings us to the don’ts of using social media to move home.

What Not to Post on Social Media About Your Home Move

The beauty of social media is that you can communicate with multiple people simultaneously, unfortunately, that could also mean that you are sharing information that is useful to criminals.

Always ensure that any information you post is only shared with your friends.

Click here to learn how to change your privacy settings on Facebook.

To help protect yourself and your property there are a few things that you should never do on social media.

• Never post publicly that you are moving home. It may be incredibly exciting to be moving to a new city, but potential thieves could use that information to impersonate a removal firm and rob you of your things.
• Never post your new address online. Use private messaging if you share that information. You never know who might view your profile and decide to turn up on your doorstep.
• Be careful of any pictures of the new home you post online. Be cautious that any photos do not include house numbers or street signs, anything that will identify exactly which is your new home.
• Never post photos of your new purchases for your new home. This is guaranteed to bring burglars your way.
• Never announce a leaving party or home warming party on a public forum, who knows who will turn up?
• If you are moving to the other end of the country or even abroad, and are away house hunting, never post the pictures instantly online. Wait until you get back home. Posting in real-time just proves that your house is empty and makes you an easy target for criminals.

Social media is too instant sometimes.

We can post things without thinking it through, or that with hindsight maybe we should not have commented on or posted.

• Do not disclose how much you sold or paid for your home. Unless someone is moving out of or into the same areas, and asks you specifically so that they may make a decision about their own home move, then it is nobody else’s business.
• Don’t use your leaving the area as an excuse to bad mouth it or your old neighbours. There is nothing to be gained from doing that. You have moved away and are starting a new life, no need to drag old feelings with you.

You may also like to read: The Etiquette of Moving Home. In this guide, we look at the do’s and don’ts of etiquette when moving home and why first and last impressions are so important.

How to Announce You Are Moving Home on Facebook

You can tell your friends about your home move via Facebook within the life event setting. How to post a life event on Facebook:

• Click on your profile picture
• Below ‘What’s on your mind’ click ‘life event’
• Select a category
• Ensure you are only sharing this with your friends and click share

Another way to share news of your home move on Facebook is to update the places you have lived. How do you post a ‘moved to status on Facebook with the house symbol?

• From your profile
• Click ‘about’
• Select ‘places you have lived’
• Click ‘add a place’
• Enter what information you want to share
• Ensure that you are only sharing this information with friends not publicly
• When you share the update the house symbol appears stating that you ‘have ‘moved to…’

Here is the link to the Facebook help page that shows you how to do that.

You may also like to read: How to Get Friends to Help You Move Home. In this guide, we offer some tips on how to ask your friends for help when moving home.

Using Social Media to Help You Settle Into a New Neighbourhood

Social media can be a really useful tool to learn about your new neighbourhood and quickly make new friends.

We saw in our earlier example how using the local Facebook groups for an area can unleash a huge amount of local information.

From finding out what time the corner shop opens to where the best place to get your car serviced, there is a wealth of useful information on social media.

Whatever hobby you have, there is sure to be a local Facebook group that caters to that activity.

This is a great way to make friends in a new place as you will have a common interest straight away.

Volunteering is also another great way to get to meet new people. Use searches within Facebook to find volunteering opportunities in your new area.

Most communities have a Facebook group set up, and this can be a great place to find items locally that you may need to set up your new home.

No longer do you have to spend months and months using trial and error to find the best local babysitter, the best coffee shop, or even the best schools.

The best people to ask are always the locals, and social media gives you instant access to them.

As always, be careful that you do not share personal information on a social media platform that someone could use to locate you, or use for criminal activity.

You may also like to read: How to Make Friends in a New Neighbourhood. In this guide, we offer some useful tips on how to make friends after moving home.

Good luck with your home move and don’t forget to visit our home moving blog for lots more useful tips to make your home move easier, quicker, and cheaper.