What this helps you do
Audiences let a message reach the residents it concerns instead of everyone. In a residential community there are two different kinds, and it helps to keep them apart. A PLACE audience says where the message belongs: Building A, Floor 3, Phase 2, East Neighborhood, Townhomes. You create those yourself, named the way residents say them, because every community is organized differently and the Hub does not know where anyone lives until you or the resident put them there. An INTEREST audience says what a resident wants to hear about: onboarding seeds Maintenance & Property Notices, Amenities, Community Events and Parking & Access as interests residents choose on their preferences page, plus Owner & Association Updates for communities that have owners or an association. You always have one All Residents audience that reaches everyone connected and cannot be deleted.
When to use it
Use a place audience whenever a notice fits part of the community and not the rest: a riser shutoff in one building, paving on one phase, an elevator out in one tower, a landscaping day on one street, a gate closed at one entrance. Use an interest audience whenever a message fits some residents and not others: the pool reopening, a community day, a parking policy change, an owners' meeting summary. Use All Residents only when it genuinely concerns everyone, which is what keeps that send rare enough to be read.
How to do it
- Open Audiences.
- Create one place audience per part of the community you would ever address on its own, named the way residents say it. Stacked: Building A, North Tower, Floor 3. Horizontal: Phase 2, East Neighborhood, Townhomes, Lake Section. Only the ones you would actually send to; an audience nobody sends to becomes a stale audience.
- Set a floor or a section to sit Inside its building or phase with Inside audience, so a send to the building or the phase covers everything under it. A child audience only accepts people who are in the parent.
- Choose how people join each one. Interests should stay open so residents pick them on their preferences page. A place can be open (residents choose their own building or street) or the community assigns it; either way, use Bulk assign from Residents to place people once you know where they live.
- Keep Owner & Association Updates if your community has owners or an association, rename it in your own words, or archive it. An apartment community often does not need it.
- Decide per audience whether replies are allowed; leave replies on for anything that asks a resident to arrange a time.
Example
A townhome and single-family HOA creates Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3 and nests the three streets of Phase 2 inside it. When the paving contractor confirms the week, the notice goes to Phase 2, seventy households instead of four hundred, and the residents on those three streets are the only ones asked to move their cars. The same afternoon the pool reopening goes to Amenities, and the owners' meeting summary goes to Owner & Association Updates.
Good to know
- A message goes to one audience. To reach the residents of Building B who chose Amenities, create the audience that describes them, or send to Building B and say what it concerns; the Hub does not intersect a place and an interest for you.
- Audiences are lists that residents choose or you assign. There are no rule-based or dynamic audiences, and the Hub does not read your property system: import, then assign.
- Staff and the board are Hub team roles with their own access, not a resident audience. If you want a closed list for the board, create one and set it to the community assigns; it is never shown on the preferences page.
- Owner & Association Updates is for owner- and association-oriented communication. It is not the board, and it is not every owner by default: residents choose it, or you assign the owners you know.
- Sending to All Residents asks for a step-up confirmation first, on purpose.
- A resident can be in several audiences at once: their building or phase, Amenities and Community Events.
- When a resident moves out they disconnect, or you remove them; the place audience stays and the next resident joins it.
- A manager can be limited to their own community's audiences on the Team screen, both for sending and for reading replies, which is how a management company runs several communities from one place.