Mike, to further your point, Ning is likely the coolest single Social Media tool to come out yet, We are launching our Ning Site, tomorrow which will be imbedded into our Web Site and will be a main feature of our Home Page, Here’s the direct link for a sneak peak: http://urbaneapartments.ning.com/, We have scraped our existing Bulletin Board Forum, as it was boring and was not drawing enough comments. Diane has done an outstanding job creating this Ning site for us. It is like having your own My Space site, and …it is free. Chris Anderson maybe on to something here………….
Our thought and direction is this, We have ceased ALL Paid Advertising, both Print Ads and On Line Ads, No Paid Advertising, We believe that Craig’s List is much more effective, for our demographic than any paid for advertising, and coupled with My Space, FaceBook, Twitter, Plurk and all of the other free sites, Marketing and Branding efforts and direction have changed. It is not how it used to be. While this may be a radical approach, which may or may not work, We are focusing all of our Marketing and Branding efforts inward, and focused on our existing Resident Base, tapping first our Influencers to foster creating Urbane Evangelist and Community. Our web site comes up on page one of a local Google Search for apartments, and if we can create and sustain enough buzz from this new Social Media, What if the Apartments and Features became Secondary, and you drove so much traffic to your Web Site because of the Social Media Value that both your Residents and future Residents found, that they just had to live at your property. That is our focus, and we are dove tailing several innovative ideas into this program, such as our Virtual Leasing Consultant, and Centralized Leasing Center which I will provide more detailed blog posts herein in the days ahead to share with the community and readers. Our new direction may or may not work, but I am gambling it will, and That Business as Usual may Never be the Same,
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Hats off to your new approach, and the launch of your Ning site. It’s great to see businesses embracing the Evolving Web (my term) and Social Media to connect with consumers. I’ve been following this trend for several years now, since reading a Business 2.0 article called “Companies Tap into Consumer Passion”. Biz 2.0 was asking three years ago: how will companies create, find and communicate with their evangelists and passionate consumers? Well, we know now how this is taking place. That article sparked me to start a blog called ConsumerPassion, and even though I don’t live/work in your area, I’ll be sure to keep tabs on the progress of your new social media community approach. Best wishes as you blaze the trail ….
I have to somewhat disagreed with your view on advertising and marketing. I personally hate Craig’s List and find that more garbage than treasure comes from the website in my area. I do agree that most of your advertising can be free and online based. However if I walk or drive by a property at 11 pm at night, will your landlord be available to tell me how many bedrooms the unit has and how much the rent is? Have you considered using text message marketing? I really LOVE the concept and it cuts down on a lot of wasted time and unqualified tenants. Basically using a company such as DriveBuy Technologies (http://www.drivebuytech.com/) you lease text codes, list the basic information in the text message that walkers / drivers need when for a property and if they are interested they can email or call you.
This cuts down a lot of “oh, that’s more than I can afford.”
I usually agree with Eric 99% of the time, and tout my admiration of Urbane on almost a daily basis, but I don’t necessarily agree with the “only free” approach. If a service provides a solid return on the investment, I just don’t think it should be dismissed out of turn. That doesn’t mean that some free solutions aren’t fantastic, as they have clearly shown, but I am wary of taking such a hardline approach.
Besides, in general I find that “free” isn’t always free anyway. For example, showing ads that may feature competitors on your own website shouldn’t be considered “free”, even if you technically don’t pay anything for it. (I’m talking about “you” in the general sense, not specific to Urbane, although it does apply)
I actually wasn’t going to reply to this post until I read this very interesting post on Mashable: http://mashable.com/2008/07/10/entitlement-of-free-needs-to-go-away/
In the end, I’m not anti-“free”. I just think that it is important to know that there are costs to doing business, which means that free is rarely ever free.
Jeff,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting and the kind words, we appreciate it. We are working hard to break from Apartment Commodity. Although there are a lot of great operators out there, the multi family industry is antiquated, and the presence of Social Media is widening the gap, the Lost are further and further into the thicket.
I agree with you, I do not like Craig’s List either, I find it clunky and strange, however it has been a very effective at driving traffic for us, for our demographic. We are using a similar service that you mention, CellSigns and are just finalizing several features of our Virtual Leasing Consultant program that we are pretty excited about. You are right on target, that people want thing when want them, not when we may be or may not be around
Brent, Thank you for the feedback;
For some clarity on my thoughts, my emphasis is on the Social Media and Marketing Within approach to create Resident Evangelists, I am only taking such a radical position with No Paid Advertising to prove out a theory that the typical and normal places that our industry has marketed apartments for years may well be changing, and many segments may be evaporating, only held up by the fact that the users are too afraid to try anything else. Creating a Social Media program is far, far from free. Craigs List alone, in order to really be effective requires a good Copy Writer, and some great photos. To leave this in the hands of a property manager likely will not work, and it needs updated almost daily. So the point is, we are moving around where we funnel our available marketing dollars.
If we can Engage enough Influencers, to actually have Residents Self Lease the apartments, the side and residual benefits far compound the traditional way of doing business, with higher rents, which equates to higher NOI and higher property values, because at the end of the day, the property values are driven by the NOI.
Thanks for the pushback though, it creates for more discussion points as we all are striving to Break From Apartment Commodity!
A motivating discussion is definitely worth comment. I think that you ought to write more on this subject matter, it may not be a taboo matter but usually people do not discuss these issues. To the next! All the best!!