Apartment Marketing
Rule #1 in Using Social Media to Market Apartments
First off – I despise the word rule. In the same respect I think it is appropriate to suggest that we can not be boring when using social media to market apartments. And, know that boring includes the use of social media to push goods and services.
Social media is not push marketing – use it as such and watch the people run. Social media is rather, permission based marketing and is about conversation and participation. And, that conversation and participation turns out to be the marketing. We have to really wrap our minds around this concept as it is very counter to the way we have used traditional mediums to market apartments. Nevertheless, it’s our time to shine – as for all intents and purposes the mass adoption of social media in the multifamily space is just getting started. It really is the perfect time to put a dent in the multifamily universe – are you ready?
Have a very non-boring and otherwise compelling day
M
Using social media to market apartments, conversation marketing
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Using Social Media to Market Apartments – Resident Retention
Apartment residents move for a variety of reasons and many times we have no idea why. It’s kind of a shame, really. Social media/networking can help change that and by default drive down our cost of turnover. Think about it, if you couple the advent of the internet with the understanding that people are innately social – toss in a few platforms where they can observe, connect or participate and you have the perfect recipie for resident retention. And, as demonstrated in the last post you have the recipie for some great GoogleJuice. What we are really after is what Seth’s Blog: Share of wallet, share of wall, share of voice speaks to. [A quick shout out to @sbrewer10 for bringing this one to my attention.
In short, Seth speaks to the point many of us have made over the years – long before the advent of the internet and social platforms – the replacement cost for a resident is far more than the cost of retaining our current ones. Lisa Trosien wrote a great piece over at Multifamily Insiders that speaks to this point.
What kind of experience are you creating today to get a share of the wallet, wall or voice of your current resident base?
Have a stellar day –
M
Using social media to market apartments, resident retention, apartment marketing
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Using Social Media to Market Apartments – GoogleJuice
Here comes everybody
Above is the clever title to a very brilliant book written by Clay Shirky and I think it relates to a movement that is happening in the multifamily space. I have noticed more and more major players, as of late, using social media to market their apartments. And, it seems like with every passing hour I am reading a new press release, blog post, tweet or Facebook update about someone trying their hand at it. All of which I think is great news for the multifamily space; that is as long as we have the real end game in mind.
The truth behind it
I think it’s important to mention that the chief aim of an operator using social media is not to create value for the end user. Sounds crazy, I know but it is true. And, over the coming months as we see this flood of new users entering the space some of us have occupied for years, you will hear common phrases like; creating value for the resident or prospect, creating customer evangelist, creating value as perceived in the eyes of the consumer and joining the conversation, just to name a few. In all fairness these are very important statements and should be front and center in your approach to social media. But, they are not the goal. The truth behind it is that the more content you create, whether it be about your apartment company, specific apartment community or otherwise, the more you drive your Googlejuice.
What is Googlejuice?
This is the best definition I could find on the fly [source]
GoogleJuice is the ethereal substance which flows between web pages via their hyperlinks (in both directions!). Pages with lots of links to them acquire much GoogleJuice; pages which link to highly juicy pages acquire some reflected GoogleJuice. (do they? who says?) The level of GoogleJuice in a page thus reflects how well connected it is, and thus, in our world where LinksAreContent, how good it is (well, sort of). Google uses the term PageRank in-house to mean the score that they give to each web page. When it was google.stanford.edu, Google search results included a small graphic indicating how much PageRank each page has. Now that search results no longer include PageRank (unless you have the google toolbar), people use the term GoogleJuice to mean “the mysterious quality that causes pages to come up high in a Google search.” The GoogleSearch engine was the first SearchEngine to measure the levels of GoogleJuice in each page; it sorts its results accordingly, presenting the ones with the most juice first.
The short version: the more you link to others and the more others link to you, the more relevant you are and thus the better your chances to show up on the first page of Google when someone is doing an apartment search. There is a reason why all the major ILS’s dominate this space. I think Apartments.com is likely the best versed at it; with Rent.com and ForRent.com being a close second. [These are just my opinions based on some random searches I did this morning]
What is your chief aim?
At the end of the day nothing trumps a remarkable product, a memorable experience and out of this world customer service. But in the world of marketing apartments using social media they are but drivers of GoogleJuice. Using blogs as an example – it really doesn’t matter if your blog is about your specific apartment community or every business within a five mile radius of that community or both – if you fill it with amazing content and relevant links and people find it remarkable enough to link to then you are on your way to accomplishing the real goal.
Have a compelling week to come.
M
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Should your website be a Craigooglelist?
It seems the tipping point is here with regard to the way consumers use the Internet for information to make purchases. There is a stat out there that suggests that 53% of users get their information in places other than corporate web sites. I wonder if it is time to re-imagine the corporate website.
In lieu of a shiny new one dotted with the general me me me stuff accompanied by a map of all our properties, should we move in the direction of a social classified [Craigslist] concept? I’m not suggesting we ditch the specific company and community information but maybe we just display it in a different manner. Can we give them what they want right when they want it? Can we get to the point without sacrificing engagement and overall experience? Or, would the engagement and overall experience be amplified positively by a less cluttered approach? I think the overriding theme in developing a web presence going forward should be to make it more social in nature.
That in mind, do you think it is conceivable that an apartment prospect just wants to get to the pertinent information via a search box – for all intents and purposes, they are expertly trained by Google to do so. Could we get away with just having a search box on our home page? Maybe after that, they just want to read a few reviews so that they can make a more informed decision about joining our apartment experience? Could each one of our listings carry with it a review or two? – And on that point, why use a third party when you could provide your own feedback [Yelp or Aptratings like] mechanism? Would it carry the same credibility?
Maybe the site is a mashup of Goolge and Craigslist [Craigooglelist], where your homepage is a search box that leads to a set of classified listings that include reviews. We could include links to the other stuff just in case the user wants to see it.
The over-riding point here is, do we need to rethink the corporate apartment website?
Have a stellar Sunday. M
Corporate apartment website, apartment website, multifamily website
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Update – MyNewPlace Implements Facebook Connect: Apartment Search Goes Social
I tried this application out this morning and while it is very cool and I applaud MNP for giving it a shot, it needs a little tweaking. That being said, I am no expert when it comes to understanding the nuances of Facebook so forgive me if I mispeak in any way.
What I love about it is that it was a seamless exercise to post a property to Facebook – one click on the “post to Facebook” button and and I was taken to the page below. I assume if I were not logged into Facebook, I would have been taken to a Facebook connect log in page.
Next, a quick click on the publish button sent the post to Facebook. Now here is where it became a little interesting for me. I logged into my FB account and by default to my news feed page. I anticipated seeing the property posting somewhere in the newsfeed but it was not there. I had to click over to my profile page to finally see the posting.
I find that to be a bit cumbersome in the sense that I hardly ever view my own profile page or the profile pages of my friends. In other words to see the properties that my friends were talking about I would have to navigate to each of there individual profile pages. That is very disconnected and not very useful to say the least.
All that being said, I really applaud the effort but would encourage MNP to make a quick adjustment that would allow these postings to move right to the newsfeed on FB – that is if it is possible to do so.
On a side note, MNP has been actively participating in a Twitter conversation this morning about the launch. It’s been fun to watch as it has included everyone from industry consultantss and users to competitors. I really applaud them for being present and open to the feedback. Check it out here: @mynewplace.
Related story: Apartment Search Goes Social…Almost
MyNewPlace Implements Facebook® Connect: Apartment Search Goes Social
SAN FRANCISCO, CA- February 19, 2009 – MyNewPlace™, the Web’s fastest growing apartment and home rentals site, today announced that it has added Facebook® Connect functionality to its Web site – allowing its users to get feedback on prospective apartments, condos and home rentals by posting property information to their Facebook page. MyNewPlace is the first real estate and apartments Web site to implement Facebook Connect, allowing consumers to tap into their social graphs to make more informed decisions about where to live.
“Most people want the opinion of friends, family and roommates before choosing a new place to live. Facebook’s more than 150 million users can now quickly and easily log into MyNewPlace using their Facebook account, post properties they are interested in to their Facebook page and get feedback and advice from the people that are most important to them,” commented Mark Moran, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for MyNewPlace. “With Facebook Connect, getting opinions from friends and family is as simple as a click.”
Over 3 million people use MyNewPlace monthly – ranging from recent college grads with several roommates, to families with young children, to corporate relocations. MyNewPlace’s internal research indicates that over one third of its visitors already have a Facebook account, while many others may choose to sign up for a new Facebook account to utilize this functionality.
Facebook users communicate and share information through the social graph, the network of connections and relationships between people. Giving users control over their privacy is paramount on Facebook. With Facebook Connect, users can be assured that the same privacy settings they have set up on Facebook will follow them when they log in to MyNewPlace.com.
About MyNewPlace
MyNewPlace is a nationwide apartment and home rental site where consumers can efficiently search through over six million rentals to find the perfect place to live. The award winning site combines extensive and up-to-date property information, including photos and videos, with advanced mapping and other functionality. The company provides the multifamily marketing professional with the most innovative and cost-effective tools to fill their vacancies. From MyNewPlace.com: the industry’s fastest growing Internet Listing Service for apartment search, to MyNewSite: the industry’s most cost-effective website solution, MyNewPlace puts the best tools in the hands of owners and managers to help market their apartments for rent. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, MyNewPlace was founded in 2005 by John Helm, the founding CEO of AllApartments/SpringStreet, which became the number one apartment rental and relocation site on the Internet before its sale to Homestore in 1999. For more information, visit http://www.mynewplace.com.
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Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.
mike brewer, MyNewPlace, Facebook, Apartment Search Goes Social, Social Media
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