Apartment Social Media
Mills Apartment Bloggers
Mills Apartments is hosting our first bloggers’ summit less than two hours from now and I thought we would share our underlying premise for day and for the future of our blogging efforts. It’s also an effort on my part to flesh out my thoughts – real truth be known. And, to answer the one question that I know will be on everyone’s mind – Why do we have to blog? There are four major reasons as I see it and they are as follows.
It’s All About People, Stupid
We are going to start the day by discussing the introduction chapter of the book Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements
People Buy People
It does not matter if you are in a B2B or B2C business – people buy people. They don’t buy fancy brochures, marketing speak, fancy promotions, ads or campaigns. In fact, the Brains on Fire authors describe brochures as “pretty trash.” I can’t say I disagree with them. It is a waste of money that can be otherwise invested in the growth of people.
I have long suggested that organizations are born into the world to serve the people that serve it. Take the money you are thinking about investing in creating a fancy brochure [don’t forget to include the time your team devotes to the creation] and invest it in growing someone. Our blogging summit is about just that. We are taking the time to help people to become better writers. And, in turn the hope is that they ignite like kind passions in other people.
Part of Something Bigger Than Self
It’s been said before and it will be said again; people just want to be a part of something bigger than self. You can debate the point from the perspective of religion, politics, social change agents or even Maslow’s hierarchy. It’s just fundamental to who were are as humans. Look at some of the movements in Brains on Fire, look at the Susan G. Komen movement or simply watch an episode of Extreme Makeover. People would trip over themselves to be a part of that experience. And, I would wager that it goes beyond some of the otherwise shallow reasons we could easily come up with.
In short, it taps our need to feel valued and important.
Stop Being A Marketer – Instead, Be an Igniter
The first part of that sub-title has been written about more times than I care to count. The second part however, is a topic that I think needs some traction as it relates to businesses leveraging their innate need to provide the platforms and support for movements to take place. Brains on Fire [can I call it B of F?] is a great catalyst for the discussion.
We live in a crowded world and, to borrow a term I fell in love with a number a years ago, an Attention Economy. I can’t recall the stat off the top of my head but I am sure it is well North of 1,000 marketing messages cross through our brain on a given day. Whoa! That is crazy to think about. North of 1,000 so I am sure it would suffice to say that your message [our message] is likely lost in the sea of bobbing billboards, print ads and aging signage.
Many companies are shifting gears and making their businesses more social in nature. More open in nature. More compelling in nature. And, it all starts with the Igniter. It starts with the person that Cares as much if not more than you do. It starts with the person that feels your pain and celebrates your successes sometimes before you even know about them. It’s that group of people out there that would tattoo your brand on their forehead if they knew it would help you create one more compelling relationship.
Here we go!
In summary, we intend to help people remember [I don’t think you ever really forget] that it’s all about people. We want to bring the discussion around to the fact that people buy from other people and that if you harness the power of those relationships, you can turn it into a movement that allows for people to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And, lastly, we really want to create a legion of igniters at Mills Apartments!
Mills Apartments Charts Social Media Course
It’s official, Mills Apartments is slowing making it’s way into the world of social media. While the process of participation has been slow to evolve, we have not been completely idle. Over the past two years we have listened and interacted here and there, dipping our toe in on experimental basis only. We are now going from dipping our toe to a full swan dive by creating an overall marketing strategy that integrates social media into the mix.
The following are the areas we are choosing to focus our time and attention;
- New website [not something that we would have elected to do [nor see as an absolute necessity] except that we collectively did not like our current one]
- Prospect Portals
- Resident Portals
- Ten blogs, eight of which will serve the various neighborhoods and regions where we have a presence. The other two will be penned from our home office, one from the various team members that make up this family called Mills and the other by our President – Kirk Mills.
- One Twitter Account Click Here
- One Facebook Like page for each of our 47 [as of today] properties Park Clayton Apartments
- YouTube Channel
Now we have no illusions that we can pull this off with out the help of a professional and after a bit of a beauty contest we elected to work with Mike Whaling over at 30lines. He along with a few others [hopefully, soon to be announced] are building the lion’s share of the infrastructure. Up to this point, he has proven to be a very valuable partner and resource and as such we are very excited about the future.
The post today is really just a tease in the way getting our story out there in the crowded sea of multifamily social media starts. I have been given full permission to document the good, the bad and the ugly along the way in building this out. And, in doing so I would be remiss not to mention the many fine trailblazers that we have borrowed [wink wink] ideas from. Many of the things you will see in the coming months will echo the efforts of others and many will take on little tweaks and nuances. And, I will do my best to site the sources of inspiration and feel free to call me on the carpet if I miss anyone.
With all that being said, I wanted to share the first of a number of internal dialogs that relate to our get social initiative. This gem is from our Communication Strategist and Brand Manager – Melissa Presusser. It relates to our blog initiative and went out to a select group of managers who have been charged with beginning to create compelling, over the top and very cool content. While they will by no means be alone in this – we thought it right to have them highly involved in the process. We are certain that it will be a work in progress and we will learn a lot along the way.
As a premise, we are encouraging all of our bloggers’ to read the introduction of Brains on Fire. We are going to use their passion for ignition in hopes of putting a real dent in the city of STL.
With that – here we go!
YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED!!
Mills Properties will begin a blogging frenzy in the next few months with 9 blogs going at one time. We have chosen all of you to help get this super important piece of our web presence started!! You have all shown a very strong ability and passion for writing and using social media and we think you will be perfect to join our team! This is an excellent, rockin opportunity for you to really build your skills and help make really great things happen – bigger than big!
Here is what will be required, if you choose to accept…
- Accept our offer to be a Fabulous Mills Blogger
- Purchase, with petty cash, the book Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements
or pick it up – I believe it can also be purchased in store at Barnes & Noble or Borders - Read the introduction of the book mentioned above by October 26th
- 4. Attend the Mills Blogger Training Class on Tuesday, October 26th at 9:00 at the corporate office (we should conclude at or around 12:00)
- Get started with your crazy cool content to make things happen at Mills
We can’t wait to hear from you! Please call me if you have questions!
Let us know what you think and a big thank you to all that have inspired us along the way…
Apartment Marketing: Mills Social Media Principles
Mills Properties is making a thoughtful integration of social media principles into their Get Social with Mills Initiative. And, in doing so we decided to craft a document of social media principles for our apartment management company as a whole using thoughts, ideas and original works from in and outside of the industry.
Social Media Principles for Apartments
The four companies we have elected to draw from are:
There are hundreds of examples out there to choose from if you are thinking of writing your own. I can’t tell you that we used some magic formula to pick the companies we did. That is with the exception of JC Hart – we know Mark Juleen and admire the efforts he and his team have put together in executing a great strategy. With that, we also look forward to feedback along the way as we believe that there is no perfect science to the process.
If you have a set of Social Media Principles for your organization and wish to share – link it up down in the comments. We would love to read them.
Have a great weekend –
Apartment Marketing: @earlybird a New Way to Use Twitter
Have you ever wondered what the most appropriate way to use Twitter to market your companies Apartment Living Experience is? Now I’m not to suggesting that any one way is better than another but I do think there are some ways that garnish more attention. My only piece of advice is avoid using old school push marketing tactics.
It looks like @earlybird is positioning itself as a socially acceptable way to broadcast your current promotion. Brian Solis puts it this way in On Twitter, The Early Bird Gets the Worm
If you can imaging the possibilities for @EarlyBird, it goes beyond just one-off deals and specials through a generic account [push marketing], it can be themed into opt-in channels for almost any area of interest, food, music, entertainment, events, etc. [relevancy] emphasis mine.
As it relates to apartment marketing, I can see the value in an opt-in channel for apartments as a good thing –
What do you think?
Apartment Marketing: Where is your money going?
While 2010 has been the year of dipping more than just your toe in the SM waters – it looks like 2011 will be a year where mass adoption might be a more appropriate description as it relates to small business taking the plunge.
As it pertains to Apartment Marketing – I would say the trend is in concert.
Apartment Blogging
When I started blogging in 2003 there were very few Multifamily types in the space – today, it seems like everyone has a blog and Twitter is a near household name. We were also early adopters of MySpace as a way to market apartments [back then we were still in post your floor plans, features and benefits mode].
Apartment Facebook Marketing
At the time, I recall seeing very few people participating in that space – today Facebook rules and the masses are adopting the platform as a way to market. [As an industry we still have to work on setting it up via FBs TOS]. Nonetheless adoption is happening and now the dollars are flowing that way as demonstrated by the stats below. All that being said, I still think it is interesting to see newspaper with such a high mark -That is not to mention that five out of the seven spends are print media related…
Enjoy the stats – would love to hear your thoughts and I hope the balance of your week is compelling!
Survey Says: Businesses Spending More on Marketing, Tech – AOL Small Business
Forty-two percent of small-business owners are likely to spend more on marketing and advertising this year, according to the latest FedEx Office Signs of the Times national small-business survey. So where will most of their money go?
* Improving online presence (46 percent)
* Print materials/newsletters/direct mail (44 percent)
* Brochures (43 percent)
* Yellow Pages listings (39 percent)
* Fliers and signs/banners/posters (37 percent each)
* Social networking sites (36 percent)
* Newspaper advertisements (32 percent)
