Apartment Social Media
Apartment Marketing: Share the Moment
Have you every kicked yourself for not writing something down because you wanted to remember it later? How many times have you been in the middle of something else and thought of the greatest thing since sliced bread and then failed to document the moment? Or, you keep 43 tabs open on your browser because your crazy cool Twitter friends keep sharing crazy cool blog post links and FREEZE – I hate this one with a purple passion.
Facebook as a way to capture apartment memories
One way I like to think about Facebook as it relates to Apartment Marketing is as a way to capture memories – be it your residents, yours or otherwise. Think of it as the time-capsule that never gets buried only to be of use later. The memories are there and always accessible by anybody and everybody.
Think of those memories as powerful little marketing messages that never rest. It’s that whole theory of your most influential evangelists selling your apartments on your behalf. Dare I say, it’s the most powerful form of an ILS out there today. And, you want to capture as many relevant, thoughtful and meaningful messages as you can.
Give your residents a crazy cool and awesome place to capture their apartment living memories and experiences – you will love them for it. It’s not just about creating memorable moments anymore – it’s also about capturing those memorable moments in a manner that is useful for all involved.
Where are you capturing memories?
Apartment Marketing: How to Use Facebook Like Pages to Lease Apartments
I love emails like the one below -but before we go there:
Over the past few weeks we have started to quietly roll out some of our Facebook Like Pages as we gear up for the Get Social with Mills Initiative . One of the issues we’ve run into with this slow roll out is anxious PMs and MSs like Teresa and Mike at Park Clayton Apartments. They were ready to run – so, we let them go and in just over two weeks they took the like numbers from 7 to North of 225.
How to grow Your Apartment Facebook Like Page numbers
How did they do it? To make a long story short Mike brought an orphaned stuffed yellow duck to the leasing office for Teresa to see and each time they tried to put the duck away – residents asked to have it back as a mascot. With that T and M – [I often use the first letter of peoples names – with that T is for Teresa and M is for Mike] decided to have a – Name the Duck – contest . In conjunction with that contest they decided to give away a few fun prizes for the resident who yielded the biggest number of Likes to our page in a weeks time.
The Apartment Like Page Results
T and M put on North of 200 Likes inside of two weeks time. Not only that – they yielded something much more important in my opinion – check out the page and I think you will quickly discern what I mean. That point brings me to the email below –
How to use Facebook Like Pages to Rent Apartments
I will let the email speak for itself –
Have a compelling weekend – M
—–Original Message—–
From: Park Clayton <parkclayton@millsproperties.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 12:55 PM
To: ‘Mike Brewer’ <MBrewer@millsproperties.net>; ‘Tracy Seubert’ <TSeubert@millsproperties.net>
Subject: Great news!
Hey guys,
I have some awesome news about our facebook fans. One of my residents came down to tell me that his friends in Taiwan are watching us on facebook and they think it’s great that we do resident events and have contests. He says they told him they want to move here when they get to town just because of what they see online!
Also, he brought down his laptop and we spoke with a couple of his friends in Taiwan who want to move here in August. The program they use to chat/talk internationally is called, “skype.”
Teresa Richardson
Property Manager
Park Clayton Apartments
photo credit: blog.hubspot.com
Apartment Marketing: Delivery so cheap – measuring does not matter…
I really like what @jeffreyhayzlett CMO of Kodak has to say about the ROI of social media –
“What’s the ROI of social media?…I hope they are my competitors cause I’m gonna kick their ass.”
While the jury is still out as the to metric that means the most as it relates to measuring the ROI of social medium – I think the debate of important is settled. It’s a must if you are to win in the Art of Social Media War [Sounds like a cool book title – maybe it already is – need to Google it].
Delivery so cheap – it does not matter
My overarching questions is: When does delivery become so cheap [labor included] that it makes no real difference? That is not to suggest that some level of measurement is not important. But, if you can get your stimulating participatory content out there for less than any other traditional means – knowing that it’s now highly interactive in nature – how important is it really?
Will you refer us to your friends?
The only metric that really matters in my mind – is not absolute mass but rather is your offering [apartment living experiences in my case] really worth telling your friends about. If the answer is no, then 10k likes, 10k followers, etc…means little.
What do you think? Is deliver so cheap that ROI is taking on less of a real meaning? If not, what would you choose to measure and why?
Technorati Tags: @mbrewer, mbrewer, mbrewergroup.com, facebook.com/pages/M-Brewer-Group, apartment marketing, using social media to market apartments, apartment social meida ROI, apartment internet strategy
Get Social with Mills: The Journey Begins
It’s official – Mills Properties is taking the plunge into new media. For the past three years we have been at work producing real results with simple tools like Craiglist and vFlyer. One example, which I will fully detail in a later blog post, includes a manager that used CL exclusively to add 23 points of occupancy in just seven short weeks. It’s an amazing story but it is not where we wanted to be. We wanted to be fully immersed in the use of new media as it relates to marketing apartments.
The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with One Step
I am jazzed to report that Mills Senior Leadership has given blessing for me to document the entire journey from soup to nuts. In doing so I hope to utilize all the rich media out there in order to produce some massively cool dialog. The chief aim is to bring real meaning to the word engagement as I am fully convinced that the word is very often misplaced and misused in the world of marketing and new media specifically.
All that being said, I invite you to join us as we take the first step to Get Social with Mills.
Update: And, if it starts to look and or feel like a ton of self promotion, company promotion or ego-centric rhetoric, say as much. Our intent is to tell a story that may add value to your new media marketing efforts.
M
New Media Apartment Marketing: Random Thought
Just a quick post for your Sunday reading pleasure.
New Media Apartment Marketing: Experience
I am vacationing in Denver this weekend. I am taking some time away from the day to day work I do with Mills Properties in Saint Louis to recharge the batteries. It feels great to get away to refresh the mind, body and soul. This morning as I was sitting in a coffee shop grabbing a quick cup of Joe and something to eat I overheard a conversation that intrigued me. The two people communicating wore bright red clown noses and looked to be having a great time. But, that was not the intriguing part. They were talking about random topics when the following comment caught my ear,
What experiences would you like to get out of that trip?
It came on the heels of another question and a subsequent comment. One clown nose man asked the other, “where would you like to vacation if money were no worry?” The response was, “Somewhere in the Bahama’s.” This is where the inquisitive clown nose asked the above question.
New Media Apartment Marketing: Question
It made me think that we should be asking that question of all of our constituents be it Mills Properties employees, residents or otherwise. Answers to that question could yield some pretty cool information as it relates to both online and offline experiential marketing efforts. It could assist in tailoring both inhouse and outsourced initiatives along with in general work practices.
It’s not to suggest that we don’t practice some form of information gathering that is rivals this question. But, the thing that really caused me pause was the pause it created in the responding party. For all intents are purposes the question was not normal and it caused the man to think before he responded – something that is losing it’s common place anymore. And, when he responded, it was with mindful thought in lieu of random generalness (if that is a word).
I will let you know how it goes….
In the mean time, let me know your thoughts on the subject and have a compelling Sunday
