Apartment Social Media
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: Gather the Group
Over the next month or so, I will be reaching out to some of our apartment Facebook friends asking if I can enlist them in a virtual ongoing open feedback Tell Dell like mechanism. The intent is to prompt the forum in the coming weeks, months and years as we move forward in building out Mills Properties improved web strategy. The friends are coming from a mix of our like pages that span across our 43 communities [Note: not all are published as of this writing] in Saint Louis. The only catalyst to their selection is – on balance – they participate more than others. Our real hope – as part of a much larger strategy – is to build on the success of others in and out of our industry by including consumers in the process. That said, it never ceases to amaze me just how easy it really is to get acquainted anymore. This quote below is part of a response I got to reaching out just this past week –
…..been here just over 5 years and really like it. My main interests include Conservative talk shows and Trance/Techno music. Odd combination……
I can’t wait to get some discussion going with this resident. 5 years – can you imagine the change she/he has seen in five years? Can you imagine the potential value he/she might add on the premise of that 5 years of history?
What are you doing to leverage the power of your networks?
Apartment Talent: The Price of Waiting
Hey there! Nice to meet YOU! This post is for those of you that serve on the stages of our industry. That is to suggest the leasing, assistant managers and property managers out there. I like what Seth had to say on his blog a couple of days ago about waiting for validation – here is an excerpt:
If you’re waiting for a boss or an editor or a college to tell you that you do good work, you’re handing over too much power to someone who doesn’t care nearly as much as you do.
Keep Cool Keep Control
Some time back, I attended a group counseling session that described it this way, when you lose control, it’s like you have a string attached to your heart and you give the prompter the string and you allow him or her to pull that string at will. In other words you give up the very control that was given to you on the day you loudly pronounced your place on earth. It’s frankly a travesty of monumental proportions. It’s not unlike that in business – be it sales, marketing, finance, transaction, operations or the such. You cede control under the guise of waiting for validation and you cede control of your future.
Relating it back to Seth’s post and also to caring about what you do in the apartment space – beat your own best self everyday of the week. Remind yourself daily that no one will challenge you more than you will challenge yourself. No one person or thing has control over you unless you cede it to them. There are so many opportunities to build Your Personal Brand today – so many ways to take control of Your Future –
Using Social Media to Market Apartments – Ripe with Opportunities
For all intents and purposes – new media in it’s concerns with marketing apartment homes is in its infancy. It’s the perfect space to join in the conversation. Blogs not unlike this one are the perfect place to; come and observe – start to participate – use for a catalyst to start your own blog and reference back to now and again once you are up and running. Rest on this notion – not even the best of the best in this space know where the platforms and mechanisms will be two to four years from now. It’s any one’s best guess at this point. In spite of that they keep innovating – they keep plugging away – steady trying, refining and trying again. You can too. It’s the way Brand You is made. The alternative – the price of waiting? – Your Future.
What are you going to do today?
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)
Apartment Community Amenities: Promote Mystery
About two months ago we decided to install a dog park at Brookside Apartments – one of our student properties in Carbondale, Ill. In lieu of printing, posted and plastering the thing all over our social media streams – we just let the process play out.
Power in Mystery
After working through the logistics and contract negotiations we settled on a spot and let the construction begin. What happened next was pure entertainment – are you building a pool? Are you building a new building? Volleyball courts? – Wait, it’s too big to be a pool! Arg, what is it? All the common questions begin to filter through the wifi lounge, the community and into our leasing center. That is until we could not take it any more and we disclosed.That said, we learned a real time lesson as it relates to WOM.
Apartment Marketing Stimulants
Tell them but don’t tell them. We have a number of other amenities and improvements that we are doing to this property over the next one to three years with each one major in scope. Taking the lesson from the dog park mystery – we will leave the community to – guess it out – if you will. I can see some cool social media apartment amenity mysteries playing out over Facebook and other social platforms. In the spirit of – give them something to talk about – mystery takes a front seat. And, besides who doesn’t like a great guessing game or mystery? Who can resist talking about it with their friends, family and otherwise? Which is part of the point, right?
