@mbrewer
Apartment Marketing: Facebook Like Page – Race to 10k – Good or Bad Idea?
The core of Social Media is not “eyeballs and ears” but rather “hearts and minds.” Go for quality, not quantity. – As tweeted by @NW_Mktg_Guy
I have read a few blog posts as of late that promote the thought of racing to certain thresholds of users on the various Social Media platforms, i.e. – 10k Facebook Likes. Despite FBs flip-flopping position on the 10k number as it relates to the Like page – I am baffled as to why that would be a strategic aim. Outside of understanding the would be advantages – if FB flops again – I would have to question the quality of such a forced end result. That is to suggest that if the number grows to 10k organically via rich experiences then hooray but if the number is achieved by coercion then – booray. Simply put – don’t race to 10k just because you can.
Quality vs. Quantity
Let me preface this section by saying that I’m the last person that should be writing a post taking sides on this subject. One could move right to my personal FB profile and question – why I friend everyone that comes across the recommendation page [it is not exactly everyone – only if there are multiple mutual connections between the networks]. The somewhat akward and funny answer is that I love defending myself from indefensible positions. That aside, the real answer is – despite the overlapping networks – I don’t know but I have been thinking about it for a couple of months now. I will admit that I am closer to deciding that quality is the better aim although I don’t have a premise for that position as of yet. And I would not suggest there is a right or a wrong answer.
All that being said, the tweet above really resonated with me concerning Like pages. If you take a strict interpretation of the word engagement – it really does boil down to the soft stuff. Like the quote suggest – heart’s and minds. In my head – that translates not to – Like your organization but rather Love your organization. I think there is a difference but that discussion is for another day.
What are your thoughts? Race for the thresholds despite quality – or, slowly grow to the threshold through remarkable experiences that people naturally invite their friends to be a part of? Or, do you have a completely alternate position on the subject?
Photo credit scs.ryerson.ca
Multifamily Rehab: Mills $4m CityView Rehab Kicking Off
After ten long months of living in flux – residents of CityView Apartments [formerly known as Plaza Square] in downtown St. Louis are going to see the property rehabbed. This is especially near and dear to me as it is part of a portfolio of real estate that I manage for Mills Properties – the place where I spend most of my day time and a good deal of night time hours.
We actually transitioned the property management piece to Mills some ten months ago in August of 2009 after a bank foreclosure. Since that time we have worked to position the property for this eventual rehab are no less excited than the Laker’s will be when they take the NBA title this year and or when the Blackhawk’s took the Stanley Cup just a few days ago.
The property has a rich history but had fallen on hard times especially in the past three to five years. We are really looking forward to being a part of something bigger than ourselves with this project. It’s right on the fringe of one of the hippest neighborhoods in all of downtown St. Louis and as such will cater to a number of different target markets.
As we move through the rehab – I hope to post many of the before and after pics, vids, social efforts, etc..
Should be an uber over the top awesome experience –
Mills Properies spending $4 million on CityView upgrades – St. Louis Business Journal
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?
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?
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