social media

Apartment Internet Marketing – Exclusivity

Mike Brewer · January 26, 2010 · 15 Comments

Came across an interesting survey at over at emarketer that spoke to the want’s of social following. The results were captured in the following chart:

Using this chart as a catalyst, we are going to do a five part series titled: The Five E’s of Apartment Internet Marketing. The overarching premise will be playing to the want’s of would be apartment Facebook, Twitter and other social medium friends. We start the series with Exclusivity.

What is Exclusivity?

Exclusivity can be defined as the sole right to a specific business function. AT&T’s exclusive right to market the iPhone is likely the most paramount example of this. Beyond that there is a huge push by aggregators to secure exclusive rights to content. We have seen this with the likes of Harvard Business Review striking a deal with an aggregator and Steven Covey striking a deal for distribution on Amazon’s Kindle. These are mass examples of exclusivity but the concept can be applied to things as simple as white papers. In this case the exclusivity comes in the way of getting for giving or more specifically, give me your email address and I will give you the white paper. It’s exclusive in the sense that not everyone would be willing to give personal information to get.

Value Exchange

The overarching point is that exclusivity has a give and take scenario baked in. You give up Sprint to get the iPhone, you give up buying from B&N and buy a Kindle so you can read Covey, you give up personal information to get information. The goods, services, experience or information requires an action on the part of the consumer and guess what, it’s the overriding reason they friend brands. They want to learn about specials, sales, etc..

Consumer Expectations

Human beings have a few things in common – one being the innate need to feel important, wanted or needed. When we apply that fact to the concept of exclusivity we can clearly see that the perception of being a part of what could be considered an elite group is compelling. We own an iPhone so we can feel cool. We read the HBR so we can feel cool. We read the latest Covey book so we can feel cool. We found our apartment on Craigslist and it was a great deal so we feel cool. Consumers are willing to give up stuff and things to feel important, wanted or needed – all day long.

Offer it and they will come

As it applies to Apartment Internet Marketing in the context of social mediums – more times than not, if you offer it they will come. Now, before I go on, I am not suggesting that you can just put any old thing out there and expect participants to join in, you have to work it. You have to willing to commit to listening, joining in, trying, failing, retooling and trying again. Otherwise it’s all for naught. I am suggesting, however, that if you do things as simple as offering a rent concession to the resident that increases your fan page base the most, or something we eluded to awhile back with tryvertising, or simply setting up a kiosk in your lobby set with twitter and facebook and asking anyone that walks in the door to friend you – you will gain an audience. However, it does not stop here…

…in part two of this series we will talk about what to do with that audience: Education

In the mean time, feel free to continue the Exclusivity conversation by leaving us a comment below.

And, have a compelling day!

Don’t use social media to market apartments, if…

Mike Brewer · April 11, 2009 · 23 Comments

…you are not ready to be a marketer. You see, the essence of social media is conversation and that conversation is you being a marketer. So in order to use to social media to market you must be willing to be a marketer, you must be willing to engage.

When you use social media to market apartments you take on the responsibility of engaging in feedback – be it good, bad, indifferent or even downright hateful. And, therein lies the fear of many operators. How do we handle the negative and hateful feedback we might get, is the question I hear most often. I say, “engage in a conversation with them.” I might add, “how do you respond when someone meets you face to face to voice their discord about your community? Do you sit silent or do you engage in a conversation?” You have to think of social media as just a mechanism for conversation – nothing more – nothing less. And, about those potential negative comments, they take themselves.

To that point let’s direct our attention to a Washington Post titled; Listening to the Dot-Commenters written by Doug Feaver, former Executive Editor of the Post [thanks for the great post, Doug]. The gist of the article is about the self correcting nature of socially irresponsible commenter’s and more specifically anonymous ones, that is to say people who use feedback platforms as bully pulpits. I think the Post’s philosophy is one that could/should be mirrored in the multifamily space.

I have come to think that online comments are a terrific addition to the conversation and that journalists need to take them seriously. Comments provide a forum for readers to complain about what they see as unfairness or inaccuracy in an article (and too often they have a point), to talk to each other (sometimes in an uncivilized manner) and, yes, to bloviate. – Doug Feaver

I can see merit in Doug’s logic and I think it will – over time – marry well to sites like apartmentratings and yelp, just to name a few. I have to believe that the more accustom apartment seekers become to prospect/resident generated feedback sites, the more they will either avoid, ignore or correct socially irresponsible comments. The down right passionate users will see it as their absolute duty to counter the negative or misguided users. Now, should the down right passionate user be you – please remember to handle yourself professionally. In my mind you represent an industry not just your individual community or property management firm. And, just remember, it’s all marketing.

Have a stellar Easter weekend.

Update – MyNewPlace Implements Facebook Connect: Apartment Search Goes Social

Mike Brewer · February 19, 2009 · 3 Comments

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.

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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