Tip of Tongue
The Right Story on the Right Day
Another note from the margin entry – being the first mover in a group means nothing these days. It’s more full of meaning to have the right story ready on the right day.
Further Fragmenting
Look around the multifamily space;
- Every property management company has a website
- Every property they manage has a property page
- Every page has a unique URL
- Some still use print
- Twitter and Facebook are in full swing
- Portals are popular
- Separate landing pages for prospects and residents
- Online Community on NING or other less mainstream sites
- Review sites keep popping up all over the place – each one promising a richer experience for the end-user
- And, the list goes on and on and on…
The otherwise clear point here is that the idea of first mover is a borderline thing of the past. What replaces it? The right story on the right day. Be where the people are with the right story tip of tongue at the precise moment they need to hear it.
Apartment Marketing: Google Now
I am moving our normally scheduled budget post to Wednesday. My apologies to you that were expecting some number crunching today.
Google Now
Imagine a day when Google understands your interests so much so that it recommends a new apartment living experience. Maybe that is predicated on the fact that you a value shopper in all other areas of your life – Google might recommend a cheaper place to live. Suppose you are a social butterfly who often frequents downtown hotspots but you live in the burbs. Google might refer you to a nice new downtown apartment community.
The information from Google Now is displayed on what Barra referred to as “cards,” tile-sized amounts of information (seen above) that you might find similar to the cards seen in Palm’s WebOS software–think the default weather app on your iPhone.
Apartment Community Interest Graph
I am of the firm belief that the future of apartment search is going to be interest based and will come predictive in nature. And, I think that every apartment community should be working on their digital personality (read: get interesting). I think that apartment community reviews along with a plethora of other data points are going to be intermingled with neighborhood reviews (aggregate of every local business review in and around your community – sort of a neighborhood cool score: think walk-score) and that information is going to flow out in the “cards” described in the quote above. The key going forward will be positioning oneself as interesting.
Your keenly interested in interest graphs multifamily maniac,
M
Pic props: Android News
