Kind of radical?
Perhaps, but we are seeing more and more apartment communities entering into the euphorically space known as Social Media. The first order of business seems to be to put up a facebook page for every property and start a blog for every property. The problem here is this, NO ONE IS PARTICIPATING IN A CONVERSATION. If there are no comments on your blog and nothing on your facebook wall except from posts from you, You have an ELECTRONIC BILLBOARD, Which is NOT Social Media.
A STROKE OF LUCK, THE AGENCY FIRED ME
I am not always the easiest cat in town to deal with, and have gotten fired as a client more than once. Not really so proud of that, but it is what it is. When it happened with the marketing studio that was doing our marketing and PR work I was taken aback. The timing was really bad, or at least it seemed as such. We were getting ready to launch a marketing campaign for the biggest deal I had ever attempted to develop. I had a lot of risk and exposure with the development. I have though, irrespective of the climate pressures never, ever been afraid to question things, which is the point here, and neither should you, even at the risk of being fired.
If you have an have an Electronic Billboard as a facebook page or blog, and you are doing it yourself, it isn’t a big deal and can be corrected quickly, at least you have started. If you have an Electric Billboard as a facebook page or blog and you are using a marketing studio or agency, Fire Them Quickly. They are spending your money irresponsibly.
IT IS ALL ABOUT THE CONVERSATION
As we continue our trek to Practice Social Media at Urbane Apartments, we have learned a lot, both from what works, but more from what didn’t work.
When we first launched the UrbaneBlog.com, we had very few followers and hardly any comments. Today, the blog following is growing at an exponential rate and we average a half dozen or so comments per blog post. We have had a couple of controversial posts that exceeded seventy five comments.
Similarly, when we launched the Urbane facebook and Urbane myspace pages, we had some ‘friends” but mostly they were folks from the apartment industry that were interested in what we were doing. Today, we have an excellent resident penetration, and lots of wall to wall comments. It has become our most effective place to communicate with our residents, followed closely by our Ning site, the UrbaneLobby.com
The shift is pretty simple, we started and work at participating in the Conversation. That’s it, while it sounds pretty simple, and it is, it seems to be pretty hard for apartment communities, otherwise they would be doing it.
We encourage you to Engage in a Conversation with Your Residents today, Enhance the Residents Experience, and Break From the Pack of Apartment Commodity!
Eric’s background is rooted in the rental and real estate industries. He founded metro Detroit’s Urbane Apartments in 2003, after serving as senior vice president for a major Midwest apartment developer. He established a proven track record of effectively repositioning existing rental properties in a way that added value for investors while enhancing the resident experience.
He also established The Urbane Way, a social media marketing and PR laboratory, where innovative marketing ideas are tested. Eric has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and Business Week Magazine.
You can connect with Eric_Urbane on Twitter.
Eric also writes regular articles for the following publications;
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