Our friend and Social Media Marketing Queen Amber Naslund wrote a great post this week, The Difference Between Hard and Hard Work. It reminded me of the ongoing chatter from folks in the apartment business who babble about things like “social media doesn’t scale with our company” or “It would take too many resources” all of which is plainly Bunk.
As Heather so eloquently put it;
“One of the frustrations I have with the discussions that swirl around social media is that there’s a big, big difference between something that’s difficult, and something that takes work. Social media and specifically measuring and tracking its impact is not difficult. It’s time consuming. It’s meticulous, and takes thought and insight. But it’s not hard”.
Instant America
“We demand far too many shortcuts. We want just-add-water strategies that don’t require us to do much work but rather roll out some kit of parts we can just plug into place. We’re busy, overtasked, under supported, and the idea of having to dig deep into something in excruciating detail with painstaking effort makes our skin crawl”.
What Will You Stop Doing
With any new endeavor, such as embarking on a Social Media Strategy for your apartment community, you must decide What You are Going to STOP Doing. But oh, there is the rub of the coin, folks are deathly afraid to STOP doing things that they have always done. And continuing with that path allows you to be right. If you don’t stop doing something, you likely do not have the resources for a new project, and if you do attempt to pull it off, it will likely be half baked, so you can effectively hang you hat on “You Knew It Wouldn’t Work” Again You Get to be Right, unfortunately, you lost.
What Did You Lose
You lost time building those facebook pages for your community that no one visits, comments or participates in other that you. You lost creditability with your boss, but you told them it likely wouldn’t work, which was your safety net.
But the biggest thing you are losing are opportunities to Engage Your Residents. Social Media Tools have made available to you to Create Community, and Engage your Residents. The sad thing is, we, apartment owners and operators of all businesses already have a community, why on earth wouldn’t you be taking advantage of that? And for goodness sakes, stop saying because it is too hard, because it isn’t.
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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