Mills Apartments Charts Social Media Course

It’s official, Mills Apartments is slowing making it’s way into the world of social media. While the process of participation has been slow to evolve, we have not been completely idle. Over the past two years we have listened and interacted here and there, dipping our toe in on experimental basis only. We are now going from dipping our toe to a full swan dive by creating an overall marketing strategy that integrates social media into the mix.

The following are the areas we are choosing to focus our time and attention;

• New website [not something that we would have elected to do [nor see as an absolute necessity] except that we collectively did not like our current one]

• Prospect Portals

• Resident Portals

• Ten blogs, eight of which will serve the various neighborhoods and regions where we have a presence. The other two will be penned from our home office, one from the various team members that make up this family called Mills and the other by our President – Kirk Mills.
• One Twitter Account Click Here
• One Facebook Like page for each of our 47 [as of today] properties Park Clayton Apartments
• YouTube Channel

Now we have no illusions that we can pull this off with out the help of a professional and after a bit of a beauty contest we elected to work with Mike Whaling over at 30lines. He along with a few others [hopefully, soon to be announced] are building the lion’s share of the infrastructure. Up to this point, he has proven to be a very valuable partner and resource and as such we are very excited about the future.

The post today is really just a tease in the way getting our story out there in the crowded sea of multifamily social media starts. I have been given full permission to document the good, the bad and the ugly along the way in building this out. And, in doing so I would be remiss not to mention the many fine trailblazers that we have borrowed [wink wink] ideas from. Many of the things you will see in the coming months will echo the efforts of others and many will take on little tweaks and nuances. And, I will do my best to site the sources of inspiration and feel free to call me on the carpet if I miss anyone.

With all that being said, I wanted to share the first of a number of internal dialogs that relate to our get social initiative. This gem is from our Communication Strategist and Brand Manager – Melissa Presusser. It relates to our blog initiative and went out to a select group of managers who have been charged with beginning to create compelling, over the top and very cool content. While they will by no means be alone in this – we thought it right to have them highly involved in the process. We are certain that it will be a work in progress and we will learn a lot along the way.

As a premise, we are encouraging all of our bloggers’ to read the introduction of Brains on Fire. We are going to use their passion for ignition in hopes of putting a real dent in the city of STL.

With that – here we go!

YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED!!

Mills Properties will begin a blogging frenzy in the next few months with 9 blogs going at one time.  We have chosen all of you to help get this super important piece of our web presence started!!  You have all shown a very strong ability and passion for writing and using social media and we think you will be perfect to join our team!  This is an excellent, rockin opportunity for you to really build your skills and help make really great things happen – bigger than big!

Here is what will be required, if you choose to accept…

1. Accept our offer to be a Fabulous Mills Blogger
2. Purchase, with petty cash, the book Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements
   or pick it up – I believe it can also be purchased in store at Barnes & Noble or Borders
3. Read the introduction of the book mentioned above by October 26^th
4. 4. Attend the Mills Blogger Training Class on Tuesday, October 26^th at 9:00 at the corporate office (we should conclude at or around 12:00)
5. Get started with your crazy cool content to make things happen at Mills

We can’t wait to hear from you!  Please call me if you have questions!

Let us know what you think and a big thank you to all that have inspired us along the way…

Thought

I ran across a blog this morning that suggested that dollar signs or the lack thereof mattered when it came to significantly increasing a restaurant patrons spend. Just for sake of discussion I visited a couple of ILS’s; Apartment Finder, For Rent and Apartment Guide and found that all of them use $ when demonstrating price.

Restaurants use it successfully

The Food Section: Restaurant Menus, Dollar Signs, and Spending

A new study by the Center for Hospitality Research at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration reveals that the way in which prices are displayed on restaurant menus has an impact on the amount of spending by diners.

It’s Not Normal – Does that make it remarkable?

In the spirit of being remarkable or memorable – would it make a difference? Would it give cause for a prospect to inquire about the higher priced apartments and or would it allow us to push rates with no real consequence to our leasing efforts? Is it worth testing to see if it works in our space?

mike brewer, apartment marketing, multifamily marketing, apartment pricing, multifamily pricing