I have decided.  If I am not passionate about doing something, I am simply not going to do it.   For a recent experience, Lovin’ the Lou, I was able to let my passion flag fly and find others flying theirs proudly as well…it was magical!

First things first, we have a fabulous new development/rehab called The Laurel Apartments located in Downtown St. Louis in the Mercantile Exchange District.  This is an up and coming neighborhood with incredible potential to really help rejuvenate Downtown – and we are right in the middle of it.  So we needed to get the word out.  In comes Lovin’ the Lou!  In order to enter, we asked Lovin’ the Louers to create a 2 minute video capturing their love for St. Louis.

This is not just a contest with a fabulous prize (Free Rent for a Year at The Laurel), it is much bigger.  It is about reminding an entire region how alive and exciting downtown St. Louis really is.  We originally wanted to use all the traditional media outlets like television and newspapers but as it turned out, that is not where you find people for passion projects. So you ask yourself…how can we find this targeted audience of people passionate about St. Louis?  The internet of course!  This project was run completely through social media – twitter, facebook, website, and blog posts.  And maybe we sacrificed some volume (maybe) by avoiding traditional media, but I think we gained a ton more in passion.

We received 18 passionate, creative, and fun videos showcasing St. Louis for this project!  Every entry had a great story to tell and it was clear that this was not really about winning free rent.  BAM!  Exactly what we were looking for…our prize was secondary to real passion for the city!  Not only were people loving the videos, they were also commenting and sharing the information with their friends.  Our broader goal of helping revitalize downtown was really coming to fruition.  We have 18 mini-commercials from real St. Louisans that are much more intriguing than any ad I have ever seen.  This is only the beginning.  It’s funny (and maybe this is a precaution), when you start a passion project you find it will never be complete – you will feel internally compelled to do more.  So I guess we will see what the next chapters bring! 

But for this chapter, we are in the final stages of judging to announce the winner later this month – check out all the entries at Lovinthelou.com.

Broader reminder to marketers: Don’t push your content (especially with passion projects).  Passionate people who really buy-in are much more inspiring than fancy ad campaigns with fake passion.  Passionate people truly believe in what you are trying to accomplish and they will find you.  It’s like a social media flash mob for your project!  Ok-ok.  Here are some stats… (over 5 month period).

We are nearing the first chapter finale for this passion project and I can’t wait to continue!  What will your next passion project be?

Looking back

 Back in October of 2007 we wrote about participating in the conversation via rating sites and even suggested incorporating a mechanism into your property management website to make it easier. Here is a bit of a revised excerpt from that post;

 “If you are still of the mind that dismisses the value of sites like apartmentratings.com, listen up. The feedback outlined in the brief above [Deloitte] should move you to action as soon as possible. I truly think we should all open up our company websites to include a consumer and resident feedback mechanism. Instead of internal score keeping, make it completely transparent. My only suggesting is that you have an editor just for the sake of carving out names and character attacks as we know they will come despite our best efforts. Even with that in mind you have to be courageous enough to leave the meat and more importantly act on it.”

 Two years later

 Here we are nearly two years later in the midst of the conversation marketing buzz and while a good many of us are participating there is still a hesitancy to move that conversation to our websites. Even those that have don’t really have a great deal of participation in terms of consumers reviewing them.

 Two years from now

 Not only is the writing on the wall but the ink is dry and the conversation is going on with or without you. And, the benefits are immense when you bring the conversation to you;

•  You have the ability to increase your credibility
• You have the ability to participate
• You have the ability to influence
• You have the ability to increase your Google Juice
• You have the ability to innovate with your consumer
• You have the ability to create evangelist
• You have the ability to generate further participation
• You have the ability to create loyalty
• You have the ability to create an environment where people feel they are part of something larger than themselves
• You have that ability to respond in lieu of react [there is a big difference]

The more important point here is: how do we increase participation to an Amazonish or iTuneish type level? Do we ask former potential, existing or former residents to review their experience relative to their specific unit such that every unit takes on its very own unique rating? Would that allow us to price higher rated homes differently than lower rated homes. I see it as a great mechanism to allow us the opportunity to really maximize our rents. Maybe the lease rent optimizers out there employee a unit rating lever into their pricing algorithms. The ideas are endless – acting is the key.

In lieu of a shiny new one dotted with the general me me me stuff accompanied by a map of all our properties, should we move in the direction of a social classified [Craigslist] concept? I’m not suggesting we ditch the specific company and community information but maybe we just display it in a different manner. Can we give them what they want right when they want it? Can we get to the point without sacrificing engagement and overall experience? Or, would the engagement and overall experience be amplified positively by a less cluttered approach? I think the overriding theme in developing a web presence going forward should be to make it more social in nature.

That in mind, do you think it is conceivable that an apartment prospect just wants to get to the pertinent information via a search box – for all intents and purposes, they are expertly trained by Google to do so. Could we get away with just having a search box on our home page? Maybe after that, they just want to read a few reviews so that they can make a more informed decision about joining our apartment experience? Could each one of our listings carry with it a review or two? – And on that point, why use a third party when you could provide your own feedback [Yelp or Aptratings like] mechanism?  Would it carry the same credibility?

Maybe the site is a mashup of Goolge and Craigslist [Craigooglelist], where your homepage is a search box that leads to a set of classified listings that include reviews. We could include links to the other stuff just in case the user wants to see it.

The over-riding point here is, do we need to rethink the corporate apartment website?

Have a stellar Sunday. M

Corporate apartment website, apartment website, multifamily website