A big thank you to Jonathan Saar over at The Training Factor for today’s guest post…

It seems like just yesterday I was at a couple of conferences and reading various blog posts on social media, internet marketing and seeing a vast amount of people who were so negative and would make statements such as “It won’t work”, “It’s a fad” and other similar comments.  Look how far we have come!  Thank goodness for the many pioneers and forward thinkers we had and continue to have that pave the way.

I feel that many lessons have been learned over the past couple of years.  First off did we not learn the value of collaboration?  There were those who were on the fence.  There were those who threw stones. Then there were those who were willing to put themselves out there and provide meaningful dialog that contributed to the growth of the multifamily industry.  Look where we are now.  Numerous property management companies now have hard data on the impact social media has on our businesses.  Decisions were made.  They were also adjusted based on how data shifted.

I really believe multifamily was given a huge wakeup call.  When I first came into this industry I heard numerous comments on how behind our industry was and how it seemed to take forever for anything to change.  With the advent of social media marketing we learned there is very little time for debate and there is a pressing need for clear decisions.  Would you not agree?

What does the future hold?  Based on my observations I really believe that apartment marketing will continue to shift.  There are still many tools available that have not been fully tested but the pioneers are working their magic and are diving in.  Mobile marketing will continue to have a huge impact over the next couple of years.  The drive towards establishing a better community atmosphere will continue to shift forward.  I will say that in recent months the overall debate has died down and there are a lot more decisions taking place.  When I first started consulting with property management companies the question used to be “What is this all about?” Now the question is “What do we need to do?”   A big difference would you not agree?

Though there will continue to be minor debates over some of the new tools available it is definitely refreshing to see positive forward action by our industry.  It is also encouraging to see how the collaboration that has been taking place that has served our industry well.  By working together and testing out the waters it has served the purpose of making the apartment industry that much stronger.

So give me your feedback.  Do you think the debate has died down?  How is your company implementing decisions quicker?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Written by Jonathan Saar- The Training Factor

(authentic) conforming to fact and therefore worthy of belief; “an authentic account by an eyewitness”; “reliable information” - wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

What better way to live than to have undisputed credibility? What better way to market than to have undisputed credibility? What better way to participate in a conversation that to participate with undisputed credibility?

Is your property management company ripe with authenticity?

Are your individual properties run with complete authenticity?

Do your people serve with complete authenticity?

Do you?

Have a smashing Friday and don’t forget to let me know what you think in the comment section below!

M

Pic via JMorgn Marketing

Shout out to Mills own Melissa Preusser, Marketing Director & Communication Strategist for the pic and the title to this blog post. Seems like such a waste in a world that is/has quickly moved digital. In all fairness, while relocating our business offices over the last three weeks, we purged what seemed like years and years of material.

I will say this; moving forces you to skinny down and what a great feeling it is.

Take away: Stop what you are doing right now and take something to the recycle bin. Something that you have not touched and really have no intention of touching. Get it out of your life then come back and comment on it below.

Have a lighter week!

Car thieves are now using tow trucks to tow vehicles that have expired tabs or look otherwise derelict. And, apartment community parking lots and garages seem to be hotbeds for the action. Apparently they move them straight crushing facilities where they sell them for scrape metal prices. Brilliantly awful!

This serves as one of those; if that person(s) would just use that kind of thought process in a productive the world would be a better place.

What else is going on out there? Any weird new twists on crime in your portfolios?

In that same vein of thought; I am curious about the various methods of optimizing the pics for your blog. Do you upload into your respective blogging platforms gallery? Do you upload to Flickr or other photo sharing sites and then link back via URLs? Is there a best way? 

2012 is shaping up to be a big year of refreshment with a relentless focus on ease of use and rapid flow of actionable rehtoric and I am looking forward to running full blast into it. 

Would love to hear your thoughts on the subject of blog images. 

Your looking forward to 2012 multifamily blogger, 

M

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…

I could have used Twitter for this and in the same respect I hope to open some good conversation in the comment section. So, be brief or be long winded – I think it will all be valuable stuff. Times are good and times are changing…

Hope your week is a compelling one -

Community as the Unique Selling Proposition

The Seahawks have their 12th Man

The Browns have their Dog House

Then you have these guys/gals

In essence there is a compelling reason to come and be a part. It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s intriguing. There is a reason to want to Like – to want to Follow – to want to Listen – to want to Participate or to want to Create and Share your Apartment Living Experience with others. And, that reason is innate in all of us. We want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to feel apart of something important. We are drawn to it because our nature is to be social. As apartment marketers – we should work to create these unique selling propositions. We should build on-line communities.

And, hope with wild abandon that you get a guy like this to lead your Community -

scraplab — Optimism

“The final thing I’d say about optimism is this. If we took the loopiest, most moonbeam-addled Californian utopian internet bullshit, and held it up against the most cynical, realpolitik-inflected scepticism, the Californian bullshit would still be a better predictor of the future. Which is to say that, if in 1994 you’d wanted to understand what our lives would be like right now, you’d still be better off reading a single copy of Wired magazine published in that year than all of the sceptical literature published ever since.”

Clay Shirky, in interview with Decca Aitkenhead of the Guardian.

Social Media Principles for Apartments

The four companies we have elected to draw from are:

JC Hart

Dell

Coca-Cola

Intel

There are hundreds of examples out there to choose from if you are thinking of writing your own. I can’t tell you that we used some magic formula to pick the companies we did. That is with the exception of JC Hart – we know Mark Juleen and admire the efforts he and his team have put together in executing a great strategy.  With that, we also look forward to feedback along the way as we believe that there is no perfect science to the process.

If you have a set of Social Media Principles for your organization and wish to share – link it up down in the comments. We would love to read them.

Have a great weekend -