Using Social Media to Market Apartments

Apartment Interest Graph Marketing

February 24, 2012 By Mike Brewer Leave a Comment

To preface, this post is likely several years off in terms of being really germane to apartment marketing.

I have been reading a ton about Interest Graphs as of late. An interest graph is akin to a digital map that captures and demonstrates everything you like or frankly don’t like. Be it coffee, tea or me – it takes everything you like about your personal adventure through this world and packages it up into one nice comprehensive picture of you. Think Pinterest – the red-hot picture pinning site. In my estimation IG’s are a marketers wildest dream come true.

Apartment Marketing a Few Years Hence

Imagine with me for a moment – if you will. Tomorrow morning you walk into your office, pop open your email and you read:

Hi all,

Today we are embarking on a new marketing initiative. As such, we are completely revamping the information you commingle to make up your demographic set. But, unlike many of our other initiatives, for this one you don’t need to do a thing. In fact, this thing is so brilliant you are going to have a tough time keeping up with the new-found demand we intend to create.

You see, we have crafted a quasi-quant algorithm that constructs your apartment communities Interest Graph. That is to suggest that your community has a personality (and, a friend making ability) and we have found a way to define it based on the premise of how moving it is. Then – get this – once we have defined that personality, we are going to align it with people with like kind personalities or Interest Graphs.

Confused? That’s okay, it will all make sense at some point -

Stay tuned,

Your Marketing Team

Fish Where the Fish Are 2.0

As the internet becomes more and more fragmented with special interest groups (not to be mistaken with those who lobby politically), the more specific we can get with where we have our conversations. And, we can be more precise about what we say and don’t say. Today, we know we have to have a website, a blog and we have to get connected on Facebook. Tomorrow, we will still need those things but now we will be able to find and converse with exactly who we are looking for in the exact place where they don’t mind sharing and talking. Because the conversation will center around the very things they love and cherish as represented by their interests. So long as we are patient and exercise all the simple lessons Dale Carnegie taught us – we will open the flood gates. That is don’t be a stalker.

I see a day when we know exactly who it is that we want to rent our apartments, who will actually rent them, when they will actually rent, and how much rent they are willing to pay. All by simply defining and promoting our communities Interest Graph and coupling them up with people who have like kind interests. In my head, it’s akin to creating personas of the people who you want your marketing messages to speak to but much more amplified and much deeper, richer and more compelling. Much more intimate. It will bring together a like hearted and like-minded apartment community that will attract like kind people. And, that my friends will likely be the lead into the beginning of singularity.

Your Apartment Interest Graph Marketing Junkie (at least this week),

Pic Credit: Robert Scoble

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing, Semantic Web, Using Social Media to Market Apartments Tagged With: apartment interest graph marketing, Apartment marketing, interest graph, Marketing, Singularity, social graph

Apartment Marketing: Paying Rent is a Social Act

January 13, 2012 By Mike Brewer 8 Comments

Update: 4.30.12 - Social gifting, the new buzzword in e-commerce

I wrote about an idea along these lines sometime ago and Wrapp just might be the early way to get it done.

Original Article

Ran across Pepsi’s Social Vending Machine Story while I was in the process of purging some old files and it got me thinking about ways that we could make paying rent an even more social experience.

Is it reasonable to think that Facebook, Twitter, G+ or even resident portals could be robust enough to allow payments by third parties unassociated with lease contracts and the such?

Following the concept of Pepsi creating a the experience of sending free sodas to friends; could you see the same thing apply to rent payments? If my buddy knows that I have fallen on hard times and wants to help; could he go to our website, log in without disclosing his identity [at least to me] and pay my rent? Or, a portion?

It already happens in the analog world. Or not, if leases are written such that you can not take third party payments [not smart in my opinion]. In the former case, parent’s pay their student’s rent via various payment methods. A process, at least at Mills Properties, that is usually administered by our onsite teams. Can we make it DIY for third parties with technology? Do you employ such a service today? Tell us about it.

Your looking to make paying the rent a more social experience multifamily maniac,

Filed Under: Using Social Media to Market Apartments Tagged With: ach, credit cards, Loyalty, Mills Properties, operations, paper checks, payment, rent, Retention, Singularity, social rent payment, Using Social Media in Multifamily

Social Media Flash Mob

January 5, 2012 By Melissa DeCicco 12 Comments

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).

5,058 Visits

3,231 Unique visitors

16,951 Pageviews

280 Comments

166 Lovin the Lou fan page likers

554 Facebook individual webpage likes

63 Tweets

11 +1’s

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?

Filed Under: #apartmentmarketing, Apartment Websites, Using Social Media to Market Apartments Tagged With: Passion Projects, social media marketing

#apartmentmarketing – 2012 Short List Prediction Post

January 2, 2012 By Mike Brewer 5 Comments

Don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment with your marketing. – Mike Volpe, Chief Marketing Office – Hubspot

Not another social prediction post! No, there are many really good ones already out there such as the one Mark Juleen posted with the help of Mike Whaling and Duncan Alney. Another fav is the one Brian Solis penned on the subject of social and how it relates to business in 2012.

I’m not heading for the broad angles or general predictions that seem to affront us all this time of the year. No, I would like to get a little more intimate and little more bold. To me 2012 will be the true year of pain for many of the tried and true resources that many of us have leaned on over the years to market our apartments and communities. The simple premise being that the proliferation of DIY platforms and DIY tools along with a growing level of comfort in using them have made it easier to compete.

The barriers to entry have crumbled and it’s time to ROCK!

My prediction comes in the way of a question -

Who will be your biggest apartment marketing competitor in 2012?

Print and Internet Listing Services

If you are anything like me you pay attention to everything the traditional ILS’s and print media outlets are doing in the social space and otherwise. In 2011 some of them made shrewd moves like employing our very own leasing consultant and management forces across the country to build Google Juice on their behalf. Brilliant but very un-partner like in my opinion. And, still others have stumbled; for example absolutely refusing to unbundle print from internet offerings until it was just frankly to late. Certainly soured my opinion of that specific group.

You just can’t see them as partners anymore [remember - they have to pay the light bill too] and to the extent that you can embrace that, use them where you need to [print and ILS are not broken and are still effective] and build a plan that brands you and your company first you will be better off. It’s frankly as important as sending out renewal letters and collecting the rent at this point.

Just know, anymore it’s not the building next door or across the street from you that is your biggest competitor. It’s more and more so the print media and ILS providers.

The Re-imagination of Locators in Secondary, Tertiary and Hyper Local Apartment Markets

Back in late 2004 or 2005 I met a guy named Eddie Passadore. Brilliant guy and passionate about the multifamily space. He came to work for Equity Residential and quickly went about producing some off the wall results. How? Craigslist. And, Rentwitheddie.com. That’s right he built out his own website, put his personal cell number on it, made himself available 24/7 and syndicated it via the emerging social platforms of the time. Namely Craigslist and MySpace. Result? He now runs his own property management firm in Portland, Oregon.

I recall spending countless hours brainstorming with Eddie about marketing oneself in lieu of physical buildings. It’s what inspired my personal blog [at the time called mike brewer on stuff and things] and the Portland Rocks Newsletter blog we ran back then that promoted Equity Residential’s Portland employees and properties. We talked about everything from using print to advertise our agents in lieu of our communities to building out personal websites for every single one of our agents. An idea I still think has some crazy potential [time and date stamped for future development]. And, he went and did it.

All that to suggest that the locator will have a major play in our space and many of our current day leasing consultants will be the people doing it.

Me. Us.

If we are to contend with the fire hose of data and change that will come our way in 2012, we have to invest in ourselves. I think this is the year that those who have sat on the sidelines as observers and passive participants are going to come alive. They will finally get that if they don’t they will be cooked and standing in the unemployment lines across this great nation. This is the year that organizations raise the bar for talent. No longer will mediocrity be tolerated. And, no longer will it be just okay to muddle along.

You are your biggest competitor in 2012. You are your own benchmark. The you that you look at in the mirror today should be a distant memory by the time you make it out of bed tomorrow. And, in a more beautiful way!

Here is to us in 2012!

Go – and make it relentlessly compelling!

Filed Under: Using Social Media to Market Apartments Tagged With: 2012 apartment predictions, 2012 social media for apartment marketing predictions, strategy, vision

Mills Apartment Bloggers

October 26, 2010 By Mike Brewer 4 Comments

Mills Apartments is hosting our first bloggers’ summit less than two hours from now and I thought we would share our underlying premise for day and for the future of our blogging efforts. It’s also an effort on my part to flesh out my thoughts – real truth be known. And, to answer the one question that I know will be on everyone’s mind – Why do we have to blog? There are four major reasons as I see it and they are as follows.

It’s All About People, Stupid

We are going to start the day by discussing the introduction chapter of the book Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements. Likely one of the best books I have read this year. The goal here is to help our team capture the true essence of the word engagement, a term that has and will continue to illicit a healthy amount of good and bad debate. I am of the camp and a firm believer that it exists and that if a team of writers can truly capture it – the result will be game changing. I think the authors of Brains of Fire give real tangible meaning to engagement and as such we hope to model their call for being igniters in an effort to engage our communities in a movement(s).

People Buy People

It does not matter if you are in a B2B or B2C business – people buy people. They don’t buy fancy brochures, marketing speak, fancy promotions, ads or campaigns. In fact, the Brains on Fire authors describe brochures as “pretty trash.” I can’t say I disagree with them. It is a waste of money that can be otherwise invested in the growth of people.

I have long suggested that organizations are born into the world to serve the people that serve it. Take the money you are thinking about investing in creating a fancy brochure [don't forget to include the time your team devotes to the creation] and invest it in growing someone. Our blogging summit is about just that. We are taking the time to help people to become better writers. And, in turn the hope is that they ignite like kind passions in other people.

Part of Something Bigger Than Self

It’s been said before and it will be said again; people just want to be a part of something bigger than self. You can debate the point from the perspective of religion, politics, social change agents or even Maslow’s hierarchy. It’s just fundamental to who were are as humans. Look at some of the movements in Brains on Fire, look at the Susan G. Komen movement or simply watch an episode of Extreme Makeover. People would trip over themselves to be a part of that experience. And, I would wager that it goes beyond some of the otherwise shallow reasons we could easily come up with.

In short, it taps our need to feel valued and important.

Stop Being A Marketer – Instead, Be an Igniter

The first part of that sub-title has been written about more times than I care to count. The second part however, is a topic that I think needs some traction as it relates to businesses leveraging their innate need to provide the platforms and support for movements to take place. Brains on Fire [can I call it B of F?] is a great catalyst for the discussion.

We live in a crowded world and, to borrow a term I fell in love with a number a years ago, an Attention Economy. I can’t recall the stat off the top of my head but I am sure it is well North of 1,000 marketing messages cross through our brain on a given day. Whoa! That is crazy to think about. North of 1,000 so I am sure it would suffice to say that your message [our message] is likely lost in the sea of bobbing billboards, print ads and aging signage.

Many companies are shifting gears and making their businesses more social in nature. More open in nature. More compelling in nature. And, it all starts with the Igniter. It starts with the person that Cares as much if not more than you do. It starts with the person that feels your pain and celebrates your successes sometimes before you even know about them. It’s that group of people out there that would tattoo your brand on their forehead if they knew it would help you create one more compelling relationship.

Here we go!

In summary, we intend to help people remember [I don't think you ever really forget] that it’s all about people. We want to bring the discussion around to the fact that people buy from other people and that if you harness the power of those relationships, you can turn it into a movement that allows for people to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And, lastly, we really want to create a legion of igniters at Mills Apartments!

Filed Under: Apartment Blogging, Blogs, Branding Multifamily, New Media Apartment Marketing, Using Social Media to Market Apartments

Mills Apartments Charts Social Media Course

October 22, 2010 By Mike Brewer 10 Comments

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…

Accept our offer to be a Fabulous Mills Blogger
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
Read the introduction of the book mentioned above by October 26^th
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)
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…

Filed Under: Apartment Buzz Marketing, Apartment Leasing Fundamentals, Apartment Pricing, Uncategorized, Using Facebook to Market Apartments, Using Social Media to Market Apartments

Apartment Marketing: @earlybird a New Way to Use Twitter

July 5, 2010 By Mike Brewer 4 Comments

Have you ever wondered what the most appropriate way to use Twitter to market your companies Apartment Living Experience is? Now I’m not to suggesting that any one way is better than another but I do think there are some ways that garnish more attention. My only piece of advice is avoid using old school push marketing tactics.

It looks like @earlybird is positioning itself as a socially acceptable way to broadcast your current promotion. Brian Solis puts it this way in On Twitter, The Early Bird Gets the Worm

If you can imaging the possibilities for @EarlyBird, it goes beyond just one-off deals and specials through a generic account [push marketing], it can be themed into opt-in channels for almost any area of interest, food, music, entertainment, events, etc. [relevancy] emphasis mine.

As it relates to apartment marketing, I can see the value in an opt-in channel for apartments as a good thing -

What do you think?

Filed Under: Apartment Marketing Ideas, Using Social Media to Market Apartments, Using Twitter to Market Apartments Tagged With: @mbrewer, Apartment Buzz Marketing, apartment internet marketing, Apartment marketing, Apartment Marketing Ideas, Apartment Social Media, marketing apartments, mbrewergroup.com, mike brewer, Using Social Media to Market Apartments

Apartment Marketing: Where is your money going?

June 17, 2010 By Mike Brewer 14 Comments

While 2010 has been the year of dipping more than just your toe in the SM waters – it looks like 2011 will be a year where mass adoption might be a more appropriate description as it relates to small business taking the plunge.
As it pertains to Apartment Marketing – I would say the trend is in concert.

Apartment Blogging

When I started blogging in 2003 there were very few Multifamily types in the space – today, it seems like everyone has a blog and Twitter is a near household name. We were also early adopters of MySpace as a way to market apartments [back then we were still in post your floor plans, features and benefits mode].

Apartment Facebook Marketing

At the time, I recall seeing very few people participating in that space – today Facebook rules and the masses are adopting the platform as a way to market. [As an industry we still have to work on setting it up via FBs TOS]. Nonetheless adoption is happening and now the dollars are flowing that way as demonstrated by the stats below. All that being said, I still think it is interesting to see newspaper with such a high mark -That is not to mention that five out of the seven spends are print media related…

Enjoy the stats – would love to hear your thoughts and I hope the balance of your week is compelling!

Survey Says: Businesses Spending More on Marketing, Tech – AOL Small Business

Forty-two percent of small-business owners are likely to spend more on marketing and advertising this year, according to the latest FedEx Office Signs of the Times national small-business survey. So where will most of their money go?

* Improving online presence (46 percent)
* Print materials/newsletters/direct mail (44 percent)
* Brochures (43 percent)
* Yellow Pages listings (39 percent)
* Fliers and signs/banners/posters (37 percent each)
* Social networking sites (36 percent)
* Newspaper advertisements (32 percent)

Filed Under: Using Facebook to Market Apartments, Using Social Media to Market Apartments Tagged With: @mbrewer, Apartment marketing, Apartment Marketing Ideas, Apartment Social Media, mbrewergroup.com, mike brewer, Property Management, Using Social Media to Market Apartments

Apartment Marketing: How to Use Facebook Like Pages to Lease Apartments

June 11, 2010 By Mike Brewer 18 Comments

I love emails like the one below -but before we go there:

Over the past few weeks we have started to quietly roll out some of our Facebook Like Pages as we gear up for the Get Social with Mills Initiative . One of the issues we’ve run into with this slow roll out is anxious PMs and MSs like Teresa and Mike at Park Clayton Apartments. They were ready to run – so, we let them go and in just over two weeks they took the like numbers from 7 to North of 225.

How to grow Your Apartment Facebook Like Page numbers

How did they do it? To make a long story short Mike brought an orphaned stuffed yellow duck to the leasing office for Teresa to see and each time they tried to put the duck away – residents asked to have it back as a mascot. With that T and M – [I often use the first letter of peoples names - with that T is for Teresa and M is for Mike] decided to have a – Name the Duck – contest . In conjunction with that contest they decided to give away a few fun prizes for the resident who yielded the biggest number of Likes to our page in a weeks time.

The Apartment Like Page Results

T and M put on North of 200 Likes inside of two weeks time. Not only that – they yielded something much more important in my opinion – check out the page and I think you will quickly discern what I mean. That point brings me to the email below -

How to use Facebook Like Pages to Rent Apartments

I will let the email speak for itself -

Have a compelling weekend – M

—–Original Message—–
From: Park Clayton <parkclayton@millsproperties.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 12:55 PM
To: ‘Mike Brewer’ <MBrewer@millsproperties.net>; ‘Tracy Seubert’ <TSeubert@millsproperties.net>
Subject: Great news!

Hey guys,

I have some awesome news about our facebook fans. One of my residents came down to tell me that his friends in Taiwan are watching us on facebook and they think it’s great that we do resident events and have contests. He says they told him they want to move here when they get to town just because of what they see online!

Also, he brought down his laptop and we spoke with a couple of his friends in Taiwan who want to move here in August. The program they use to chat/talk internationally is called, “skype.”

Teresa Richardson

Property Manager

Park Clayton Apartments

photo credit: blog.hubspot.com