Category: Property Marketing & Social Media

Engaging customers and prospects through organic social media is one of the most popular marketing strategies for businesses right now. With 4.2 billion users on social platforms and the majority of users spending over 2 hours a day scrolling, social media is a great opportunity for your property to be made known. Yet, many businesses, both large and small, are missing the opportunity social media offers for their brand. Some might be overwhelmed by the idea and don’t know where to start. Others just don’t understand exactly what they’re missing.  

But in reality, most of your present and future residents are online scrolling every day and that is motivation to step into the world of social media for your brand. Plus, it’s free marketing! Organic social media costs nothing but a little bit of time and effort that eventually reaps high rewards, including new leases and increasing resident retention. 

If the idea is still overwhelming for you and you aren’t sure where to start, remember that starting is the most important piece to doing social media. Just like getting back to the gym after some time away, it takes practice and consistency to get the rewards you want. 

Choose a Starting Point 

Since we’re starting small, you can pick one social media platform to start, but we recommend trying out a platform you’re most familiar with. Eventually, you can add more platforms the more you feel comfortable. Instagram and Facebook can be connected to post together at once to make sharing content easier. Videos you share can eventually go on YouTube. There’s plenty of opportunity to build upon a foundation later. 

Once you have created a page or account, add in the necessary details to fill out a profile. Add your logo as a profile photo and fill out your biography as well as a Call-To-Action that takes people to your website. After you’ve added the basic account information, now you can start inviting people to follow the page. Share a link on your website or email your residents to let them know. You can find helpful tips for spreading the word here. 

Before going into the details of posting on your social media, remember not to stress. Make it fun and simple for yourself to start. We will show you the tools so you can be better equipped and supported as you get rolling.  

Gathering Content 

One of the first problems you’ll run into is having content to share on your social media pages. One of the common ways content marketers can create consistent social posts is by having what’s called pillar content. 

Pillar content is best thought as large pieces of content that answer a complete question in full. The trick is around what the question is asking. The vaguer a question is, the more content you can write about. If your pillar content is too granular or specific, you won’t have as much to repurpose from that.  

Here are a couple of examples that exemplify pillar content versus social content: 

Pillar content: What are ways to keep your apartment peaceful? Here are 9 ways how. 

Social content: Is your closet a wreck? Use a closet organizer! 

Pillar content: What’s in your property’s neighborhood? 8 things to do during San Diego’s summertime. 

Social content: Free this weekend? Take a 3-minute walk to the Farmer’s Market in downtown San Diego! 

Content marketing is about working smarter, not harder. When you create one pillar content piece, you might be able to create up to 15 social posts from that piece alone. You are working smarter when it comes to social media when the pillar content is helping you create posts to share.  

A blog could have 6-8 sections. Those sections or chapters could have 2-3 quotes or statistics. You can see how social media can be easier when you have one good pillar content piece to work from. 

TIP: When thinking about what pillar content to create, think about your residents. What do they care about outside of just having a place to live? Here are some ideas: 

• Write a blog helping residents with their apartment living: decorating, family activities in the neighborhood, hosting holidays with family, etc. 

• Share third party articles with valuable information for residents and pose your property as a resource for all things apartment-living. 

• Put on events for your residents and use social media as a way to promote and recap your event. 

• Look what neighboring properties are posting on their social media channels for inspiration on pillar content. 

• Talk to your front office staff who talk with residents daily for brainstorming more pillar content ideas. 

Social Media Tools 

Have you ever wanted to post on social platforms but were worried about how it looks or reads? This is where the right tools can support you better for organic social media. No one is expecting your property to have the prettiest Instagram or Facebook in the world. This is where practice comes in naturally. You will get better as you go. There are some tools that are free or inexpensive for you to boost the visual attractiveness of your social media a bit: 

Canva – Canva is a great and free online tool with customizable templates for any sort of print or digital content. From social media images and video templates to infographics and flyers. You can add logos, change the text and add images to thousands of templates and instantly have content to share to your social media pages. For a small price, you can have access to an entire library of templates for more options than the free plan. 

Creatopy / Bannersnack – If you want to get a little fancier, you can have more animated and design-focused templates to use for your pages through Creatopy. This might make more sense for platforms like Instagram and Facebook as it is usually used for ads but has compelling visuals and easy-to-use templates.

Hootsuite – Use Hootsuite to schedule your posts. This is helpful with saving time while still having consistent content uploaded. You can spend 30 minutes on a Monday morning creating the images for the week in Canva or Creatopy and schedule them out so you don’t have to post every day manually. Hootsuite has a free plan for up to 2 social accounts. 

Another way to engage your audience and look like a pro is by using hashtags. Hashtags are helpful for gaining attention and followers from people who might not have heard of you before. They can also help you target the audience you want to reach (I.e. luxury apartments would have hashtags geared toward luxury living). You can use tools like Flick to help you get started. 

Get Residents and Employees Involved 

Getting started can be as simple as getting your employees and residents involved. Your frontline workers are some of the best advocates for your property. Encourage them to ask residents for a quick follow on Instagram or Facebook. Create contests among your employees for content, like event ideas, images, or videos. Reward them with office lunches or a gift card.  

You can also create contests with your residents. Have a “Best Decorated Apartment” contest and create a hashtag for your property specifically so you can see what your residents share. Use Canva to create flyers sharing the contest details. Incentivize them with prizes for more excitement. You can partner with a local restaurant to sponsor the contest and reward the winner with a free meal for the family. 

Host events for your property and set up a photo booth or hire a local student photographer looking for portfolio work. Share photos online for residents to look for after it’s over. Residents love to engage when you present them with opportunities. Look for the ones that do well and garner support and repeat those regularly. 

Social media can seem overwhelming and a lot to commit to from the outside, especially organic social media. But in reality, simple and authentic is better. Organic social media is an investment that can reap heavy rewards for your property, including new leases and an excellent brand experience for current residents. Start somewhere. 

Interested in how you can increase traffic and leads through marketing? Check out our latest on-demand webinar.

The world seemed to deal with aftershocks from the technology earthquake of the 21^st century when COVID-19 happened in early 2020. The modern consumer began demanding a complete shift to digital in both their business and personal life in order to stay fully connected and informed. The general public has now come to expect businesses to be fully online asking more of businesses in their online resources with a (to no surprise) lower tolerance for anything less. 

It sounds harsh, but in reality, consumers have changed and they know what they want and where to find it online. If you’re not online, to many, it might be as if your business doesn’t exist. But even if you are online, you have another hurdle. Because of the Internet and the massive zoo that is online content, it’s difficult to know where and how to get in front of consumers. Not only just consumers but the right consumers need to be able to easily find your property’s website or they might never bother to find your business at all (remember the low tolerance?) 

SEO, Paid Ads, and An Active Website… Oh my! 

The trifecta of an online presence includes: SEO (search engine optimization), paid ads and an active website. These three initiatives should drive people to your website if they aren’t already visiting. Here’s a short guide to getting these three things where they need to be: 

SEO – We’ll get into the active website, but if your website is being updated regularly with fresh content, you can easily figure out the keywords that your prospects are searching for. Neil Patel has a great tool for SEO beginners. Go from a free to inexpensive plan and gauge traffic for keyword searches and percentage possibilities of rankings on page 1 of Google.  

Paid Ads – List your active units and properties in paid ads, whether on social media or Google. Start with a small amount of money and test out different copy and images. See where traffic engages the most and put a little more money toward it. Repeat several times. Always test ads as much as possible by figuring out what the market wants to see once your ad is in front of them. 

Active Website – The word “active” is key here. Uploading regular resources signals to Google that your site is putting fresh content out for consumers – and Google rewards that by bumping you to higher pages on their search engine. That content, whether it be blogs, announcements, or general unit information, should include SEO keywords that your prospective renters are searching for so that links to your site are returned in their search results.  

The entire point is: make it easy for the consumer to find you. The easier it is for them, the more likely they are to give your brand and website a chance to earn their business. If you don’t have the internal resources or capabilities to help you with these initiatives, you can outsource to an expert to get the process started.  Now that you have an approach for driving traffic to your website, let’s talk about what they want to see once they arrive. 

What are future residents looking for on your website? 

In writing school, they teach you “show, don’t tell.” What it really means is let the reader figure out some things on their own – don’t write every detail for them. This is the same for your property’s website. You still need to provide some detail, but your website is the beginning of a customer experience and that’s why it’s important not to overwhelm them. 

A website with nothing but copy and words will quickly motivate a user to bounce, even if the words on the website feel important. Focus on your target market and understanding who they are and what they care about. They’re looking for a future home, so typically any consumer wants to eventually see units, photos of the property, and maybe information on amenities and pricing. However, starting with your home page, you still have to convince them to travel to other parts of the site.  

Typically, your properties’ home pages will be more image-heavy than information-heavy. It should give a visual expectation of their future experience living at your property. Video and photos are a great way to do this and can be a great opportunity to call out important and high interest areas of the site. Putting a CTA (call-to-action) button or a headline about a new promotion the property is running near these eye-catching images and videos is what’s going to keep them interested. 

What does their future home look like? 

As they are checking out units and amenities, it’s important to note that you still have the opportunity to give them all the information they need without writing it all out in words. Your property’s website visitors are more likely to convert when they get as much information as they can online, before they commit to touring in-person. We suggest providing this information visually in three ways: 

Self-guided tours 

Prospects who complete self-guided tours online are 54% more likely to convert into an in-person tour. Giving your prospects the chance to see the landscape tells them exactly what they will experience if they make it their new home. When the prospect does tour in-person, they are not caught by surprise and often have higher intent to lease. 

Neighborhood maps 

If this is their future home, visitors are going to want to see what’s beyond the gates of the apartment community. Interactive neighborhood maps are another way to create transparency with online researchers as they can get a sense for their apartment’s surroundings including schools, shopping centers, and even the distance to the highway. 

Interactive and Unit-specific floor plans 

Many properties upload a single interactive floor plan for each type of unit (studio, 1B1B, 2B1B, and so on). But probably the layout of each unit type varies depending on where it is located. More often than not, prospects are surprised when they tour in-person and see the available unit looks completely backwards or different than what they saw virtually. If they’re already picturing themselves in a unit and you change that picture, it can create friction for them as a prospective resident.  

We advise you let them see it all. Give unit-specific floor plans that are interactive and can not only show what the exact available unit will look like, but where it’s located on the property. Believe it or not, another point of friction for prospects is around location of the unit. When they realize their potential apartment is far away from their parking spot and they try imagining carrying groceries back and forth, they can quickly lose interest. There can be other reasons like being close to the elevator or trash chute or even for a nice view, a customer might be led astray when they don’t get the full picture beforehand. The more a prospective resident knows in advance before touring, the more the in-person visit will reinforce the personal connection they have to your property that drove them to visit in the first place! 

If you aren’t reaching your prospective residents online or aren’t catering to their pre-visit information needs, you’re making it harder than it needs to be to generate and convert leads. Interested in getting your property website to its full potential? Book a demo with us to see how we support property management companies with their websites here.

How Does a Multifamily CRM Improve Lead Management?

Customer relationship management software, or CRMs, are the fastest growing software solutions on the market across industries, and multifamily is no exception. A multifamily CRM helps increase conversion by streamlining the lead management process. 

As a supplement to a high-quality property management software, a multifamily CRM creates a more personalized experience for prospects, helps teams manage leads more efficiently and gives property managers unparalleled access to customer data in real time. It improves lead flow, increases conversion and drives higher occupancy rates. 

 Here are five signs your company could benefit from a multifamily CRM. 

1. You aren’t attracting enough leads to maintain occupancy levels  

Move outs happen, of course, but if leads are down and it’s getting harder to keep your units consistently filled, you most likely need the power of a multifamily CRM to boost your efforts.  

When coming up with a plan to increase conversion, start with the basics. Most leads come via apartment aggregator websites, but some companies struggle to keep their ILS listings updated.  Before you even have a chance to wow prospects with your properties, out-of-date information or incomplete (Internet Listing Services) ILS listings for your property could be driving them away. 

The best multifamily CRM will ensure that your ILS listings stand out on the best apartment aggregator sites, providing up-to-date and appealing details on availability, unit size, price and more. This can give prospects a strong first impression of your property and drive them to engage. From there, your CRM and your staff can get to work doing everything necessary to convert them. 

2. You have duplicate prospect records  

Inefficiency impacts your bottom line.  Duplicate leads across multiple properties and misplaced data makes it hard to effectively engage prospects. If your competition is using modern CRM solutions to manage prospects while you use outdated systems, you may lose out on deals. 

A multifamily CRM centralizes cross-property prospect records and allows you to efficiently manage leads across your portfolio. If you’re relying heavily on ILS listings, you may save money through more efficient sharing of leads across properties, reducing your cost per lead. This effectiveness also reduces prospect and team frustrations. 

3. Leads sometimes fall through the cracks 

Your leasing team is constantly being pulled in different directions. You need a solution to keep them focused. A multifamily CRM with a powerful dashboard alerts them to high priority prospects and activities ensures they follow up promptly. 

Your brand is at stake. Consumers believe the pre-leasing experience your team delivers reflects the ongoing experience they will have as a resident. If they experience hassles before they sign, what will life be like when they live on your property? An integrated property management solution and multifamily CRM enable consistent streamlined experiences that residents have come to expect. 

4. You aren’t automating communication 

Being responsive is essential to keeping prosects engaged, but your team can’t be available 24/7. Automating communication through a multifamily CRM simplifies processes for your leasing team and shows prospects that you’re easy to work with. 

More than 50 percent of tours are scheduled outside business hours. Leveraging a multifamily CRM that offers AI-powered chatbots on your website to engage your prospects at any time. While your team is serving other prospects or off the clock, a chatbot can engage website visitors, offer virtual tours, and schedule in-person tours. 

Note that not all CRMs do this effectively. AI-powered chatbots that accurately interpret and respond in context to prospects are best equipped to get prospects the information they need to move to the next stage of the process. 

Multifamily CRMs can also streamline other forms of communication. Consider a solution that automates email and SMS-triggered dialogues to respond to inquiries and further engage prospects. The best CRMs also offer click-to-dial and call-from-anywhere options, increasing team efficiency. 

5. You aren’t sure how your lead sources are performing

Understanding where your leads originate ensures you’re allocating your marketing budget correctly. Without comprehensive lead and conversion data, you may be overspending on low-converting sources or underspending on high-converting sources.  

A multifamily CRM tied to a robust property management platform provides clear marketing attribution reports to help you optimize your marketing investments. With complete data visibility, you can make confident budgeting decisions to maximize conversion.