The Sales team is getting out from behind the desk and taking on new titles, ‘RentSentinel Road Warriors.’  Join Alli, Phil, Wes and Bill at the upcoming local trade shows.  Learn how our cost effective marketing management solution can help manage your Craigslist & ILS posts, Social Media, Reputation & Prospect management from one dashboard.

Be sure to stop by and visit our booth!  We’re participating at the following shows:

Indiana Apartment Association Reverse Trade Show

March 7, 2013
The Marriott East Hotel
4:00pm – 7:30pm

Greater Charlotte Apartment Association Trade Show

March 14, 2013
Charlotte Convention Center – Booth 106
5:30pm – 9:00pm

Apartment Association of Greater Dallas Trade Show

March 21, 2013
Dallas Market Hall – Booth 134
3:00 – 8:00pm

Chicagoland Apartment Association Trade Show

April 16, 2013
Drury Lane Theater & Conference Center – Booth 301
10:00am – 3:30pm

Contact 312.283.1420 or Sales@RentSentinel.com to set up an appointment and meet with your local sales representative!

We’ll be adding more shows, so be sure to check back for updated schedules and times.

At the Multifamily Social Media Summit they discussed just that.  Our top three show takeaways include:

Take Control
Before you can start the race, you need to know the course.  First, determine and define how you will measure your social media success.  What are you specifically trying to accomplish?  Will your social media be used for retention, lease-ups, or as an engagement tool?  Once you take control of your direction you can focus on the path.

Build Your Strategy
New York Times best-selling author and social media guru, Chris Brogan, provided these 3 prompts for building an effective plan:

• What’s your story?
  • Don’t attempt to create the most unique and clever composition, commonly the best story is within your own four walls.
• How do you include your guests?
  • Befriend residents and include their personal interests in community content.  Is your content relevant to viewers?
• How do I make it share worthy?
  • Avoid corporate speak and use an informative, light and funny approach.  Then, replicate successes using reputation tools to identify why posts were viewed or shared.

Don’t Bite Off More than you can Chew
Scalability is key to social media.  Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube – the list of social channels grows each day.  Rather than getting overwhelmed, use a marketing tool to utilize your social channels to the fullest.  Continual A/B testing will allow accomplishments to be recognized and replicated.

As Jed Williams of BIA/Kelsey said during his presentation, “It’s like running on a treadmill with one foot on the treadmill and the other on the floor, to get into social media you have to commit.”  So plan, go, learn and repeat.

Get the answers from former broker and property manager Aaron Woodman’s feature in Chicago Agent Magazine.  The article stresses how technology will play an increasingly prominent role in success.  Woodman goes on to provide advice and solutions to shift the field with careful selections and integrating technologies, to best serve real estate agents and their business models.
Read more.

Aaron has sold over $200 million in real estate assets and has managed a portfolio of over 1600 multi-family units, working for several large property management companies as well as for Exit Realty and Keller Williams Realty. Recently, he has focused his efforts on using his breadth of experience to act as consultant for a variety of real estate businesses, including individual residential brokers across the country, national property management firms, and real estate technology start-ups. Find him on https://twitter.com/aaronwoodman and http://about.me/aaronwoodman.

Read the full article.

“Feed the beast or it will go away”

The week’s most popular Q&A question was, ‘What’s the right amount of social media content?’  Each Director of Social Media had unique formulas, but generally the answer was the same whether it was from Rick Wion from McDonald’s Corp. or Gerry Moran from SAP:

• Weekly post / Facebook
• More than 1 post seems to garner diminishing returns
• 10 – 20 Daily posts/ Twitter
• Any less you’re out of the reader’s mind/ Any more you become an annoyance

 
“Teach people how to fish”

Social Media isn’t only a game for marketing to play.  Many companies are cross-training staff from the legal department to customer support to share on social media channels.  The effort is made to hyper-localize, personalize, and put an individual voice behind the ‘parent’ brand.

“Know before you go”

Analytics – the hottest of buzz words stressed across all sessions without question.  To execute a media plan, it’s essential to track online conversations. The lesson was best summarized by influential fashion blogger, Monica Dimperio, “You can always plant the seed in multiple places, but only keep watering what blooms and brings you results.”

“Amplify fans rather than chasing your critics”

It’s simple – no matter what brand you represent there will be fans and foes in this social world.  But an important point made by Rick Wion from McDonald’s says, “Everyone is a critic, publisher, pundit, expert, and a comedian.  But not everyone is a customer.”  Spend resources on potential renters who haven’t made up their minds and the fans already on your side, not the haters.

In multifamily, we don’t have giant budgets the size of most of the SMW powerhouses, but their rules are still scalable to our everyday social media strategies and individual communities!  Happy tweeting, posting, pinning …

It would be ideal to engage in each conversation (and the goal we’re all striving for), but it’s often hard enough to keep up with Craigslist postings and updated content, let alone provide instant gratification to each comment.  Yet, if your social media accounts are activated your community is approachable and reachable 24/7.  You don’t have to go full throttle posting, tweeting, replying etc. to have a successful reputation management strategy.  But the first step is to be mindful of the dialogue around your brand.

A solution and forthright approach to reputation management is simply to listen to mentions, posts and reviews.  Listening to what prospective and current residents are saying online provides insight on the strengths and weaknesses of your communities.  There are over 200 social media channels and counting; rather than digging through, utilize a tool like RentSentinel’s Reputation Radar that cuts through the clutter and brings you to the conversations that count. Even if you are low on bandwidth, monitoring your online brand is possible. Reputation Radar delivers alerts directly each time your property is mentioned or reviewed.  You can also optimize your online presence with Weekly Reputation Summary reports. These analytics tell you which of your social channels generate the most community engagement and benefit.  As a wise author once said, “opportunities are often missed because we are broadcasting when we should be listening.”

Rating and review sites are directly impacting prospects’ decision where to rent.  So let’s take a step back and tackle this like a math equation:

• 72% of Respondents use ratings and reviews
• 82% of Users have not posted a rating or review of an apartment online
• 62% of Residents report they will post a review if asked
• < 9% of Residents have been asked to write a review
• 40% of Reviews are positive

So you have the facts but how do you solve the problem?  Simply accomplish your goals and get what you want by asking for it.  Asking for the online brand reputation you want and need is an attainable goal.  (Now if raises or relationships were as easy.)  Sure, residents could say no – but they won’t or at least the majority won’t.  Try today and see how your online presence will begin to change and grow.

*Statistics from J Turner Research: What Do Residents Want? Trends in Resident Technology & Communication Preferences 2012

“Around 1.5 million households moved into rental housing in 2011.  The rental market is booming as home ownership decreases, resulting in more people embracing the apartment lifestyle,” said Eric Broughton, President and COO of RentSocial.com.  “We know that rent is a bill no one wants to pay, so we want to celebrate apartment living and reward a renter by picking up the tab for a year.”

RentSocial.com is an online apartment search service that simplifies and socializes the process of finding an apartment.  Potential residents can search and compare up to six properties at once, view transparent ratings and reviews, pay rent online and submit service requests.  RentSocial.com makes it easy for residents to communicate with property managers during the apartment search process and throughout their lease.  Once a person is a verified resident of a property on RentSocial.com, they can virtually meet their neighbors.

Additional functionalities of RentSocial.com include:

• Ability to invite friends to join RentSocial.com via social media platforms
• Browse the “Community Q&A and Blogs” that provide unique lifestyle detail about the property, neighborhood and local cultural vibe
• Private messaging with friends and neighbors
• Customizable profile privacy setting

Win Free Rent for a Year: How to Enter
Now through Aug. 31, enter to win free rent for a year in two quick steps by visiting www.RentSocial.com, creating a free account, and filling out the entry form – briefly telling us what your dream apartment would look like. Already have a RentSocial.com account? No problem! Click the “Already a Member” button to enter.

Entries will be accepted until Aug. 31 and the grand prize winner will be randomly selected and awarded free rent for a year (up to $10,000).  Two runners-up will win $1,000.  Official sweepstakes rules are available at www.RentSocial.com.

For a successful campaign we must evoke a feeling. The hospitality industry has mastered this technique. One hotel giant used the campaign slogan “Let us turn a weekend getaway into a honeymoon you never thought you’d have.” The hotel was able to stir up an emotion, glamorizing what could be a weekend on a hard mattress with a locked mini bar or even worse no mini-bar at all. To get your ideal renter to discover your community, it’s critical to develop a marketing plan that aligns with their passions and interests. Sure, most people don’t think apartment living is necessarily a ‘sexy’ topic, but the truth is we don’t need it to be to engage residents. I took a moment to think of examples to prove my point. Would you think salt would engage 400,000 viewers over YouTube? Knorr’s Sidekicks low-sodium meal accompaniment has done just that. How about anti-spy ware having 60,000 likes? Webroot a software company distributing security applications and programs dominates on Facebook. Your community doesn’t need to be glamorous or sexy, but your message should be.

Great messaging alone won’t rent apartments; you also need to tie the message to great placements. Again, enter the social media solution. Social media platforms open a window to what is important to your prospective and current residents, in real time, and lets you relate. Messaging through social media hits prospective renters at the most opportune time. Recently, a Detroit Apartment complex was featured in the New York Times for doing just that. Urbane Apartments attracts 75,000 unique visitors a month to its Web site, has 11,000 Facebook likes, 12,000 Twitter followers and an email list of 16,000, according to the June article. President Mr. Brown explains his social media strategy in the article as, “We’re talking to people all day long on Facebook and Twitter — we mine for new potential customers there. You have to embrace your customers and have a conversation with them. Social media is like word-of-mouth on steroids.” Mr. Brown sure can support his marketing philosophy, Urbane Apartments currently has a 98-100% occupancy rate; even at the peak of the recession (reminder during the recession nearly half of Detroit’s residents fled the city) his units were boasting an 80-85% occupancy rate.

The right social media strategy extends your reach far beyond the leasing office. Whether it be salt, spyware or apartments by the 8 mile, social media tied with the right message is undeniably beneficial for business. As the multifamily industry adapts to the social conviction, RentSocial can help throughout the transition. RentSocial helps glamorize your communities in an organic – not forceful way. In addition to featuring unit types and amenities, show renters what the community offers and give insight on the neighborhood. Renters will gladly get friendly and stay awhile if they’re presented with the exclusive ‘back stage’ access they’re scouting for. With the staggering audience in our favor and here to stay, we have to dodge the quick ILS or advertisement placement, rather sow the seeds for continual conversations with current and prospective residents to come, no matter the temptation.