If you have a Facebook account and visit a site such as WashingtonPost.com, chances are you’ll see highlighted articles your friends have “liked.” If one of those articles was tagged by an old high school crush, or even the brainy kid from algebra class, you’ll probably read it. Visit the Facebook page of Zappos.com, the e-tailer that inspires fierce loyalty among its customers, and you’ll see its highlighted “Fan of the Week.” On a recent Wednesday, Emily from Delano, Calif., mugged for the camera while holding up the company’s iconic white shipping box emblazoned with the Zappos logo, a glowing testament for the company that all her friends will likely see. And if you follow @United_Airlines on Twitter, you’ll get timely feeds if a major storm impacts the system and quick responses when the company’s latest travel incident ends up in the news.
And yet, while there are plenty of examples of corporate America getting social media right, after more than three years of intense focus by the multifamily industry, many apartment firms’ presence in the space is still nascent, erratically maintained, and lacking a defined focus. “A lot of community managers really struggle to understand the most effective uses for social media,” says Esther Bonardi, formerly director of marketing at Newport News, Va.–based Drucker & Falk, who recently joined Santa Barbara, Calif.–based multifamily software maker Yardi as a strategic client account executive. “Often, they still consider it somewhat frivolous, so they use it in a frivolous way.”
Take the first apartment community returned in a recent Facebook search for “Sacramento Apartments.” Last updated in January 2009, the page has photos of the community pool, along with a few unit interior shots. In the past two and a half years, the property has racked up exactly 15 “likes,” five “check-ins,” and zero reviews. Aside from those photos, a site plan, and contact info, there’s absolutely no other content on the page. And while simply maintaining that bare-bones presence on Facebook certainly has the potential to enhance the community’s organic Google search results, it completely misses the point of social media’s true killer app: disseminating your brand to exponentially more prospects and tapping into the extended social networks of visitors who come to your page.
Prospects to the Power of N
In fact, finding and tapping into the networks of your friends and fans online is the ultimate in leveraging social media. “The power of social media as a marketing tool is almost solely in making your business visible not to your residents or followers alone, but to all of their friends and followers,” Bonardi says. “It’s not about getting your name out to your existing network. It’s about getting your name to hit the news feeds of thousands of people who aren’t connected to you yet.”
That’s exactly the goal of San Francisco–based RentMineOnline, an automated referral service that launched in 2007 and leverages the Facebook Connect app—the same tool The Washington Post uses to tag its articles—to entice a community’s residents to do the marketing for the firm’s multifamily clients. Based on the same tried-and-true programs that have always paid existing residents for referrals that result in leases, RentMineOnline lets residents easily recommend an apartment community to their Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, or e-mail networks. If one of those referrals results in a new lease (which RentMineOnline can accurately track via friends lists coupled with unique URL click-throughs), the resident gets the promised referral fee. “We’re taking the same referral programs that existed for years in the industry, but instead of a flier or a door hanger, you’re tapping into the power of putting word-of-mouth marketing online,” says RentMineOnline founder and CEO Ed Siegel.
So far, that viral social power has generated nearly 7 million recommendations for Siegel’s clients’ properties. But it’s the algebra behind that number that truly shows the potential of social media. Those 7 million recommendations are the result of RentMineOnline reaching out to 1.5 million residents, of which only 3 percent—or just 45,000 residents—actually responded to its pitch. But those 3 percent were the gateway to almost 7 million other people—a factor of more than 155 times the actual touchpoints. “Because the average user has about 150 friends, if they put a recommendation out to their entire network, the numbers start adding up fast,” Spiegel says. “The Web is an immense and powerful tool.” And those friend-to-friend recommendations work. For Trevose, Pa.–based Korman Residential, which operates properties throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Florida, engaging RentMineOnline led to 87 new leases in eight months, after residents sent recommendations to 40,000 of their friends suggesting they move in to their communities—a mere 0.02 percent referral-to-lease conversion, but Korman would not have otherwise had ready access to those new residents.
Social Standouts
Despite lingering uncertainty when it comes to lead-to-lease ROI like Korman’s, other multifamily social media success stories are coming to light too. Take the tireless efforts of Carmel, Ind.–based J.C. Hart Co.’s Mark Juleen, the sunglasses-wearing social media proselytizer and blogger who helped his company drive more traffic to its site from Facebook last June than from one of its Internet listing services. Or Eric Brown, founder of Royal Oak, Mich.–based Urbane Apartments, which had the guts to start creating its own resident social network three years ago and has racked up more than 5,000 “likes” on its Facebook page. For Brown, it’s only natural that multifamily should excel, not founder, when it comes to social media. “If you think about it, we’re actually in a better place than most industries to leverage this stuff,” Brown says. “I mean, we already run real, living communities—we should be able to create virtual ones.”
Of course, there has also been a growing—if still somewhat begrudging—acceptance of resident review sites such as Yelp and ApartmentRatings.com, with companies now recognizing the need to acknowledge and respond to residents’ concerns. “You’ve got to respond to every question or comment,” says Kristy Simonette, senior vice president of strategic services at Camden Property Trust, the Houston-based REIT that runs 67,000 units nationally. “And never delete a post unless it poses a security issue.”
Antisocial Tendencies
Still, there are plenty of reasons why multifamily doesn’t have the same social media firepower as other industries. For one, when it comes to amassing thousands of followers, it turns out size really does matter. “Small and medium-sized brands have a harder time than companies like Nike and Gatorade,” Siegel says. “It’s a lot easier for companies like that to find a lot of followers quickly and generate excitement that leads to viral interaction. But even the biggest apartment companies aren’t household names to the average person.” Siegel has a point. Take Victoria’s Secret, which, with nearly 15 million likes on its Facebook page, has been heralded for its social media prowess. One could make the argument that apartments just aren’t, well, as sexy as supermodels wearing lingerie, but then there’s the fact that residents only shop for an apartment, at most, once a year. Compare that to the numerous selling seasons for consumer products.
“It’s not like we’re selling gotta-have-it-now products like iPads or Kindles,” says Kevin Thompson, vice president of marketing at Arlington, Va.–based REIT AvalonBay Communities. “Either our customers are looking for an apartment or they’re not.”
It’s Not Always About You
At the same time, there are steps you can take to make sure your portfolio’s social media strategy is at least taking aim at the right targets. Among them is having your Facebook page serve not your property but the people who live there. “Most apartment communities still post info about themselves—their specials, or maybe a community-sponsored event,” Bonardi says. “You want to make it about the residents, or things that benefit your residents.” Ideas include cutest pet contests, Groupon-like local deals, or best holiday door pics. “If you can, encourage them to ‘check in’ when they go to the community gym,” she says. “Those kinds of things keep your audience engaged. Social media may be self-serving at its core, but it should never seem that way.”
Also, make sure you’re targeting not just your residents, but the connections and friends they have in their networks. Bonardi’s example of using a check-in application at the gym not only highlights your gleaming amenity, it pushes it out to the network of your health-conscious resident.
Finally, make sure you have a way to gauge your efforts. Like the tracking tools at RentMineOnline.com, you should be able to point to actual leases that result from your efforts.
“I like to tell people that if their social media marketing isn’t producing more apartment leases, it’s just a hobby,” says Urbane’s Brown.
Avalon’s Thompson agrees. “The principal mistake is not articulating the specific goals and strategy for a social media initiative. What is it that you’re striving to accomplish?”
Contributing editor Joe Bousquin is based in Sacramento, Calif.