Discover Innovative Marketing Solutions

It is quite clear by now, the majority of industries are trying to break into the social media world.  Facebook fan pages are constantly changing and becoming more customizable in order to help business owners spread their message.  However, an article by National Real Estate Investor detailing a national survey claims that in the multifamily housing industry, consumers have been slow to catch on. The survey was conducted by Houston-based J. Turner Research, and was distributed to 54,573 residents across 415 non-student apartment communities.

One in four conventional apartment residents believe that a community’s social media efforts have no impact. In fact, only 7% of  conventional apartment residents state that they have ever visited an apartment community’s social media page. Also, the majority of that minority group visited social media pages only as prospective tenants, to read comments about the property.

What does this mean for apartment marketing? We do not believe it is any indication that social media should not be used, or even that it should be used less.  It simply means that these social media efforts require a much higher amount of effort spend trying to engage residents.  If residents have a reason to read and reply to social media efforts, they will.  Other items residents are likely to respond to are event ideas, photos of new amenities, and blog posts.  We’ve actually noticed that one of our clients, Trillium Residential, has seen a continued increase in residents “liking” their fan pages, and the high number of fans brings more and more engagement! So it’s not a lost cause – keep posting, communities, and engage those residents!

How do you think apartment communities can be more engaging? What would you like to see on their pages? Let us know!

As a PR and Marketing firm, The Associated Press Stylebook is not only our friend, we’ve accepted it as another member of our team (luckily, it doesn’t require a paycheck). Naturally, when Mashable published “AP Stylebook Adds 42 New Guidelines for Social Media,” we began drooling over our computer screen.

While the article cites that some changes had previously been released, many are brand new, and very exciting to the world of journalism. These 42 changes are specific to Social Media, and help journalists understand how to best use online tools like Facebook and Twitter.

A few highlights of the changes:

• “Web site” is officially “website”
• “Smart phone” is officially two words
• “BRB”, “G2G”, and “ROFL” officially made the cut

The one tidbit of information that I found the most interesting: while “unfriend” and “defriend” are both now official AP accepted words, the Guidelines cite “unfriend” as the recommended, more common choice.

Here at Serendipit, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our newest copy.  To get your very own, or learn more about the newest guidelines, visit the self-proclaimed “Journalist’s Bible” at AP Stylebook Online.