Attracting Tenants Through Social Media
Fifteen years ago, digital marketing began to surpass traditional and print advertising. This new direction in marketing opened the door to new opportunities for local businesses and service providers. At last, small and medium-sized businesses had access to marketing that was more affordable and flexible. Plus, it provided more measurable results to help them adjust and adapt to marketing and industry changes and trends.
While digital marketing like SEO and Google Ads gained momentum, there was another channel that was being ignored or mismanaged: social media marketing. While many local businesses have social media pages and accounts, many of them haven’t made effective use of their marketing potential.
Although the majority of multifamily properties have a social media presence, they often do little with their accounts. This is unfortunate because their social media pages have the potential to make meaningful connections with prospective tenants.
Below, we’ll explain some of the ways multifamily properties can more effectively use their social media pages to highlight their communities, spotlight their popular amenities, and educate, engage and even entertain their target audiences. Then feel free to contact us for our free marketing evaluation for us to see what you are doing now and ways we can help you improve.
Showcase Your Property and Staff
What makes your apartment complex different from the others in your community? Instead of telling your prospective audience in an expensive direct-mail campaign, you can show them. And you can do it using the platforms where your audience is spending their time: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media pages.
Here are just a few of the ways you can highlight your apartment community on social media:
Video Tours
A gallery filled with photos of your various units and community amenities is a must-have for your property’s website. But for social media, a brief video tour is the way to go! It allows the audience a greater opportunity to see the highlights of your property. And that allows them to picture themselves in that setting. Creating these brief tour videos does not require the services of a pricey video crew. Most smartphones shoot in high-quality HD video and even include easy-to-use tools to edit your footage and include captions.
Staff Highlights
This is a great way to introduce your team to prospective tenants before they tour your facility – or sign their lease! Create posts that introduce your property managers, office staff, and maintenance team to target audiences. Post photos of them at work (or even videos of routine maintenance calls) and include appropriate messages to demonstrate your organization’s commitment to its renters. Content like this really adds a human touch to your social media marketing.
Testimonials
Positive word of mouth is always a key when connecting with new audiences. When people have a great experience with a service or product, they want to let their friends know. The same goes for rental properties. If current or former tenants have written glowing testimonials, let everyone know it. Share those testimonials on your social media pages!
Encourage Engagement
Posting the above content on your social media accounts is a great way to focus on your apartment community. However, you don’t want to only focus on yourself. No one likes a one-sided conversation. You need to create a community on your social media pages that encourage visitors and followers to engage with you. This can be accomplished by creating entertaining apartment social media posts that provide opportunities for you to interact with potential tenants – and vice versa.
Host giveaways
A great way to increase engagement with audiences is to host giveaways on your social media pages. Don’t worry! These giveaways don’t have to be extravagant. You can often establish value-in-kind partnerships with local businesses in which you list their business or service on your website’s neighborhood resources page for a gift card for a free product or a discount on a service. You can also offer an incentive such as free or discounted first month’s rent.
Conduct polls
Social media users enjoy taking online surveys and polls. Want to encourage audience participation in your posts? Ask them to vote for their favorite paint color if you’re updating your apartments. Find out what their most desired apartment amenity is. Get fun and creative with your polls, surveys, and questionnaires. Audiences will engage – and you’ll even get some valuable feedback.
Respond to comments
Nothing says “we’re not interested in our audience” like a lack of response to a comment. If someone comments on your posts and it merits a response, don’t ignore it. Whether it’s positive, negative, inquisitive (or even silly), you must respond. This will encourage others to engage with your social media account. Plus, it shows audiences that you respect and value their feedback.
If you follow these suggested steps, you’ll be able to master your social media for apartments. If you still have questions or need additional advice about multifamily social media marketing, our experts are here to help. Contact us today to learn more about how you can harness the power of social media marketing to reach new audiences, engage with existing and prospective tenants, and increase your leases!