14. :: COMPANIES WHO ARE DOING IT RIGHT :: • Urbane Apartments: Rocking the web in Detroit! • Paragon Apartments: Cut their marketing budget in excess of 60%! • Mike Brewer w/ Mills Property: Launched ‘Neighborhoods’ • Mark Juleen w/ JC Hart Apartments
15. Tune in Sunday, July 31st for The Side Benefit of Branded Media We didn’t create our Branded Media originally for any Social Media effect, we did it for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of our apartment web site. However, a side benefit of that has been the rich social media connections. We’ll cover: how big corporations use Social Media; how to convince your boss—or your entire organization—that social media is right for your apartment community; and what the single property manager can do until there company is on board with social media. With Featured Guest, Shannon Paul , Social Media Manager for Blue Cross Blue Shield, former Social Media Strategist for the Detroit Red Wings
Editor's Notes
Marketing Takeaway -) Content drives prospects to your web site, An increase in web site traffic = More leasing prospects
-) Know your starting point, What is your web site traffic today. Google Analytics works great and is free.
-) Separate your new traffic from over all traffic to establish your conversion rate. So if you have (3,000) new web site visitors per month, and you had (25) guest cards for that same time period, your conversion rate would be .0083. -) Paying attention to web site traffic and the conversion rate is an important number because currently you are driving traffic from a number of sources, As you begin to amass content and begin to drop those outside traffic sources and rely on creating your own traffic, you can dial up the content as vacancy rises or down as vacancy declines.
-) There are a lot of different "Channels", however we recommend that the foundation of your Branded Media be the five following platforms
-) Your Blog is the central starting point of your Content Marketing Strategy -) (8) neighborhood articles per month, each with a picture and 250 to 300 words
-) Flickr Page; Commercial Account -) Create "folders" per apartment community, and fill each folder with great interior and exterior shots. -) Also create folders for "Resident Events" -) Geotag each photo and add search keywords to each photo
-) Branded You Tube Channel -) Add search keywords to each video
-) Twitter Account with a customized logo -) Use tweet deck or Hootsuite and "Mine for Twitter Followers" Hyper Local -) The Numbers DO Matter, otherwise you are talking to anyone. With a solid strategy you should be able to put up several thousand twitter followers over time. The key is "Hyper Local"
-) Facebook Fan Page with a customized logo and a customized landing page with an effective email capture
-) You need to produce consistent and regular content in the form of articles, blog posts, podcasts and video with links back to your apartment web site. A great starting point is (8) blog posts per month, which is (2) per week. Note that more IS better, but (2) per week will work.
-) Links drive Google Juice.
-) You need to Expand Your Digital Footprint.
-) Companies who are doing it right: -) We think Urbane Apartments Rocks the Web in Metro Detroit -) Paragon Apartments has cut their apartment marketing budget in excess of 60% by creating their own Branded Media -) Mike Brewer with Mills Property in St Louis, launched "Neighborhoods" -) Mark Juleen with JC Hart Apartments in Indianapolis
