PropertyManager.com » Charity Hisle

10 More Pinterest Tips for Property Managers!

Charity Hisle — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:58:15 +0000

In our last post about Pinterest, we discussed why each property management group should have a Pinterest account. But how do you get creative with your account without being too salesy?

Here are ten more ideas for using Pinterest for your communities:

1. Create an account for your property management group then create a pinboard for every community.
2. Pin items of interest by category, here are a few ideas for categories:
a. Interior design ideas: create a board for each room of the home.
b. Fitness and Food: create a board that emphasizes healthy living and recipes.
c. Shopping lists: create a board as a handy move-in resource for new residents.
d. Create a board for each of your leasing agents with different themes.
e. Share an organization pinboard for unique storage ideas.
3. Have a Pinterest contest! Start a contest for prospects and residents to pin pictures of your community or have a scavenger hunt to find all of the items located on a contest board.
4. Create a board for good books or inspirational quotes.
5. Have a board for local restaurants.
6. Share local coupons and deals.
7. Comment on other pins.
8. Pin pictures of your communities and link to their websites in the description.
9. Add the pin button to your websites so that people can easily pin photos of your communities that they want to share with others.
10. Share photos of community events on Pinterest then share to your community Facebook wall.

Please share a link to your Pinterest page below so that we can all follow one another!

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Should Your Property Management Company Investigate Pinterest?

Charity Hisle — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:48:28 +0000

With over 4 million users, Pinterest is now in the top 10 list of social networks! It is a unique (and public) website that allows users to organize and share images and videos from across the web with one another. Think of Pinterest as an online bulletin board!

Pinterest provides the opportunity to visually demonstrate to others what is happening below the surface – all the while linking back to the original source of the image. People pin inspirational, educational, entertaining and fun photos and videos making each pinboard unique to the individual pinner.

The opportunities for local businesses, like apartment communities or real estate agencies, are endless!

10 Tips for Using Pinterest for Property Management

1. People are more likely to follow full pinboards than sparse ones.
2. Connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts to make sharing seamless.
3. Use the Pinterest ‘Pin It’ extension in your Google Chrome browser to pin on the fly!
4. Add contributors to your boards to bring personality and distribute the responsibility.
5. Don’t forget to “like” pins you may not want to repin.
6. Tag other Pinterest users in comments by typing the @ symbol before their name.
7. Add the $ symbol to the pin description to add a price to the banner of your photo.
8. Download the Pinterest app to your smartphone to pin on-the-go around the community.
9. Search for pins about your local community or sports teams to repin and follow.
10. Go to pinterest.com/source/__________.com to discover all of the pins that originated from a particular site.

Remember: use good keyword-rich descriptions of pins you upload for your communities for SEO purposes. Pinterest is invite-only – please comment on this post for an invitation of your own.

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What is Twitter? Part 1 of the Twitter Series for Property Managers

30 Tweet Ideas: Part 2 of the Twitter Series for Property Managers

Charity Hisle — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:00:17 +0000

Twitter is one of the most difficult social networks to explain and to learn for property management professionals. Often I hear questions like, “What do we say?” or “Who are we talking to?” Let’s try to clear up the confusion today! Assuming you already understand what Twitter is (link to post #1), we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty details.

What do I Tweet About?
1.   Upcoming events at your community: parties like pool, holiday, Superbowl
2.   Introduce new employees: include a photo and first name
3.   Welcome new residents: ask if new residents have a Twitter handle
4.   Make important announcements: power outages, pest control, etc.
5.   Share local community events: concerts, theaters, restaurants, museums, college game day, etc.
6.   Reply to questions about pricing and availability
7.   Share community pet photos
8.   Say thank you to prospects: ask for Twitter handle
9.   Share content like newsletters
10.   Share evergreen content: policies and emergency evacuation routes
11.   Participate in tweet chats
12.   Tweet with other local businesses
13.   Re-tweet local business tweets to share deals and updates with your residents
14.   Share other businesses via Twitter with #FollowFriday
15.   Resident referral bonuses (if applicable)
16.   Share photos from previous events
17.   Host a Tweet-up for your city
18.   Share updates from a movement or a charity (Movember, Breast Cancer Awareness)
19.   Share local coupons and deals from Groupon and LivingSocial
20.   Share the weather report for your area
21.   Receive and respond to maintenance requests
22.   Have a contest: think scavenger hunt
23.   Share fun trivia and quotes
24.   Use employees, residents and community pets in your profile photo
25.   Share individual Twitter handles on employee name badges
26.   Promote the out-of-work employee stories (What does Jane do for a hobby? Can you share Mark’s BBQ recipe?)
27.   Talk about things that aren’t business related
28.   Share green living and cleaning tips
29.   Share pet-lover updates: local vets, pet spa’s, pet sitters, etc.
30.   Ask questions about what people are doing this weekend or for a holiday.

What not to Tweet About?
Politics or controversial public issues
Religion or spiritual beliefs
Specials, sales or concessions
Do NOT complain about residents, employees or work situations

Try to keep it positive, upbeat and authentic and you’ll do just fine! For those of you that are just getting started, we have Twitter How-To’s coming up next.

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What is Twitter? Part 1 of the Twitter Series for Property Managers

Charity Hisle — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:53:15 +0000

“Fish where the fish are.”
Believe it or not, the world has not abandoned Twitter, in fact, just the opposite. While Facebook and Google Plus use are declining, Twitter is gaining users globally. The average user sends a half a Tweet per day and the site has reached 360 million registered users.

What is Twitter, Anyway?
Twitter has been called a micro-blog but I like to think of it more like a bulletin board for the world. Everything from natural disasters to in depth discussions takes place on this public forum. Brands are using Twitter to communicate with prospects and customers, provide timely customer service and even to increase revenue.

Conversing on Twitter:

Twitter will allow you to share your messages in 140 characters or less.

Create user-friendly usernames: keep the name as short as possible, make it memorable, avoid punctuation. Consider something like AshleyParkRockStars, ParkPlaceCares or something that would inspire a human response.

Use a picture of real humans in your profile picture, perhaps in front of your community or in the leasing office.

When you “follow” someone, you’re essentially subscribing to their status updates.

Listen, look around, before you start tweeting.

Ask questions, reply with personality to questions that are asked.

Rather than following everyone at first, develop the right list of followers so that you are having real conversations with real people online.

Who to follow:

Follow residents and prospects

Follow local businesses and hometown celebrities

Follow employees and prospective employees

Search twitter for keywords including neighborhood + apartment, city + “looking for an apartment” and follow their accounts – reply to their questions if they are asking for recommendations on where to live

Follow your competitors – know what they’re doing and who they are talking too… while you’re at it, follow their followers too!

Here is a list of 100 more must-follow individuals and companies in the multifamily and apartment marketing industry (link 4).

Stay tuned for our next posts, 30 Tweet Ideas: Part 2 of the Twitter Series for Property Managers and Twitter How-To’s.

Sources:

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/06/12/facebook-sees-big-traffic-drops-in-us-and-canada-as-it-nears-700-million-users-worldwide/

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_plus_traffic_drops_1269_gains_erased.php

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/160712/average-twitter-user-sends-half-a-tweet-per-day.html

http://www.sociallyengagedmarketing.com/2010/10/top-100-twitter-recommendation/

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Protecting Your Brand Online

Charity Hisle — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:05:12 +0000

When I was growing up we lived near three grocery stores in Pensacola, Florida but were only allowed to shop at one. My Dad was the assistant manager at a grocery store chain called Delchamps. (Don’t worry, the Delchamps brand has been out of business for a long time!) If Dad wanted to keep his job, the rule was that we could not shop at another grocery store. If we, the family, were seen shopping at another grocery store, he could be fired.

By having this rule, Delchamps was attempting to protect their brand image. They wanted to make sure that no one got the wrong idea about why an employee would choose another grocery store to shop. This is back in the days when loyalty was expected from employers and employees, before Enron and WorldCom.

Things have changed today, and most businesses do not put purchasing requirements on employees. However, one thing that hasn’t changed is that brands are still worried about how employees represent their company – most especially online. Many businesses do not know where to begin or even recognize a need to set web employee behavior standards.

If Delchamps were still in business, I’d be willing to bet they would’ve done the following to maintain their company brand online:

Written a clear policy which covers employee social media interactions.

Hosted training sessions for employees to ensure they each sign off on company social media policies.

Educated employees on trademark infringement – because even if an employee infringes upon a trademark without your knowledge, your company can still be held liable.

Given employees permission to blog, tweet, Facebook, speak about their company, but would have been very clear about limitations on content.

Set guidelines on how to speak of their competition. Beware of what you say about your competitors online to avoid defamation lawsuits.

Delchamps was big on loyalty, even as a child I understood the expectations. Do your employees understand your company expectations for online behavior? Do you require your employees to sign a social media policy?

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SEO Continued: What is Digital Asset Optimization?

Charity Hisle — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:11:37 +0000

The natural evolution of Search Engine Optimization for property managers is Digital Asset Optimization (DAO), the optimization of all of your online content. This includes images, audio files, video’s and even PDFs. Anything you place online has a keyword title, meta tag and a clear description to influence search engines.

Once you’ve optimized your website, consider optimizing all of the content within your website. If it can be searched, it can be optimized. The goal is to improve your competitive advantage by increasing visibility within search engines. This will bring benefits such as recruiting, increased sales and lower customer support costs.

Start by creating all of your files with optimization in mind. Use keywords within the title to describe the contents within the file. Almost every file you create has a “properties” option.

Here’s are a couple examples.

You have a new PDF to upload to your company website:

Instead of naming the file Brochure.pdf you could name it Downtown-Dallas-Pets-Welcome-Riverbend-Apartments.pdf

Go to File ->Properties and fill in all of the fields under the Description tab: Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, and Additional Metadata

You want to update a pool photo on your company Facebook page:

Instead of naming the image pool.jpg you could name it Downtown-Dallas-Riverbend-Apartments-Pool.jpg

Go to File ->File Info and fill in all of the fields under the Description tab: Title, Author, Author Title, Description, Rating, Description Writer, Keywords, Copyright Status, notice, and URL

As technology improves, techniques to improve search engine ranking will become more time consuming to implement. Those that make the time to develop and implement a proper SEO and DAO strategy will be on the right track to reaching their business goals. To take it a step further, consider optimizing your property management Facebook page as well.

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Optimizing Your Property Management Facebook Page for Search

Charity Hisle — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:00:09 +0000

While you shouldn’t focus all of your efforts solely on Facebook, it does make sense to optimize the content posted on your property management Facebook page. Facebook search is linked to keywords within all public posts, profiles, pages, groups and applications but very few are utilizing this opportunity to increase their Facebook SEO (search engine optimization). Facebook, as a referring site, is a major source of traffic to websites. They strive to base results on relevance to the user, which is why they implemented Open Graph. The more information collected from external websites the more useful Facebook search will become.

The most important place to show up within Facebook search is the auto-complete box. The auto-complete box ranks the following pieces of information within a search first:

Your name

Events you are invited to

Friends with keywords within their names

Second degree friends (friends of friends) with keywords within their names

Questions with keywords

Applications you’ve used

Groups you’ve joined

Pages you have liked

Pages related to your interests

Pages a friend likes, including number of friends that like the page and total likes of the page

Here are six tips to help you reach the top eight results within the auto-complete box.

Pick your page name and vanity URL wisely. Pick something that adequately represents your brand and that will be easily remembered.

Use keywords in the “about” box and the “overview” section of the info tab. Completing these are very important because the information contained within the text is visible in Facebook search.

Keep your Facebook content relevant and fresh. Automatically feed new blog posts to your Facebook wall. Use keywords within status updates, links, photo’s, video’s, and notes.

Use a custom landing tab on your Facebook page to shape user experience, provide useful information, and implement a clear call to action to become a fan of the page. Utilize keywords within the text, images and links on these custom tabs.

Add the Like button to your website. It is one of the most important social sharing opportunities for driving visibility and linking. The more links to your Facebook page, the better your page will rank in search results.

Last, but most importantly, use the Open Graph API on your website to enable Facebook users to find your website within their search results. When you add Open Graph to your webpages, Facebook categorizes each page and customizes your listing within search results. This is the fastest way to appear closer to the top of Facebook’s search results today.

Not only should you utilize Facebook SEO tactics to increase web traffic and drive sales, but consider it an opportunity to protect your brand name on Facebook by appearing in the search results above fake pages or even ILS ads that frequently appear above a community name during search.

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Use Local Search to Increase Traffic to Your Property Management Website

Beginning SEO for Property Managers

Charity Hisle — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:31:19 +0000

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to your website from internet search engines. Search engines want to return the most relevant results possible to their users.

According to eMarketer, 94% of shoppers click on the 1st through 10th search results. Optimizing your online presence for search engines will drive traffic to your website. However, even if you are approaching SEO correctly, it may take eight months to a year to see marked improvement.

How to Optimize for Search Engines?
The first step is to determine which keywords are the most popular when it comes to how a resident is searching for your community. Next, research where users are coming from when they visit your website and where did they go when they leave. For this, it is imperative that you have web analytics set up for your website (Google Analytics is a popular choice…and it’s free); without it you have no way of monitoring the website metrics that matter. By understanding keywords and user behavior, you can take advantage of this information to drive traffic to your website and improve search engine ranking.

HubSpot indicates that companies with a blog generate 55% more web visitors. This is because blogs with original content help improve SEO. Developing great content is the most common recommendation for improving search engine rankings. Every search online has an intended outcome: to find, learn, buy, fix, understand or solve. Content that addresses a user’s needs is the best possible way to improve search engine rankings.

Remember, content is not just blog posting. Content also includes white papers, videos, FAQ’s, and real-time updates on social networking sites. Content can be found on your property management website, Internet Listing Sites, blogs, and social networks.

Where Do You Find Good Content?
Rewrite content into different formats. The objective is to optimize each piece of content for multiple channels. For example: A webinar can become a video on YouTube, a presentation on SlideShare, and the notes can become a blog post.

Repurpose and reorganize content you already have, and categorize it by keyword or concept. For example, that printed brochure from last year could be scanned and shared on your property management Facebook page.

And if you publish your content on a website other than yours, be sure to include a link back to your site. To take it a step further, make the text in the link (aka. anchor text) one of your keywords or keyword phrases.

4 Rules for Great Content.

Well-written

Relevant to your company

Relevant to your reader

Not overly-promotional

But great content is not enough to drive traffic. Various channels should be used to distribute your content. From email marketing to social sharing sites you have to help the content spread. Facebook says “Likers” click links to external websites 5.4x more than those who don’t use the like button. By sharing the content you will direct more traffic to your site and introduce more users to your community.

Getting Started
Improving content and services should be a priority, regardless of the type of website. If you create content that is primarily for your users, not search engines, you cannot go wrong. After you have an understanding of the type of content your users need, the next step is to start optimizing your site(s) for search engines. The most effective SEO tactics include keyword research, title tag optimization, competitive research, on page content optimization, link building, meta tag and description optimization, integration of social media, blogging, online press release distribution and utilizing an XML sitemap.

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5 Tips To Promoting Community Events On Facebook

Charity Hisle — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:00:32 +0000

Whether it’s an open house or a pool party, your apartment community should be sharing events on Facebook. As the largest social network, the average Facebook user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events. From community parties to lease-up events, Facebook is a good place to start sharing events with your residents and prospects online. In fact, property management companies that leverage social media have found that it helps them connect with residents and prospects in ways they couldn’t before.

Planning
Every event takes planning and organization. Developing a Facebook strategy beforehand can save you time and energy. Start by choosing the right person for the job. Who is your team’s most socially active person? Who has the most number of friends, residents, vendors and local connections on Facebook?

Select the right date and time for the event and give yourself at least a month to prepare and spread the news. Facebook currently does not have a solution for recurring events. If your community has a regular monthly event, create one each month. For example: December Resident Pizza Night or January Movie Madness.

Start promoting the event days prior to creating the event on Facebook to generate buzz. Update your page status with comments like “We’re so excited about sharing the upcoming announcement!”

Creating
This is the easiest part! Log in to your Facebook profile, and click the “See All” link under the Events tab. Then, click on the “+Create an Event” button on the top right corner of the screen.

Enter the when, what, and where information. Consider a catchy event title and use an interesting photo to attract attention, perhaps use a photo from a similar community event. Hint: Photos of people tend to be more inviting and receive a better response.

Sharing
There are several ways to share invitations on Facebook. The first is to invite your own friends. Remember, your community event is local. Be selective in your invitations and only share the event with local persons or those willing to travel.

The second sharing option is to copy and paste email addresses from your email database. This is especially helpful when inviting people you may not be connected with on Facebook.

The third way to share the event with others is to post it to your profile. Once a week should be a good start.

Other ideas for promoting your event:

Purchase Facebook Social Ads

Ask vendors to help you spread the word via Facebook and Twitter

Post flyers around the community and at local businesses

Share the link within your email signatures

Update your property management blog or website with a link to the event

Have a random drawing at the event from the RSVP list (must be present to win)

Change your profile picture to one that reminds friends/fans of the event.

Engaging
When sharing invitations on Facebook add an exciting personal message. Share event details such as contests, drawings and activities. Ask for an RSVP so you can plan for the right amount of food or number of chairs.

Here are a few additional ways to engage:

Ask attendees to share the event with their neighbors, family and friends

Ask for volunteers to help set up the event

Post updates on the event page

Send out reminders as the event approaches

Monitor your event page daily

Charging
In the case of an event that requires ticket sales, Facebook events does not offer a solution. Eventbrite seems to be the most popular Facebook event tool for ticket sales. If your community is hosting a charity event, Eventbrite is a good option.

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Helpful Holiday Facebook Strategies for Property Managers

Charity Hisle — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:00:17 +0000

How can an apartment community build their Facebook fan page audience by appealing to the good will of others? Since 72% of U.S. consumers will volunteer to participate in socially conscious opportunities, the holiday season is the perfect opportunity to encourage giving.

Below are two strategies to get your apartment community brainstorming. If your community uses one of these ideas or is implementing a unique idea, please come back and share your story with us.

Help a Family In Need

GOAL
Raise money for a local family in need while increasing your apartment community’s Facebook fan count.

TACTICS
1. Determine the maximum amount of money your community will contribute to this cause. (HINT: $500 – $1,000 seems like a good start.)

2. Announce to your residents, local friends, and local businesses that you’re raising money for a family in need. This can be done with posters, flyers, emails, and even when residents visit your leasing office. Don’t forget to share this information on your websites!

3. To determine the recipient family, have your fans nominate recipients via private/direct Facebook messages. They should include the name, address, description of family members and circumstances (foreclosure, job loss, illness). Keep your selection confidential.

4. Put a deadline on the event: December 20 would be time for the family to use the money to purchase their children gifts or pay their rent/mortgage for the next month.

5. Fan of the Season: Consider a drawing of all the fans of the Facebook page. On the deadline announce a winner and give a nominal prize.

6. Use Facebook to generate activity:

Create a new profile picture for your fan page to inspire giving.

Create a new Facebook event, using the deadline as the date of the event.

Encourage your onsite teams to participate.

Update Facebook daily and thank each new fan.

Invite residents and fans to come to the office to sign a card for the family.

7. For property management groups: consider having a contest to see which community gains the most fans. Make a list of the number of fans your community has today, and subtract that count from the total number of fans on December 20.

8. Deliver the gift to the family with a signed card from your community, via the person that nominated the family.

NOTE: Selection of family and donation should be discreet.

Raise Money for Charity

GOAL
To raise money for a local or national charity while increasing fan count. (HINT: determine a minimum goal $100, $250, $500, $1,000 ?)

TACTICS
1. This campaign is perfect for a property management group with multiple properties. There are two ways to organize this event:

Donate to a single charity from the corporate office

Encourage each individual community to select a charity

2. After selecting your strategy from above, utilize Facebook by:

Creating a new profile picture for your fan page.

Establishing a Facebook event, using the deadline as the date of the event.

Inviting everyone you know to participate by liking the page and pledging donations.

Allowing fans to pledge on Facebook. (HINT: even allow pledges as low as $1)

Collect the pledged money in the office safe or open a short-term savings account.

Permitting anonymous donations to be made by accepting the donation and posting on Facebook that an anonymous donation was received.

Updating Facebook daily with the total amount received and remind fans of the goal and thank each new fan and contributor daily.

3. Fan of the Season: Consider a drawing of all the fans of the Facebook page. On the deadline announce a winner and give a nominal prize!

4. For property management groups: consider having a contest to see which community collects the most money for charity. Reward the winning team with gift cards!

5. Don’t forget:

Post flyers, posters, signs around your community and neighboring businesses.

Encourage your onsite teams to participate.

Consider matching the funds raised.

Take pictures of those residents that donate in your office and post them on Facebook.

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