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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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How to Attract “Generation Y” Residents for Your Rental Properties

Marc Courtenay — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:05:33 +0000

Believe it or not, there are up to 80 million people between the ages of 16 and 29 who will be filling your vacancies in the year ahead. They are often called “Generation Y.” Also known as the “Echo Boomers”, they are the children of that other gigantic demographic, The Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964). Born between 1981 and 1995, they’re already having a huge impact on entire segments of the economy. And as the population ages, they will become the next dominant generation of Americans. So whether you call them “echo boomers,” “Generation Y” or “millennials,” they already comprise nearly a third of the U.S. population, and currently spend $180 billion a year of their own and their parents’ money. They are a force to be reckoned with and not to be ignored.

How to Attract Them to Fill Your Vacancies?

To begin with, you have to reach them on a technological level. They don’t read newspapers and aren’t likely to even read their mail. They are multi-taskers with smart phones, iPads, music downloads, and text-messaging on their Internet-connected devices. They are totally plugged-in citizens of a worldwide community. Communicate to them like their favorite smart phone and computer-tablet company does. Have you been to an Apple store lately? It’s absolutely packed with Echo Boomers! Think about it, do you know anyone between the ages of 16 and 29 that doesn’t have either an iPhone, an iPod,or an iPad?

Go to Apple’s website and see for yourself how they grab and hold the attention of this enormous generation. Watch the videos that they use to speak to the heart of their interests and how Apple motivates them. When it comes to having a place to live, this generation doesn’t mind living with their parents as long as tolerably possible. Yet at some point they want their privacy and independence. What they don’t seem to want is the responsibility or financial obligations involved in owning their own place. My own two (my daughter, a Generation Xer, and my son born in 1981) both have chosen to rent or lease their respective housing.

Forbes recently had a relevant article titled, “Housing the Echo Boomers—Next Big Real Estate Opportunity?” and it is a must-read for property managers who want to attract this age group. In the section titled, “What Will They Want?” the author emphasizes that “…most of Generation Y seem to want modest homes, the demand of which may be indicative of their young age. But it might also represent a demographic shift against large housing that is often overpriced and unnecessary.”

So if you’re using smart phone and online applications to advertise rental properties to this group, make sure you focus on affordability, easy upkeep, and the manageable size of your rentals. The Echo Boomers have been polled in recent years, and they value not only economy, but also ecology. They want to live in as green and environmentally-friendly a home as possible. If your units are energy efficient and have features that show respect for the planet, make that part of the theme for your advertisement. Appeal to their priorities and let them know that you understand what they’re looking for.

This massive generational group is rediscovering the joys of marriage, partnering and raising a family. Again, reach them through their technologies and stress that your rental housing is close to work, school and their kind of social areas. Accentuate the point that housing which is centrally located will save them money so that they can afford other things in the area and be closer to where they work or can find additional employment.

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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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Market Fun Holiday Events For Residents

Mary Girsch-Bock — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:36:46 +0000

While the holidays always make us think about ways to engage residents in the holiday spirit, there are many activities and events that property managers can organize and easily implement that can be used not only during the holiday season, but throughout the year.

Have a balcony/patio/door decorating contest. While a balcony or door decorating contest is a frequent staple during December, creative property managers can implement this activity throughout the year. Decorating a patio/balcony or front door gives apartment residents an outlet for their creativity and a way to express their personality that is frequently limited. But why stop at Christmas? Why not a 4th of July balcony decorating contest? Or a Halloween decorating contest? Offer some fun prizes, and bring in an impartial judge.

Consider scheduling a cookie day and recipe exchange. Who doesn’t love cookies? This can be done anytime, not just during the holidays, and it’s a great way for your residents to connect with each other.

Start a monthly movie night. For those with a media center, consider implementing movie night. While during December, you’ll want to show some classic holiday movies, or perhaps a fun children’s movie, this can easily be done once a month, throughout the year. Pick a monthly theme such as snow/cold weather in January, Valentine’s Day in February, etc. Serve up some popcorn or hot chocolate. You might be amazed at the response.

Offer gift wrapping services to your residents. While this can really only be done during the holiday season, it’s a great service to offer your frazzled residents. Pick a local organization and donate any proceeds to them in the spirit of the season.

Have a raffle to support a local charity. Again, consider giving the proceeds to a local charity. Choose one, or ask your residents what charity they would like to support. Offer a substantial grand prize (one month’s free rent?) and a lot of smaller prizes such as gift cards to area merchants.

While all of these ideas work wonderfully during the holiday season, most of them can also be incorporated throughout the year. There’s no reason to reach out to your residents only one month of the year. Staying engaged with your residents creates and maintains a real sense of community while likely raising your resident retention rate, come renewal time, in a fun and relaxing way.

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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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Tenant Referral Fees

Mary Girsch-Bock — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:02:53 +0000

Tenant referral fees can be a great way to increase occupancy rates without spending a lot of money advertising. There are many advantages to instituting a referral program, including the following:

You have a large network of ambassadors of sorts talking up the advantages of living at your community. Some apartment communities can have upwards of 300 to 400 tenants, and they’ll all be working for you!

Good tenants tend to know reliable people. While this is not always entirely true, good tenants that pay their rent on time will likely not refer their unemployed cousin just to get a $100.00 referral fee.

If you work for a large property management company that currently has several rental communities, the management company can offer a referral fee for any of the properties. So if your tenant refers someone to a community across town that is in your management portfolio, the referral fee would still be paid.

Your tenants will feel like they are part of the community.

To make it easier on your staff, when paying referral fees, reduce tenant rent by the amount of the referral fee; typically $100.00. This makes it quicker and easier to process and eliminates the need to process multiple checks for tenants monthly. It also eliminates the possibility of the referral getting lost in the processing.

While the advantages are apparent, there are some things that need to be considered before implementing a referral program, including the following:

An influx of applicants that are not qualified to rent at your community. While most tenants will only refer quality applicants, others may send everyone they know. And it becomes your job to carefully screen those applicants.

Make sure your tenants know the rules: the applicant must sign a lease in order for the referral fee to be paid. Coming in to look at an apartment does not qualify as a valid referral. Likewise, the applicant must qualify in order for the referral fee to be paid.

Someone will need to carefully track the referrals that do come in and make sure that if a lease is signed, the tenant who referred the applicant/new tenant, gets the referral fee that was agreed upon.

Tenant referral fee programs can be beneficial to both property managers and tenants, if handled properly. By instituting a referral program that excites your tenants and benefits the property, you’ll have a win/win situation.

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4 Easy Ways to Attract More Applicants for Your Vacant Rentals

Marc Courtenay — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:29:36 +0000

Success, like great ideas, is not always in the conspicuous or necessarily intuitive. Some of life’s most important solutions lie just below the surface of the “Sea of the Obvious.” Let’s look at 4 simple ideas that will motivate and facilitate the rental application process so you can draw a larger number of applicants like metal shavings to a powerful magnet.

Create a way for applicants to apply online. The technology to do this is already exists and some better, faster options are on the immediate horizon. When you advertise your listings, highlight how the application process is simple and fast, and give them a link or web address. To learn more yourself I suggest you check out the following: http://www.appfolio.com/property-management/online_rental_application

Spread the word with shameless enthusiasm. Often with the good intention of looking professional or being overly concerned with appearing desperate, we narrow our solicitation strategy. From Craigslist to Facebook to LinkedIn to your local media’s online services, there are many ways to attract applicants. Consider some inexpensive advertising, but try and think outside the box. A good example is to advertise with companies that give free information, have millions of “page views” and “unique visitors” per month, and know how to use the internet to attract “eyeballs” and brand yourself online. A trusted source that I’m aware of can be found at www.maps.com/Advertising. Contact them and see what kind of special promotional offers they currently have available.

Create some strategic alliances with realtors, credit unions and independent merchants in your area who need your help. Find creative ways to “cross-promote” and incentivize them to keep their ears open or post “for rent” notices in their stores and offices. If you’ll help other businesspeople in your community to reach their goals, they’re likely to want to help you reach yours. Along the way you’ll learn more creative ways to fill those vacancies and make your management business more profitable.

Contact all your existing residents and sponsor a resident referral program. For example, offer a $30, one-time rent reduction for every qualified (you set the criteria for what constitutes qualified) referral who fills out a rental or lease application. You may also want to offer a one-time, one-month-only rent credit if your existing resident refers a potential renter to you and that referral actually signs a rental agreement and moves in.

There are many other clever ways to motivate applicants to apply. If you have a good idea or a helpful suggestion, please leave a comment at the end of this article. Thanks!

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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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Everything Sends a Marketing Message

Lisa Trosien — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:09:57 +0000

When is the last time you reviewed all of the materials you provide to your prospective renter or resident? And I mean ALL of the materials, including papers left behind after a service request, applications, notices, event invitations, ads, flyers, outreach materials, stationery…the works. Here’s what you need to do:

Take all of those items I mentioned above (and any others I may have missed) and lay them all out.
Review each one carefully. Then ask yourself the following:

Are all of the logos the same on each piece?
Should the logo be updated for a more contemporary look and feel?
Are all of the fonts consistent?
Are the colors consistent?
Are the colors contemporary, or do they need an update?
Are there any typos or misspellings?
Have any of the pieces been copied to death (and show it)?
Is the contact information for the leasing office correct?
Does the contact information include the leasing office email address?
Do the pieces include social networking logos and ‘follow’ information?
Should the leasing office hours be included on any of the pieces? Are they included?
Are there photos on the materials and if so, are they current?
Do the photos contain images of people and if so, do the images comply with Fair Housing?
Do you have the Fair Housing logo on all of the materials?

After completing your audit, you may have some work to do. If so, get started as soon as possible. Find a graphic designer if you need to create the strongest possible statements.

Remember, anything that ‘touches’ the customer sends a strong marketing message. What are your materials saying about your company?

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