When it comes to your multi-family housing unit, social media can feel like a low priority, or an overwhelming aspect of your marketing that you simply don’t have the time to deal with. All too often multi-family complexes start a Facebook page or Twitter, to simply give up on it in a few months and allow it to slowly fall into disrepair.
But social media is a powerful way to connect with new leads or current tenants and build meaningful relationships that will help your multi-family business thrive and grow. Follow these steps to get started on creating your strategy:
Make a Time Commitment
Social media can be time consuming. It also can quickly become a back burner item. It is important to determine how much time you will devote to social media, and stick to it. Whether its 30 minutes a day, or an hour a week, once you’ve decided what is most realistic for your specific needs you need to stick to it.
The first few weeks may be a testing period where you discover you are spending too much or too little time. Adjust accordingly until you feel comfortable that the time you’re spending on social media is adequate.
Test Social Media Management Tools
There are several social media management tools that can help you maximize your time on several platforms. Test out a few to see which ones are most comfortable for you and best fit your specific needs. These tools can make a huge difference in your productivity, and allow you to schedule out posts days in advance.
Identify Your Buyer Persona
Each multi-family house is different. Whether your property is a duplex, a fourplex, a large apartment community, or a luxury apartment unit, your target audience or buyer persona is going to differ. It is important for you to understand exactly who your audience is in order to better reach them.
One way to determine this is to look at your current tenants.
- Do they tend to be around a certain age?
- Are they mostly singles, couples, or families?
- What income level is normal for your apartments?
Questions like these will help you understand what kind of tenants are typically the best fit for your space. This allows you to then tailor your marketing messages towards that audience, instead of unsuccessfully trying to market to everyone.
Choose Target Platforms
Not all social media platforms are created equal. Once you determine your buyer personas, you can decide where you should be spending most of your time on social media to really reach that audience.
If you are trying to primarily attract college students because your apartment is located near a college campus, you will want to spend time on platforms like Instagram or Snapchat. While, if you are trying to attract a more mature audience with solid careers because you own a luxury property, then you may want to use a platform more along the lines of Facebook or even LinkedIn.
Be willing to test out different platforms to see which ones generate the best results for you specifically. The goal is to find one or two platforms that do really well with your audience and use them to their full potential.
Set Attainable Goals
Now you know who you’re targeting, and what platform you will use to target them, you want to set attainable goals that are specific to your audience and platforms. Are you looking to engage your audience? Are you hoping to improve website visits or online inquiries?
Whatever goal is that is most important to your business will then help you focus your social media strategy to improve your overall results. In order to measure social media ROI, you must set goals and track your results.
Share Relevant Content
Content is what drives social media, and understanding what content your audience wants to see will go a long way in being successful on social media.
For multi-family housing, you will most likely want to share information relevant to multi-family living and leasing. This includes blog posts, infographics, memes, images from events or new listings, etc. You want to offer variety in your social posts, and keep in mind that a good deal of your social media followers are most likely your tenants. With this in mind, you can share information about upcoming events in the area, incentive programs for referrals, or perhaps neighborhood news like the new restaurant in town.
Remember that your tenants are not your only audience, and that it is okay to post images of your newly available listing once in a while. Or to include a blog post relevant to the apartment search. What you share most frequently will come down to testing a variety of content and seeing what performs best with your particular audience.
Share at the Right Time
Not all posting times are created equal. Remember how you figured out who it is you are trying to target? Using that information can also help you determine when they’re actually on social media and what times are optimal for posting.
Again, if you are targeting career driven individuals, posting during lunch or in the early morning or late evenings will be best. If you are trying to target college students, you have a lot more freedom to post in the afternoons or even late at night. Again, it comes down to experimenting with the times that are best for your audience.
Following these simple steps will help you create a social media strategy for your multi-family housing unit, which will then allow you to increase leads and nurture relationships with your current tenants.