When I talk about social media to those in student housing, they immediately "get it" and most times already have a plan in place to take advantage of that dynamic. But I'm curious about the inherent increase in "competition" within those social media environments. For example, let's say you have a Facebook fan page or group, the more ingrained the resident is in Facebook, the more likely your specific group may get lost in the shuffle. So you are competing not necessarily with other apartment communities, but rather simple time of attention. So how are you managing that competition and making sure that you not only have good resident adoption (i.e., group sign up, becoming a fan), but also utilization?

What are you all doing on this front?

I think there are several ways to stay engaged with your fans once they’ve joined.

1) Status Updates - Keeping your status frequently updated with community events, local news, reminders, etc. These should be coming up in fans news feeds so they should be seeing your updated content when they log in.

2) Updates - Sending updates to fans is another way to stay on their radar. I try to encourage our sites not to bombard the fans with too many updates as we don’t want them to get annoyed and opt out of our information, but it is a good way to keep your information fresh on their mind as it shows up on their home page when they log in.

3) Events – Sending out event invites to fans about community events and activities. Our properties have a ton of programming going on so this has been a great way to spread the word. Again, these show up on their homepage so it keeps you fresh on their minds.

4) Pictures and Videos - Open up the ability for fans to post photos and videos. Students love sharing pics and videos! Whether it’s pictures from a poker game they had on their floor or a “Cribs” spoof video they created for their apartment. Our residents have loved having the ability to share their info!

5) Comments – when residents write on the wall – respond! And respond quickly. Our students hate a) taking too long to respond b) not responding at all c) deleting their comments. Students want to feel connected and want information quickly. That’s why their on Facebook. Prospective Fans will also see that you aren’t responding and I think that’s a big deterrent for joining a page as well.

Natalie, great comments! I agree w/them completely.

In addition to regular, frequent updates, open communication, I would also add one quick rule that should be obvious - never let information get out-of-date. If you have an old event listed or incorrect information, you've just guaranteed NON-repeat visits.

The other thing that I'd add to Natalie's comments is simply to promote your online community face-to-face. Those relationships developed in person really encourage active participation online.

Finally, be sure your website has a link to your specific facebook page/group so residents don't have to search for it.

I absolutely agree with Dan's comments. The point on having a link on your website to your specific Facebook Page is great one.

Facebook still hasn't opened up vanity url's for Pages so all have a difficult direct url to navigate to.

I am also noticing, especially with pages (given to the fact that they are still fairly new and some users still don't understand the difference in pages and profiles), that users are having difficulty searching for the Pages. Beyond that, they may get through the search but have a hard time finding the official community page. By now there's tons of groups created by RA/CA's over the years and you'd have to be pretty determined to search through all the results to find the most updated one.

Most of the users that navigate to our Facebook Page our finding it through our actual website.

Wow, GREAT comments Natalie & Dan! Natalie, that would actually make a great blog post - and what might be another nice addition is how your properties manage these functions. In other words, what are the processes to make sure they are being timely, but not spending the entire day on Facebook...

Just out of curiosity, do your properties have business cards or other collateral that have all your online locations listed (Facebook page, Twitter, etc)? I know printed material is soooo 2006, but I'm curious how much that is used.