I thought I would share some observations regarding Twitter and how multifamily folks are using it.  It has been encouraging to see so many more jumping on board with this platform.  Especially on Friday’s there has been a great increase with those who participate in the weekly #AptChat.  Here are a couple of thoughts to help out your twitter experience.

Believe it or not it has only been multifamily folk who have started to follow me with their tweets protected.  I find this to be kind of a head scratcher since you have started following me for some reason but in order for you to see what content and conversation I post, I have to send a request back to you in order for us to see what each of us post.  Maybe someone can weigh in on this thought.  Why do you start out with a new profile with protected tweets?  I really feel this is an enormous waste of time and is contrary to the whole purpose of Twitter.  Protected tweet option is typically only for corporations who are using Twitter for internal private chats.

When reviewing multifamily Twitter accounts a couple of weeks ago, I also noticed a huge ratio difference in followers to following.  It appears to me that perhaps since using platforms like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, you have forgotten to go back to Twitter.com and analyzed who recently has followed you.  Perhaps you are not set up to receive notifications of new followers.  Following others back is a pretty important part of building your community.  If you are concerned about too many posts in your stream, then make sure you add columns to your Tweetdeck account with various lists that will help you screen information a lot easier.  Here are a couple of tools that you may have heard about before, but I will share them again just in case. 

Can there be any doubt of what a smile can do for another person.  When a prospective resident walks through that door, you have less than a couple of seconds to make that first impression.  It all starts with a smile.  Does a smile only come from your lips?  Absolutely not!  A smile comes from your whole body.  A genuine smile can be seen and understood from our whole demeanor.  Can you think of ways of how our whole body smiles?  Can a genuine smile really make a difference in gaining a new resident who will lease and call your community home?

How about our eyes?  Certainly they play a huge part.  Make sure your eyes on focused on theirs and not anywhere else.  Of course don’t be creepy about it; you don’t want to make the prospective resident feel uncomfortable.  Be relaxed about your eye contact; do not come across as forced.  Make sure you are not distracted by other things going on around you and remember that you are a professional.  Avoid eyeing the prospect from head to toe and back.  That would be really creepy.  If something does demand your attention while first greeting the prospect, make sure you say: “Excuse me”, turn to the person who is distracting you, address the matter quickly, then turn back and continue the conversation.

Our ability to be a true example of successful conflict resolution begins outside the office and especially in down time situations with other team members.  If offsite situations rattle your cage then your sincerity to handle onsite situations will not shine through.  You can’t fake conflict resolution. 

 Put yourself in the following scenarios and ask yourself how you reacted the last time they happened.

The airline misplaced your baggage

The following letter was from a resident to one of our clients.  This letter was a must share and there is an interesting lesson to learn from it.  I removed the names for privacy purposes and I really appreciate our client forwarding this to us.  This is a huge testimony to what an overall company culture can do for an organization and how effective training in skills such as customer service really pays off. 

"Dear Management Company: 

I am writing this letter to Thank Awesome Leasing Professional, one of your leasing agents for her professionalism and hospitality.

Thanks very much for taking the time to fill out this poll. The results will serve to educate us all.  If you have any other hurdles to share please feel free to comment about them below the poll.

I had an interesting conversation with Tarla McCann from On-Site the other day, about social media and the impact conversation and reaching out to people can have on your overall brand.  One of the points that her and I were chatting about was measuring the results.  We use often the expression ROI since of course we are looking for those bottom line numbers to always improve in whatever venture we pursue.  That is the ultimate goal.  However there is another part to the equation that helps you get to those magical numbers and that is your ROE—Return on Engagement.

 This expression is not something new.  Sarah Evans wrote a nice article last year about how to Measure your ROE.  What we all fight against is our own inhibitions and our fear of what others will think about us.  Posting a blog, making a comment on one, tweeting your opinion, participating in an online discussion groups such as MultifamilyInsiders, #Blogchat and #Aptchat are all ways we expose ourselves and that can be challenging to do.  We are used to having shower curtains, doors to lock and clothes to wear because physically we are afraid to expose ourselves but that also translates to our own emotions and fear of being looked down upon.  Hence we can become lurkers instead of participants.  If you are a lurker that is ok!!!  Your being there is so greatly appreciated.  Your support is encouraging to all that are currently comfortable enough to jump into the online space.  It takes baby steps in everything in life in order to feel comfortable with it, but please know that you have an amazing network of professionals who are always there to help.  So take it one step at a time and you will see the value of participating.

Being proactive is without a doubt the single best policy for any company.  That being said, when is the last time that we analyzed the strength behind our human resource department?  Too often companies will place this department on the lower end of the corporate totem pole with the misconception that the only reason it is even necessary is because, “My attorney said so”. 

 I want to share with you some research from SexualHarassment.com.  Notice this paragraph from section O-iii

I have wanted to share The Training Factor social media program for some time now especially on the topic of time and ROI.  There continues to be the never ending question of exactly how long it takes and what should you be seeing.  Every company is different of course so this is not a “You should do this” post.  It’s simply going to show you that it works and to give you something to compare the time factor involved.

 I hope you had a chance to read Social Media Examiner’s post on how Time Pays with Social Media Marketing.  It provides some great statistics on a broader scale. 

 My program was literally one day at a time.  Early in 2009 I started working with different social media platforms and did my research, reading and observing of others to learn what to do and obviously what not to do.  Just some basic experimenting and familiarizing myself with platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, Plaxo, and others took about 5 months. 

Do- Look for room for commendation for every team member.

 Don’t- Single out Failures on any one team member’s part.

Another epiphany hit me this morning when I woke up besides the fact that I really wanted more coffee.  I got to thinking about all the projects I have on my plate and also the list that each of my team members have in anticipation of future events.  The word “deadline” was the associative word of the moment.  Then it kind of struck me how really that is such an awful word.  I tweeted it out, put it on my Facebook page and I had people agree with me.

 The next step was to find out where this word came from.  So here is what I found.  According to the Online Etymology Dictionary the words history comes from the civil war era where prisoners were warned that if they crossed a literal line they would be shot.  Chew on that for a moment then continue to the next paragraph.

 So now that we know this it behooves us to ask ourselves the question: “Why do I use this word as a daily business term in order to set a time limit on a project?”