Apartment Blogs

If social media is overwhelming you with the plethora of tools, platforms, fan pages, accounts, usernames etc, then it's imperative to stop for a moment and organize your thoughts and process.  You may be voicing your frustration and throwing up your hands and saying there is nothing but a bunch of noise going on.  Or you may be wondering how in the world you can keep up with the pace that these platforms are growing.  Let's reflect on another platform that morphed and that we quickly evolved the ability to control how we used it.

Jump back a couple of decades in the television world and reflect on what was available.  Mainstream television did not even become available to most people until the 50's.  Those were the days when you only had one or two channels tops and you had to get out of your chair to turn the TV on.  As the decades past, the amount of options and information increased.  Currently you can make a choice on what kind of channel package you wish for yourself.  Some can be as low as 200 and then the options continue to climb.  Within these packages are channels dedicated to certain topics.  We have The Weather Channel, The Food Network, ESPN and many others.  Does this mean that you leave your TV on just one of these channels all day long?  Of course you don't.  What was the premise behind making channels that focused on just one topic?  So that the viewer would always know where they could find the specific information that they need.  Maybe at first people as the viewers were a bit perplexed at seeing an information specific channel available, however we learned the ability to change the channel.  You got to love remote controls for that!

There is a fine line between training and application.  Take a trip back to your school years and reflect on the moments when you said to yourself or your teacher: "Why do I need to learn that?  I will never use it."  As we made our way into the workplace, we should be able to see why advanced algebra, trigonometry, calculus, physics and other subject have served us well.  They developed our ability to think, reason, multitask, and progress in our career path.  It taught us the ability to emotionally handle challenges and to not just give up. 

So this brings us to our current moments in life and how we view and apply our continuing education we receive at work.   How can it be possible to score 100% on a multifamily leasing course but only score 60% on a secret shop?  You can add as many thoughts as you want in the comments below.  Follow me on this analogy.  Last week I purchased some paper towel in one of those bulk packages.  I left it in the hallway to see if one of my children would take the initiative to put it away for me.  I left for Pittsburgh for a few days and returned to see that the package was still in the same place, which I then pointed this out to my children.  One of them decides to "put it away" for me and when I opened the cabinet this morning this is what I found. 

Not too long ago we talked about Twitter etiquette and now we have come to some thoughts on the practice of suggesting to friends to become a fan of a certain page.  Some balance really needs to be applied to how you go about building your fan base.  Lately I have been receiving repetitive requests to fan a page from the same individuals.  There seems to be almost no time span in between these requests.  I choose to ignore pages that I do not feel are something that would interest me and I wake up the next morning and the same request is there again from the same individuals and multifamily companies.  I know I am not the only one this has happened to since I see similar comments on the Facebook news feed regularly. 

In my opinion it's just bad business overall.  I personally see nothing wrong with suggesting to your friends when you have opened a new page.  I have done it myself with the four that I operate for The Training Factor.  After that though it is my responsibility to let people know about these channels by other means.  These other methods will help you grow your following in a respectable and organic way.  Here are some bullet points that I have used and would love to see some others posted in the comment section below.

1.        Advertising that I have a Facebook page on our company newsletter.

 You Know you have a Team When

1.        At staff strategy meetings they do most of the talking

2.       When you walk in the room there is no sudden "hush"

On a regular basis I will check on my Twitter account to see updates of new followers I have.  Sometimes I pay attention to the actual numbers but not often.  By coincidence I was writing some content for one of our courses on Bots and their effect on the number of followers you will and will not have on any given day.  While I was writing that I was refreshing my Twitter site and saw that my own numbers went down by 3 within that 20 minute period.  Not that this was a real big deal to me but at the same time it left me wondering for a moment, was it something I said or was it the bots.  I don't have any of those tools for tracking who unfollowed me so I really don't know the answer.  But it got me thinking of some other comments I have heard from others from time to time on something similar that has happened to them.  I did some investigating on a couple of the accounts that unfollowed or even blocked fellow tweeters and this is what I found.

When I looked at their ratio of who they were following versus their followers, there was a huge gap.  So imagine this scenario.  A Twitter user has 100 people that follow them and they only follow back 20 people.  Now in those 20 people you have maybe one or two regular tweeters.  What do you think the user's Twitter stream is going to look like?  Of course it will be filled with those couple of tweeters who are active on Twitter which will then lend to their opinion that all they see on Twitter is them...hence perhaps this is the reason for the unfollow.

1.        Clean, repair or replace the kitchen garburator.

2.       Replace carpet that has been continually used as a toilet by pets or children.

3.       Remove or clean out a clogged pea trap.

I know this is such a cliché title and perhaps the die hard Trekkie fans may only understand it.  Here are the two key words to explain it, Borg and the Federation.  The Borg were determined to make change on their terms no matter what got in their way and the Federation resisted this and hence the common expression the Borg would make is : Resistance is Futile. 

We approach each day where words like change, shift, new, revolution, generation seem common in daily conversation, blogs, news etc.  There is no doubt that change is here and that a major shift in how daily business operations are accomplished is necessary due to the impact of things like social media and new generations of incoming employees and residents.  In general most of us by nature resist change and the main reason behind that is the delivery method.  If the Borg approach is used and change is forced on us, we automatically resist.  If change is delivered in a palatable way, with gradual implementation and education that is conducive to our personal way of adapting, then the transition is much easier.  My experience at the IREM Georgia Social Media workshop will illustrate this.

Last June my wife and I had the privilege of attending NAA in Las Vegas.  We stayed at the Luxor and decided on one of our evenings to take a walk to the famous Bellagio.  We had heard so much about it.  It is known for its beauty inside and out.  There was so much positive feedback about this place coming from friends and coworkers, that we purposely put it in our plans to make the trip.  The destination was wonderful but the path to get there was not.  The entire time we walked we were bombarded with people flicking their little cards trying to set us up with escorts.  I was completely mortified and I am sure the expression on my face was the same.  I was completely uncomfortable until I reached the destination I intended to see in the first place.  The Bellagio had invited me on many levels and I responded.

Some recent discussions have inspired the following analogy.  I have been too many trade shows over my career, but NAA was my first national event for the multifamily industry.  I did not know anyone!  The looks on many folks faces was priceless.  It was the look of, who are you, what are you trying to sell me, give me your 1 minute speech so I can get my free pen and tote bag.  I really felt for them.  After my trip down the Vegas strip I wondered if these individuals felt the same way I did.  My focus was on the Bellagio.  Their focus was on perhaps a handful of key booths that they planned in advance to visit.  They knew about the company, heard good reviews and wanted to make a connection and experience.  They had been personally invited and were looking forward to their discussion.  They just needed to wade through the all of us card flickers (in their opinion) to reach their destination. 

State the Problem- Why am I using social media?  How will I use it?  What benefits will it bring my company and community?  The purpose of social media is to reach a broader audience and connect with key people that are using these platforms

Form a Hypothesis- I predict that if I research this properly and use surveys to ascertain where and how my audience is using social media, I will then be able to reach certain marketing and retention goals. 

Good morning everyone. I received this from Google early this morning. I thought it was important to share with the multifamily industry. The possibilities of location based pay per CALL is quite interesting. The application of this future product I believe will really change call tracking in many ways for the apartment industry. I am sure we will be chatting about on twitter and blogs for a while to come. I am curious as to what you think about this though.

Thanks