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Home Insider Blogs Brent Williams's Blog 93% Of Residents Have Never Visited An Apartment Community's Social Networking Page
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Jun 29
2010

93% Of Residents Have Never Visited An Apartment Community's Social Networking Page

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Posted by: Brent Williams on Jun 29, 2010 14:32

We received this today and felt it worth sharing.  Please share your thoughts on the findings below!

NEW NATIONAL SURVEY DATA INDICATES 93% OF RESIDENTS HAVE NEVER VISITED AN APARTMENT COMMUNITY’s SOCIAL NETWORKING PAGE

Nearly One in Four Residents (24%) Don’t Visit Social Networking Sites At All 

HOUSTON, June 29, 2010 – J Turner Research (JTR), a leading market research firm exclusively serving the multifamily industry, today released the findings of an ongoing survey indicating 93 percent of apartment residents have never visited an apartment community’s page on a social networking Web site.  Nearly one quarter of all respondents (24%) said they do not visit any social networking Web sites. The findings are based on responses from 15,964 apartment residents collected between January 1, 2010 and June 13, 2010.

The overall percentage of residents who have visited any apartment community’s page more than doubles, from 6 percent to13 percent, for properties that have established a social networking page (primarily on Facebook or Twitter). Those respondents who confirmed visiting a community’s social networking page  (7%) said they visited the page to “see what other people were saying about the community” (62%), “conduct preliminary research about the apartments, floor plans or unit availability” (57%), or “find discounts or deals related to signing a lease” (37%). Only eleven percent of residents said they were visiting the page to “contact a staff member about scheduling an onsite visit,” nine percent to “refer a friend,” and eight percent were there to “initiate the leasing process to live at the community.”

“Social networking has infiltrated the majority of consumer, retail and business sectors but the findings gathered in our survey during the last six months indicate apartment residents aren’t engaging their community’s social media efforts as might be the case in other categories,” said Joseph Batdorf, principle of J Turner Research.  “We continue to survey residents and collect data in order to identify any trends which owner/operators can utilize to better determine the time and resources they allocate to this emerging channel.”

The survey asked which social networking sites residents use the most and the data confirmed respondent’s voracious use of Facebook with 69 percent acknowledging an account, 15 percent confirmed using LinkedIn, nine percent answered Twitter, six percent said MySpace and two percent preferred Orkut or another site as their network of choice.  Nearly half of apartment residents (45%) said they check their social networking accounts daily, 19 percent check weekly and another six percent check either hourly or monthly.

Other Social Networking Findings:

  • One quarter of respondents (25%) ranked communication with the community via social networks as “Not Important at All.” Only seven percent ranked it as “Very Important,” though 37 percent provided favorable feedback.
  • More than half of respondents (52%) said they check their community’s page to “Learn about Community Events or Activities.”
  • 20 percent visited the page to “Provide Positive Feedback Regarding Some Aspect of the Community” and only six percent stated they visited to “Provide Negative Feedback.”
  • Eight percent logged on to “Ask a Question about a Maintenance Issue.”
  • Five percent inquired regarding a “Lease Renewal.”

Methodology

Five multifamily companies participated in the survey initiative. J Turner Research distributed 54,573 surveys across 415 apartment communities nationwide, asking residents to share their social networking perspectives and behaviors since January 2010. To date 15,964 residents responded to the six-question survey, representing an overall response rate of 29 percent.  Data has been collected monthly through June 13, 2010 and the survey effort is ongoing.

If you would like to schedule an interview with an executive from J Turner Research contact Don Canfield at (303) 682-3942 or don@linnelltaylor.com.  To view all the data collected during the first six months of the survey program visit http://www.jturnerresearch.com/socialmedia.php. To learn more about the J Turner Research’s prospect and resident survey programs visit www.jturnerresearch.com.

About J Turner Research:

Based in Houston, J Turner Research specializes in developing and executing innovative and affordable research services for the multifamily industry. The company utilizes e-mail based surveys to accurately measure perceptions of prospective residents, current residents and employees to help owners understand how to optimize operational and marketing efficiencies. For more information, please call (281)558 4840 or visit www.jturnerresearch.com

 

What are your thoughts on the findings?


Comments (10)Add Comment
648
written by Sondrah Laden, June 29, 2010
I think this will dramatically increase as the multifamily industry's acclimation to the most effective methods of using social media increases. I also believe just as apartment communities are only in the last year or two really implementing social media strategies; the renting population is also just becoming more accustomed to using social media for communication with businesses not only friends and family.

I do not believe multifamily will ever see the site visits that businesses offering goods and services see because of the nature of our product. A retail store for example can offer a new product at a discounted price everyday to their fans or followers, whereas the renter is not interested in renting a different apartment every day and has not nearly the incentive to visit the apartment community page. We should focus on content that is desired and helpful to drive them there more often.
2672
written by Daisy Nguyen, June 29, 2010
I think the low % indicates an opportunity. I often see apartments community pages with very low interaction/LOW interaction on their social networking page. If its not worth seeing, its not worth revisting. The few communities that have active pages, with throughtful comments that encourage a social atmosphere, and sharing - I notice that residents comment & interact more often - this generates more interaction, and higher percentage of people who visit those pages.

With social networking pages - you get out of it what you put into it.
0
written by Chris Fortune, June 29, 2010
I think you both are correct. Social Media should be used as a resident retention tool first and then let your residents spread the word for you. If you put up information that will keep your residents coming back they will eventually spread the word. WORD OF MOUTH is the name of the game. Properties that are active and keep their social media sites fresh have a better following. The onsite staffs also have to spend time getting current residents on their sites to acheive better interaction. I think alot of companies use the "if you build it they will come" approach. It takes work!
2272
written by Ellen Thompson, June 29, 2010
6 months is a long time in the social media world (and a long time to collect data for this kind of survey). I bet if you look at June data alone, the story would be quite different. I offer as a comparison that mobile traffic doubled on my ILS over the past 6 months. Total average mobile usage was nothing to write home about, but doesn't it get your attention to hear that mobile traffic doubled? It's quite a different way to spin the same data. I'm sure social media usage by renters doubled over that time period, and the trend is what we should focus on.

Let's face it - not all community's social media efforts were created equally. On the best practices end, you have Urbane Apartments. On the other side, you have hundreds of Facebook and Twitter pages with a couple of apartments ads, and that's about it.

In addition to the quality of the social media initiative, penetration also depends on the involvement of the property manager and the demographics of the community. If the property manager doesn't tell people about social media pages and if you can't get the web designer to add a link to Facebook/Twitter/etc. in a timely manner (I could tell you horror stories) user adoption will suffer.

Finally, renters cannot be trusted to self report. Again, I offer an example from the ILS world: phone and walk in lead tracking. We all know that renters don't always do the best job of reporting where they found out about your community (e.g. "I found you on the Internet. No, I don't remember exactly which site."). Given the increasingly high Google rankings Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and property blogs are getting, it's hard to believe the impact of social media optimization didn't drive more than 7% of renters to a community's social networking site alone.

Sorry for the long response, but I am married to an analyst and I worked in the survey world briefly, so I'm prone to be skeptical about all things statistical.
3712
written by Chrissy Surprenant, June 30, 2010
These are great findings but at the same time what is the breakdown of these statistics regarding gender or age? I could see a drastic change with young residents vs mature residents. More and more of the "older" generation is taking advantage of Facebook for example but only to keep in touch w/ their distant families or to play farmville (by the way love that game!) They really haven't (and the large majority will never) really appreciate the social networking sites for the networking aspect. Keep in mind, Facebook being the most popular has so many different pages, groups, etc that you can become a part of, it is almost impossible to keep up with every page every day if not every week. I know there are groups that I personally have accepted and never been back... not because it's not interesting but because of lack of time. I think we'll see the number drastically higher if it was broken down in age.
62
written by Brent Williams, June 30, 2010
Great comments, everybody! My first thought when I read the results was along the same line of Ellen's - I've seen so many pitiful apartment community fan pages that it's no wonder why they don't get visited! However, Sondrah, I think we differ on one main point. Not only do I think apartment communities could be just as popular as product pages, I think they could be so much more popular as to make the comparison silly. Although there are some brands that have almost insanity-driven following, such as Apple vs Microsoft, Ford vs Chevy, or Coke vs Pepsi (although maybe not as much on that one anymore...), most products can't possibly compete with the emotional connection people can have with their home. And that "home" includes the people around it and within their community, which is ideal for social networking sites. But this is limited to their current home, which is why I've always believed that social media was best suited for resident retention rather than marketing, which seems to be how 90% of communities try to use it.

The main limitation I see with the success of social media with apartment communities comes from critical mass for any given community. Getting enough activity from a finite population of one community to participate beyond a one-sided conversation is quite a challenge.
4041
written by Christopher Higgins, June 30, 2010
I think these numbers are skewed by the fact that the vast majority of renters in apartment communities live at properties that have not yet embraced social media, or have a website designed 10 years ago before the idea was relevant. We have not embraced technology quickly in this industry - just look at any leasing office at a B property and you will find a dot matrix printer slogging out a report somewhere. But the management companies that have incorporated this into their sites, or are currently rebuilding them with this new functionality, will certainly benefit from the edge.
4041
written by Christopher Higgins, June 30, 2010
Oh wait, I just saw another thing in Brent's comments: You mean some people actually prefer Microsoft products? Who are these people? What do they th [NOT RESPONDING] CTRL ALT DELETE
68
written by Eric Brown, June 30, 2010
Hello All,
I found this survey not useful at any level, and not sure of what the intent of it was, although I can speculate. I actually listtened to the presentation at NAA and found it equally maddening.

Others commenting herein have hit on the points, as it isn't that the apartment prospects aren't participating, there are rarely no apartment communities for the prospect to participate with! Hopefully apartment marketers aren't using this type of data to steer their descions.

Ellen, Thank you for the kind comments, we really appreciate that.
77
written by Mike Whaling, July 03, 2010
The survey data isn't incredibly surprising, considering the way in which the questions were asked. In fact, I believe the answers would have been very similar if you asked the question about a dry cleaner or a grocery store instead of an apartment community. Of course, people aren't visiting apartment company profiles/pages on social networking sites ... most of us are there for other reasons, like keeping in touch with friends.

We need to stop worrying so much about the channel, and focus our efforts on the story we're trying to tell. As Chris mentioned, it's about word of mouth (although I disagree that we need to look at social media as a resident retention tool ... social media can used for many different business purposes). Give your audience something they can support and connect with on a personal level, and they'll follow/like/friend you. Provide interesting/unique/entertaining experiences that get people talking (and not just residents), and our properties wil find much greater success, not only in social media, but across all communication channels.
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