I do a kids corner as well.

Apartment living hacks and tips

We do a quarterly e-newsletter to all of our tenants and send it out using a program called "Constant Contact". It is an easy way to remind tenant's to turn in maintenance requests, complete tenant survey's, give tips on various topics. We remind them to check our vacancy list and offer tenant referrals if they help us to rent out our vacancies. We are always looking for articles for our newsletters, I would love to hear some good topics for tenants, please share your ideas!

Thanks for sharing, Mike!

(I asked Mike to share his input, as he is President of ApartmentNewsletters.com )

This is a question we think about quite often. While the majority of our clients are still utilizing printed newsletters, we have seen a steady increase in orders for our digital offering. In addition to uploading a file to their website, many properties post them as links on their Facebook pages or Tweet them to their followers.

It seems to me that social media is ideal for connecting with those residents proactive enough to engage with their community in that fashion. But, at the risk of sounding self-serving, I tend to think reliance on social media alone may, in many cases, not be the best strategy.

What about residents who may be too passive to visit your social media pages? You still want them to be aware of what is happening in your community, right? What about the risk management paper trail a hard copy provides? Many clients use their newsletter as a marketing tool, handing them out to each prospect that walks through the door.

Because there is such diversity in the way people relate to media in general, the days of a ‘one size fits all’ resident communications strategy have long since passed. While it’s not easy, ultimately it’s up to the people ‘on the front lines’ to determine the right mix, either by trial and error or by doing an informal survey.

I’m looking forward to reading more posts from those of you ‘in the trenches.’

I LOVE newsletters even though my Corporate Office says they are a waste of my time. I disagree - mostly because I KNOW a lot of Residents do read them. What they like is seeing all the personal notes about themselves in each issue. I do baby announcements, wedding and engagement annoucements, winners of contests, and recently I started adding their Photos of their pets. I add the photos to our Facebook page, too, and this has caused a big surge of Residents checking out our FB page. I write my own "column", too. I like writing and I think people still enjoy reading. After each issue is delivered, (I used to publish the newsletter on our website but when we re-designed the website, the Corporate Office nixed it) Residents who I never thought read it, would say something to me about something they had read in it. This is a prime example of why I like newsletters: after reading a blurb about the 12 couples getting married within weeks of each other, they all wanted to be introduced to one another. I thought this was a great way to get a group together who shared more than a community address - the story helped bond people and the newsletter was really just a simple way to get the "news" out.

Great question, Charity. On the flip side, I wonder if it has become even more valuable since everything has moved online. Kind of like how a hand-written note makes such an impact these days, I can also see having something tangible they can read would increase in value due to lessening "competition" (as everything moves online).