Hi Charity
Nice post. The fact that the property owner doesn't even know folks are talking about them is no surprise. As you so well put it, the danger isn't Social Media, the danger is in Not Listening and then Not Participating in the Conversation.

I couldn't agree more - properties need to take a proactive role with social media and look for blogs/posts that consumers are using to write about their communities so they can respond to the posts. This could also lend itself to additional training needed onsite to give them the tools to know how to respond to resident postings plus how social media even works...I know I'll be getting with our director of training next month to address this important issue!

I agree with Eric and Tammy. I work for Delucchi Plus, a strategic real estate marketing communications firm, and 75% of our clients are actively marketing in the social media outlets currently. We maintain every site on their behalf to ensure that when there are situations such as this, we take precautions and extra steps to monitor and maintain the brand online.

I agree as well. One of my problems in getting comfortable with social media has been that I've wanted to avoid any potential issues like the post on apartmentratings.com, however, we just can't sit back any longer and avoid it. My concern has always been what would happen if we responded, but the fact is that if we don't then people will assume that everything that is said is truthful.

I agree with a majority of what is posted, however, I do look at how well the social site is optimized before I spend a lot of payroll managing the site. If there is a poor organic presence I may not invest the time of my staff to work that site. The highly visable social sites, absolutely.

One word. "Engage." And better yet, one word plus a contraction. "Let's engage." It's long overdue for our industry to climb out of our box and participate in the living conversation that is taking place with or without us. After all, it's not what we say...it's what they say. "Danger?" That's dramatic...more like "opportunity" for an incredibly effective tool to lower our cost per lead and lease with highly qualified traffic. No matter where you live it's not all rainbows and butterflies. Residents don't necessarily want perfection, but they definitely want something “real” and for someone to actively care. So, whether your community chooses to use venues like ApartmentRatings.com or other forms of social media, the point is...engage.

Social Media is a double-edge sword. It can be a wonderful forum to promote a cause, expound the virtues of a product or motivate others to action. Unfortunately, for most companies (and their employees) there is not a deep understanding of this relatively new marketing platform. We want the good messages, yet we have no plan in place to address those which are less than good. Every company should have a social media plan which would include daily monitoring of the top social media sites, as well as an ability to respond when necessary.