Crafting a Solid Social Media Strategy for Your Multifamily Community

The human need to communicate mixed with advances in technology has led to the rapid growth of social media. Today’s renters have grown up with social media and don’t remember a time without it. They are super users. Before they even step foot into their future apartment, prospective renters want to open the door to their future home — online. Social media channels provide a great opportunity for properties to provide a top-notch conversation marketing experience.

Savvy multifamily marketers realize that conversational marketing social media is more than just posting a pretty picture of your pool or sharing your latest resident events. Social media is a powerful tool for apartment communities to reach potential residents and promote their properties.

So, how can you create a compelling message on social media to set your properties apart with the ability to also quickly and effectively carry on a conversation wherever your prospects are? 

How to use social media in the multifamily industry

According to an article by Common, nearly 50% of renters look for an apartment on social media. More specifically, many prefer Instagram as their primary channel. Because of this, the multifamily industry  can’t afford not to be using social media to its advantage. If you’re at the beginning of your social media journey, or would enjoy some tips for improvement, here are some ways that you can use social media to reach potential residents and improve their brand reputation. 

Here are some examples of ways to use social media for your properties: 

  • Prospect Marketing: social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can be used to promote available units, community events, and special promotions. 
  • Resident Service: responding to tenant inquiries and complaints through social media can help improve resident satisfaction and increase resident loyalty. 
  • Reputation Management: monitoring online reviews and comments can help the multifamily industry identify areas for improvement and maintain a positive online reputation. 
  • Networking: social media can be used to connect with other professionals in the industry and stay up-to-date on industry trends and news. 
  • Lead Generation: social media platforms can be used to attract potential residents through targeted advertising and engaging content. 

Social media marketing apartments takes a lot of what you already for your digital marketing efforts and puts it on platforms that reach your prospects in a more organic, casual way. It’s also how you build an image and share the story of your community to prospective renters on the channels they’re using to research their future home.

Best practices for effectively using social media

If you’re going to put in the effort to make social media work as part of your digital marketing strategy, you want to make sure you’re maximizing your outcomes. 

Here are some best practices for how multifamily marketings can effectively use social media: 

  • Define goals: determine what you want to achieve through social media, whether it’s generating leads, improving customer service or building brand awareness. 
  • Define target audience: determine the demographic of your target audience to be able to choose the right platforms and tailor your message and content appropriately. 
  • Choose the right platforms: select the social media platforms that. are most relevant for your target audience and align with your goals. 
  • Identify key benefits: highlight the unique features and benefits of your properties, such as convenient location, amenities and security. 
  • Create engaging content: share information about your properties, community events and promotions, and use eye-catching images and videos to capture attention. 
  • Use visuals: share eye-catching images and videos that showcase your community, such as photos of common areas, unit interiors and local attractions. 
  • Interact with residents: respond promptly to tenant inquiries and complaints and engage with residents through conversational marketing social media. Encourage interaction by asking questions, running polls, and responding quickly to comments and messages. 
  •  Create shareable content: develop content that is easy to share and promotes your message, such as infographics, testimonials and virtual tours. 
  • Monitor online reviews: regularly monitor online reviews and respond to both positive and negative comments in a professional manner. 
  • Analyze data: use analytics tools to track the performance of your social media campaigns and adjust your strategy as needed. 

Having a plan in place before you start with social media marketing allows you to better optimize your efforts on these platforms. A plan ensures you’re not unnecessarily overwhelming your leasing teams with an additional task of sharing on social media platforms that don’t make sense. Instead, take the hassle out of social media posting by planning ahead.  

Apartment social media ideas

Do you feel like one of the blockers for your team to share on social social media is that they don’t know where to start? 

We recommend combatting this by designating one member of your leasing team to take on the responsibilities of your property’s social media. Additionally, building a monthly social media calendar that provides ideas of what to share each day. It can help lay out a plan for what will be shared so you know exactly what the post for that day will be. There are also several cost-effective tools to help by scheduling out social media posts in advance so you can set it and forget it while focusing on other leasing responsibilities. 

Here are some ideas for using social media to market apartments: 

  • Virtual tours: create mini virtual tours of your apartment units and common areas, using 360-degree photos or videos to showcase the properties. 
  • Resident spotlight: share stories and photos of residents, highlighting their experiences and perspectives on living in the community. 
  • Community events: share information and photos of community events, such as fitness classes, resident appreciation events, and holiday parties. 
  • Amenities showcase: highlight the unique amenities of your properties, such as a swimming pool, fitness center or dog park. 
  • Move-in incentives: share information about move-in incentives, such as waived application fees or rent discounts, to drive interest and leases. 
  • Resident reviews: share positive reviews and testimonials, building trust and credibility with potential residents. 
  • Interactive content: create interactive content, such as polls or quizzes, to engage with your audience and increase interaction on social media. 

Keep in mind, social media can be used as a way to promote not just your property, but also the neighborhood as well. In PERQ’s annual Multifamily Field Guide, we take self-reported consumer preference data from hundreds of thousands of consumer interactions with PMC websites and we flush out the trends on a national and regional level. Our latest edition of the Field Guide showed that, nationally, renters reported that the 3 activities they enjoy the most include social, shopping, and outdoor activities. 

Consider reviewing local businesses, sharing events that are happening nearby, or showing off your outdoor activities. Showing off what life is like in your neighborhood will have a huge impact on prospective renters when it comes to deciding where to move. 

While the financial aspect of renting is important, there is also an emotional aspect to renting. It’s a home. If the prospective renter has pets, kids or enjoys specific activities, they want to see if the community is a fit just as much as they want to make sure it’s within their budget. 

Conversational marketing social media for multifamily

The multifamily industry can use social media to share a compelling story that resonates with potential residents and promotes their brand leading to more engagement from prospective renters. Today, we’ll discuss techniques to help excel at conversational marketing on social media for your apartments to make a greater impact with prospective renters and current residents. 

Let’s start by understanding what conversational is. 

We’ve been exploring ChatGPT, so we thought it’d be interesting to ask and here’s what came back: 

“Conversational marketing refers to the practice of using chatbots, messaging apps, and other interactive technologies to engage with customers in real-time and provide them with personalized information and support. The goal of conversational marketing is to build relationships with potential and current customers, provide valuable information and assistance, and ultimately drive conversions.” 

 Hubspot Co-Founder, Dharmesh Shah, said it well by stating,

Customers should be able to pick up things right where they left off whenever it is convenient for them to continue. They key is to remember that conversational marketing should be designed around the needs of the customer — not the needs of the business.

Now, let’s simplify that concept and apply it specifically to multifamily. 

Today’s renters are cross-channel and cross-device. They are browsers that take the time to be thoughtful and seek our information on their own. They will use search on Google, visit websites, read emails and texts from communities, converse with conversational marketing chatbots, and interact with online tools, like social media and online reviews that help give them information and they look far in advance of making a move.   

The PERQ platform, including a leasing assistant with NLP chat capabilities, allows you to put automation tools in places your prospects visit and recognizes these prospects across their renter’s journey so you can make their experience with your community seamless and increase their likelihood to tour and lease. 

To implement conversational marketing social media for multifamily, you can start by: 

  • Identifying the channels where your target audience is active, such as Facebook, Instagram or Google. 
  • Set up your website to act as the hub for collecting prospect information.
  • Leverage content and other offers on social sites as a way to draw in traffic for conversion. 
  • Leverage automation on the website to answer immediate questions and convert conversations to tours. 
  • Integrate automation tools in all the places your prospects visit, for example PERQ’s chat AI can be placed on your Google Business page. 
  • Measure the effectiveness of your conversational marketing efforts by tracking metrics such as engagement rates, response times, and lead generation. 

Finding the right tools to support conversational marketing social media doesn’t have to be a painstaking experience. In the next section, we’ll discuss important items to consider when choosing a chatbot for your conversational marketing needs. 

Considerations when choosing automation tools to support conversational marketing

It used to be that you’d need a slew of disconnected solutions to manage your multifamily leads. One service for chat, another for nurture automation, and yet another for scheduling tours. Instead, you should be thinking holistically about your inbound marketing. Here are some helpful considerations to keep in mind when choosing the right partner for your AI conversational marketing needs.

Engage & Delight

Leverage AI to power website personalization and interactive website experiences along with conversation AI to convert prospects at insane rates!

Nurture & Convert

Use website visitor activity to personalize automated nurture touches across channels and guide all of your inbound leads through the renter’s journey until they’re agent ready.

Analyze & Learn

Know more about the effectiveness of your marketing across channels, including social media and Google, determine the true ROI of your lead sources and get unmatched insights about multifamily market preferences.

Remember, you don’t have to be an engineer or developer to implement conversational marketing social media. You just need to find the right partner that gives you all the tools you need to create a personalized and automated renter’s journey prospects will love — earning quality leads and loyal renters in return.

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