There are a plethora of ways today to connect with, participate and Enjoy a Conversation with your Residents. There have been numerous posts about starting and maintaining a company blog, which is an excellent tool. The Urbane Blog has proved to be a great asset for both Urbane and the local community.
HELP YOUR RESIDENTS CONNECT
Another favorable venue is to create a Ning site. It is a very easy application and can create a pretty cool place to have conversation and engage your residents. At Urbane, we created the Urbane Lobby It is sort of like having your own My Space or facebook site. Residents can meet and greet, have an on line chat, exchange photos and videos, pay rent on line and place service request on line. It is very easy to create and update and foster community with your Brand.
THE NUMBERS
The numbers are pretty impressive. The UrbaneBlog.com continues to grow at 35% per month, month over month. The SEO enhancements from these additional venues really help your main web site too. Our combined new visitor traffic is well over 10,000 visitors per month, which is pretty impressive for a 320 unit portfolio.
Our Goal
Our Goal; To provide our residents with an experience and value with a high enough return to create enough Customer Evangelists within our core resident base that they self rent our apartments. We are working hard to lead our resident Influencers within our core resident base, and have transitioned most of our marketing budget inward, to further focus on our existing residents. Only good things have happened from this move. Resident retention has significantly improved, and we have created a forum and a field for the Influencers to participate. We are learning as we go, but are seeing stellar results.
You too should try out some of these new paths. Become familiar with them, use them. They work, and they will work for you too. The central theme of all Social Media is Creating Community and Participating in the Conversation. This is an excellent advantage for any apartment community. You too can create a virtual On Line Community with ease. Any questions, ask away, lets start a conversation
