The Year of the Blogs

We have long been solid proponents of Community Blogs here at the Urbane Lab, and feel our own Community Blog, The Urbane Life drives rental leads, and helps us Rent More Urbane Apartments We aren't basing this on theroy, but on Results, Rental Results.

Hub Spot Marketing makes the claim that Businesses That Blog Get 55% More Website Traffic. We certainly agree with that, and have far exceeded those numbers here at the Urbane Lab. I think something that is being completely overlooked as more and more folks dive into the blogging world, is the fact that you are creating a Digital Asset, that has Capital in the form of Followers and Larger Community.

What's Next
I believe 2010 Will be the Year of Scale, meaning lots of folks will be pushing through the debate of scaling Social Media. Many new products are unfolding to help apartment operators get started, such as Community Sherpa, which is Apartment Finders newest Turn Key Social Media Kit for apartment operators. (Full Disclosure; NCI, the parent company of Community Sherpa and Apartment Finder is a client) ResPage has also launched a similar product to apartment operators that promises a Turnkey Social Media Marketing Plan.

So what does all of this mean, and how will all of this shake out? Great question, and it will be exciting to watch it unfold. The ground is shifting for sure. For us at Urbane Apartments, The Urbane Lab is in the process of designing and implementing an On Line Magazine, which will replace our Urbane Life Blog. We are dedicating resources to start selling Ad Space to local retailers and businesses that have an interest in tapping into the Digital Capital we have created with the Following and Larger Community we have created. Our goal is to own Hyper Local for our targeted demographic.

I think that is the next shift to figure out is, How to Monetize the On Line Asset we have created, and How to Transform Digital Capital to Cash. Imagine your Apartment Marketing as being a Revenue Stream as opposed to an Expense.

Think of the shift of value that does for your property and owners, and how that affects your NOI, pretty staggering, and perhaps allows us to recapture some of the evaporated values of yesterday.