Absent all of the answers, but forging ahead anyway

Our friends over at Village Green have and are entering the Social Media space in a big way. (Full Disclosure, I was a former employee at Village Green, and have had multiple consulting contracts with VG and am an all around huge supporter of them.)

Village Green has successfully launched Regional Blogs, facebook and Twitter Accounts. It will be interesting to see how the regional approach works for them, as opposed to a per community approach. It allows most of the work to be conducted at the corporate level, giving much more control and brand consistency.

From my meetings with Village Green last summer, in addition to all of the effectiveness of Social Media Marketing for Apartments, another of their primary goals for utilizing Social Media Marketing was expense driven, and to Lower the Cost per Lease. While it is early to determine that, they are doing an excellent job of pulling this all off in house. I applaud them for entering the space, absent all of the answers, but forging ahead anyway.

With all of the Social Media tools and processes in place, the challenge for Village Green and their Social Media program in 2010 will be Engagement. Currently, they have little to no engagement, with only a handful of fans on each facebook account and hardly any twitter followers.

It is difficult for a larger company to grasp and understand what Opt In Permission Marketing really is, as the old ways simply don't work so well in the Social Media space.

Village Green's most recent launch of Using a Smart Phone, Prospective Renters Can Locate, View Photos, Price and Reserve an Apartment is great too. Listed below is a copy of the recent Press Release;

VILLAGE GREEN LAUNCHES MOBILE WIRELESS ACCESS TO APARTMENT RENTING
Using a Smart Phone, Prospective Renters Can Locate, View Photos, Price and Reserve an Apartment

Farmington Hills, Mich., December 18, 2009 – Village Green has launched mobile wireless access to apartments that enables prospective renters to choose a community, tour and rent an apartment from their smart phone. Village Green is the first privately held multifamily company to launch complete mobile search and leasing capabilities via individual property websites and address the exploding growth of Internet access and transactions with mobile devices.

“As we recognized the frequent use of mobile Internet transactions in other facets of our customers’ lives, we created a completely mobile capability that focuses on how prospective residents want to interact and transact with us,” stated Village Green Chairman and CEO Jonathan Holtzman. “We pride ourselves in being at the forefront of the apartment industry and providing a ‘lifestyle for rent,’ and this is another example of us responding to the marketplace.”

By partnering with VaultWare, Village Green rental prospects using smart phones can search apartments by price, location, service, amenities or close to their current location (via a smart phone’s built-in GPS functionality), see current specials and availability, and reserve an apartment today at one of Village Green’s communities. This 24/7/365 service works on mobile platforms including iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Palm Pre and Windows Mobile.

“Providing smart phone users with a mobile-friendly experience and all the functionality of the regular website is a must today,” commented Mike Mueller, CEO of Realty DataTrust, the developers of VaultWare. “Especially considering industry findings that prospective renters using a mobile device are three times more likely to convert to a lease.”

Prospects exploring www.VillageGreen.com from a smart phone will find it easy to search for a Village Green apartment community. Each individual community’s website automatically formats to fit the user’s specific smart phone model. Viewing photos, floorplans and maps is just a ‘touch’ away once the desired community is selected.

“We envision renters pulling out their smart phone in the middle of a busy street in Chicago, using its GPS location feature to find a nearby Village Green community, viewing the interior pictures and floorplans and checking the pricing and availability to make an informed decision to rent before they even walk in the entrance,” stated Holtzman. “For a company that’s been in business since 1919, this sets a distinct standard for leasing apartments.”