40 Social Media Post Ideas for Apartment Communities

My apologies for this being the longest post in my blogging history, but you will thank me in the end. I normally preach short blogging, but the simple format should make it easy to extract the information you want. 

-Remember your objectives. Help prospects come to the best property in the area, reduce costs... It is ok to post about water & energy conservation and such. You will be surprised at the outcome of awareness. 

-Some posts created for one platform such as Facebook, may not be right for another platform.  So, use the following apartment community social media posting guide and let me know if you have any struggles with your campaign. 

-Post updates frequently, but right for the platform. For example, post to Facebook 3-5 times per week. No more, no less. Hubspot reported pages under 10k followers experiences a 50% drop in engagement per post if they posted more than once per day. 

Ideas for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest Posting

Post updates frequently, but right for the platform. Post on Facebook 3-5 times per week. No more, no less. Hubspot reported pages under 10k followers experienced a 50% drop in engagement per post if they posted more than once per day. See my blog post on this subject for other platforms. 

Test posting times by posting at varied times of day. 

1. Share funny photos & videos for sharing. Happy residents sell other residents.
2. Ask for feedback on property improvements
3. Post about amenities
4. Unit availability
5. Share promotions 
6. Ask for “likes”
7. Post questions. Facebook software ranks comments higher.
8. Tag & like local business & community pages
9. Ask poll questions with multiple choices
10. Share local deals, specials, coupons, etc.
11. Post tips & how-to’s that are helpful
12. Follow-up with responses & tag individuals to encourage conversation
13. Encourage energy and water conservation 
14. Recognize acts of kindness, etc.
15. Shopping lists and meal planning on a budget
16. Holiday fun
17. Share event photos & news
18. Share local business & community updates
19. Share community pet photos
20. Share your Pinterest photos
21. Share fun quotes
22. Post “this or that” types of questions
23. Share pet-lover updates ie. vets, spas, sitters, etc.
24. Post the community newsletter
25. Address community questions
26. Host a Tweet-up for your city or local social group
27. Indoor gardens, food, & recipes
28. Fitness tips & how-to’s are helpful
29. Promote your website or app
30. Share moving tips & advice
31. Local employment opportunities
32. Update career advice & industry news

33. organizing spaces

34. Decorating limited spaces

35. Fitness tips 

36. Career opportunities 

37. Fun commercials

38. Drone pics of your property

39. Word search or crossword puzzle of your area

40. Summer concert announcements

 

If you want help implementing your social media strategy or reputation management, please contact us at www.ellevengroup.com. Or if you are reading this after July 1, 2019 visit www.chatterstart.com for immediate pricing. 

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How to Deal with a Bad Social Media Review

Depending on the social media platform, your strategy will vary. Doing what is right by the customer is always the best way to manage these issues. You always want to make the customer happy. Upon reading this you likely have a problem, but in the future it is best to satisfy your customer before they get to the posting phase of doing business with you.

In general you will want to follow these steps to deal with a bad customer review. 

1. Calm down.  Only contact the offending reviewer with a level head.
2. Try to contact the customer offline – or at least off the review site itself. Best is to be able to talk to them in person or over the phone. See if they left a comment card or if you have any contact information for them.
3. Be overly polite and nice. People have a hard time arguing with polite people. (Kill ’em with kindness!)
4. Tell them you understand their frustration or why they are upset. Empathy wins.
5. Take steps to clear up the issue and make an honest effort to do so.
6. Make sure that there is verifiable or at least anecdotal evidence the consumer or ex-employee will be able to see and believe the issue is resolved.
7. Ask them to remove or at least modify their review.
8. Explain to them that other people work there and that bad reviews are hurting their friends that work there or people who count on those jobs to support their families.
9. It’s not about you! It’s about them.  Make them think they are doing a good deed by removing their review.
10. Offer them something in return as a gesture of good faith, such as a free coffee or free meal at your restaurant or cafe, or to come in and see changes you have made that will alleviate their concerns.

If the claim if false, vulgar or inappropriate you will want to contact Yelp, Facebook, Google or whomever controls the platform of the post for resolution. Our first advice here is to try your best to work with them. DO NOT get into a fire fight with these companies. This will not work out. Persistence and understanding will be your best tools with them. If that doesn't work, contact us and we will see what we can do. There is no sure solution in these situations, but the majority can be remedied.   

How to Use Ephemoral Content in Your Social Media

Once Snapchat started the fire, Facebook and Instagram weren't far behind. Your message should be short and sweet. That is what "Ephemoral Content" is. And there is one caveat, it disappears after 24 hours. The attention span of not only the rising generations has changed expectations, but the attention span of the general public has changed as well. This leaves us as marketers and business owners in a change or die position. To better illustrate the point, Statista reported 188 million daily Snapchat users, not to mention 400 million Instagram stories every single day. Are you profiting off that activity?   

What content can I use for ephemeral topics or posts? Ephomoral posts can be about trending topics or even regional events and weather. It is ok to create a post about an unexpected winter storm in spring, get traction with it and then let it fall off your page. A flash sale, holiday discount, office birthday or live event would run perfectly on this platform. "Don't miss out" really applies here. It's not just a gimmick. 

Ephemoral content also allows you to convert tire kickers into buyers with incentives to buy now. Use colors and design that will grab attention and are relevant to your message. 

When writing ephemeral ad content, be sure to have a strong and clear call to action. "Today only" or "20% off Easter Weekend" set a clear deadline and create on urgency in the buyer's mind. Keep copy to a minimum. You don't have long to grab their attention; 3 seconds on average.  

Blogs are getting shorter and more to the point as well. So, go create some ephemeral content and dominate your marketplace. 

Google AdWords Rebranding to Google Ads

On July 24, 2018, Google AdWords is becoming Google Ads. This new Google Ads brand represents the full range of campaign types available today, including search, display and video. 

What’s changing?

Starting July 24, 2018, you will begin to see the new Google Ads brand-including the new name and logo-reflected in the product interface, Help Center, billing documents, and more. The URL you use to access your account will be changing from adwords.google.com to ads.google.com, and the Help Center, (which I use), will change from support.google.com/adwords to support.google.com/google-ads. Changes to the Google Ads branding will not impact your campaign performance, navigation, or reporting. 

To learn more about this change, including changes to the DoubleClick Digital Marketing and Google Analytics 360 Suite brands, read about the new brands for their advertising products on the Google blog. 

Credits: shared from www.adwords.google.com

6 Reasons New Years Resolutions Fail

So you’re full of turkey, your fingers hurt from wrapping presents and you’ve got a stomach full of egg nog. What’s next?

While the holidays are mostly reserved for close friends and family, perhaps the most personally satisfying of them all is welcoming the new year.

A new year brings a new chance with new opportunities. It’s an ideal time to focus on self-improvement, setting new ambitions, and starting over. What about that extra ten pounds of body fat you’ve been trying to lose? You could set a resolution to shed it by the summer. Problem solved! Right?

Possibly, but…

A recent study conducted by the University of Scranton suggests that only 8% of people actually follow through with New Years resolutions. 

Why is it that so many of us just can’t follow through? Here are 6 reasons why we fail.

Failure to plan

Fail to plan, fail to succeed. Setting the resolution is half the battle. You also need a plan. Place the same amount of importance on this as the resolution itself.

Unclear goals

In today’s world we rely a great deal on GPS. But our destination is usually clear before we even set foot in our vehicles. There may be a dozen ways to get to the same place, but in the end you arrive at the desired destination. Before you commit to your resolution, be absolutely clear about what you want.

Distractions

What was I about to talk about again? Oh yeah, distractions. In 2018, distractions are becoming an ordinary part of our daily life. It’s nearly impossible to steer clear of just about all of them. I get it, they’re everywhere. But tuning these out—even keeping them at a minimum—is critical if you’re going to succeed.

Unrealistic expectations

Imagine a 9 month old baby running a 100 meter dash before they’ve even taken their first steps. Sort of impossible to fathom, right? That’s because it’s not very realistic. Your resolutions should reflect the reality of where you currently are and you should use this to measure just how far you’d like to go. Make it challenging, yet pragmatic and sensible.

Lack of consistency

So you’ve established your goals. They’re clear, you’ve got your plan, you’re prepared. But now you have to stick with it. Now you have to be consistent. Imagine riding a bicycle and slamming on the brakes every 5 seconds. You’d never get anywhere would you? Once you’ve settled on what you want, you must constantly work on it. Every. Single. Day.

Lack of Self Belief

You’ve probably heard the age old saying: seeing is believing. But, this message in reverse rings just as true. Before you can achieve something, you must be able to expect it of yourself. This comes with believing you can do it. Believe in yourself, and you’ve won half the battle.

Take it one step at a time!

The first day of the year brings with it quite a bit of responsibility. We’re given a whole new set of 365 days. It’s a lot of time and we’ve got a lot to think about. But the only way anyone’s every run a marathon is by putting one foot in front of the other. You take one step at a time and before you know it, you’re at the finish line.

Sell Your Business for MORE With These Steps

The present value of your business is based on a few components. I will quickly glance over some but want to get into preparing your business to sell so I will be very brief. If there is enough interest I will have a friend in the business post as well and possibly speak at one of our seminars sponsored by elleven marketing group. If you are really serious about selling your company then you will want to have a valuation done on your company. We have friends that will do this for free for smaller businesses so don't pay for a business valuation unless you absolutely have to. That being said, assets are an obvious part of the value of your company. Buildings, inventory, equipment...everything on your balance sheet. (If you don't have a good set of books, your company will be difficult to sell) But outside the obvious, the real value the prospective buyer looks at is...Expected Future Earnings.

So what is "Expected Future Earnings" worth? Well, that depends on factors such as how predicable the earnings are, how long the projected sales will be sustained, level of risk, size of existing company, anticipated earnings from growth, etc. 

Revenue is a strong indicator, but profitability goes hand in hand with it. don't let anyone tell you differently. With revenue say your company sells $100, 000 per year, that is basically a $100, 000 per year revenue stream. Quite often businesses are valued on a multiple of revenue. The multiple generally depends on the industry so you may need help with that. But so you know what you are talking about, multiplied by two is called a "two times sale", by one is called a "one times sale" etc. 

This multiplier is heavily altered by profitability. A company could do $3 Billion in annual sales, so would it be worth $3 Billion? Obviously not. 

So what are the factors you can work on first to most dramatically increase the value of your business? That's right, revenue and profitability. This is where a SWOT analysis is vital. If you haven't already had one. Our team will do one free of charge. Again, elleven marketing group changes zero dollars for this service. It identifies Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Then we know what strategy you will need to put in place to bring up your revenue and profitability. Don't call a broker until you have a plan and know where you are going. Most won't give you the time of day. If they do, you will most likely not get as much for your company as you would otherwise. It is better to sell a remodeled house that operates well and it is better to sell a remodeled business. 

Written by Samuel Sadler of elleven marketing group 

11 Point Marketing Plan

So many consultants make a marketing plan sound so complex that the average business owner won't understand what they are talking about. So I thought I would put down the 11 most necessary things that should be in your marketing plan to at least get you started and give you some idea of where you are going. I could obviously write a book or eleven about the subject so be aware there is a lot more to it. But here is a very uncomplicated version. Some look old school, but they are there because they work.

1. Market Research- This will save you a lot of time. Your business idea may already exist, not be profitable enough for your interest... Here is some of the research that needs to be done:

• Demographics
• Existing competition and sales
• Existing products/services
• Existing Pricing and Demand
• Needs for your product or services. Yes, this is different than demand. 
• Suppliers

Don't start #2-10 until you have done #1, but keep the rest in mind while doing #1.

2. Target Market

• 
  
• What part of the market are you going after? Are you going for a niche?

3. Product

• How does your product compare against what is currently available? How is it different?

4. Competition

• Who is your competition and what makes you different? How does your approach differ?

5. Core Values and Mission Statement

• Talk about your customer, your product and what makes you different. Talk about your "Why". Why do you do what you do? Partner with Bigger Than Cancer or local schools? 

6. Marketing Strategies

• What is your greatest opportunity? Where is the gap between you and your competition?
• Will you hold trade shows? Partner with Bigger Than Cancer? Local Schools? Will kids sell your product as a fund raiser? Training programs? How will you hit a niche or a market your competition is not?
• How will you create a buying opportunity your competitor cannot? 

7. Pricing and Positioning

• This should be obvious from the info you got from your research in #1

8. Branding

• This is your corporate identity and who you are. Starbucks is a consistent product with a power outlet and internet connection. Atmosphere is casual but professional to attract business meetings and professionals. You know you will pay more, but will sit with a different crowd and won't be interrupted by screaming kids.   

9. Budget

• What is it going to take to run your strategy and how quickly do you need to execute that strategy? A strategy doesn't have to break the bank. 

10. Marketing Goals

• What do you want to accomplish? What are realistic, quantifiable goals?

11. Monitor Results

• Track your sales, lead flow, trffic, conversion ratios, 
• Everything CRM, if you are too small for a CRM use Evernote, Google Docs, something! You cannot track your conversion ratios if you are not capturing contact info and following potential clients through the process. 
• Yes, surveying clients still works but is based on their honesty so it is best to have a third party do the asking. 
• DEFINITELY encourage and reward your clients for online reviews. One client, a small carpet cleaning company had a tiny budget and that is all we did for them the first year. It was ridiculously successful. 

If you have questions about any of the above either email me at here or visit our website here