by Mark Bingaman
For some reason, the thought just popped in my head. “Let’s randomly select an apartment community in the U.S. and see what they’re doing with their Facebook and Twitter efforts.” Being an individual who tends to listen to his thoughts, I went with the flow. A quick search of Twellow with the keywords “apartment community” showed La Maison River Oaks in Houston, Texas to have the most followers - 2,866 - of any apartment community profile on Twitter. On one hand, that number seems quite low. On the other, that’s sort of why I chose this category; building a large following as an apartment community must be relatively difficult. After all, who’s likely to be interested aside from the people who live there?
If you’re managing the social campaign for an apartment complex, you’re probably trying to accomplish three things -
1) Use Twitter and Facebook as a tool to keep residents up-to-date with community happenings.
2) Build a Social Media community that strengthens the sense of actual, real-world community that already exists among residents; a sort of bonding tool to keep them passionate and happy about living in your complex. The cool thing is that Social Media is probably the most effective device for that purpose EVER.
3) And, of course, it would be nice if lots and lots of people followed and friended your Social profiles - hopefully, qualified people who, someday, just may be interested in making your complex their home. Ah yes, there’s nothing like new business, is there?
Well, the truth is, succeeding with Number 3 is likely to take a good amount of effort and maybe a little bit of cash and Social marketing dollars. But doing great things with numbers 1 and 2 is relatively easy. (By the way, the Social Media Chamber of Commerce is developing Social strategies for apartment communities; contact us for details if you’d like to utilize Social Media better to your advantage.)
The folks at La Maison River Oaks provide a good mixture of Facebook posts and tweets that alternate between offering apartment complex information and general, topical info that resonates with residents and followers.
One tweet and post from La Maison honors Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, another - on Cyber Monday - provides a link to tips on staying safe from cyber scammers, while others promote a toy drive, a happy hour at the complex lounge and, among others, the posting of pictures from a community event on their Facebook page. Overall, La Maison River Oaks serves their followers relevant information, mingled with just the proper, polite amount of self-promotion.
It’s a bit surprising to note that their Facebook page suffers from significantly lower interaction and friends, but with their solid Twitter following, I’m sure a bit of effort will easily expand the Facebook opportunity for La Maison River Oaks.
Overall, it’s a good effort. There’s quite a bit more that could be done, but this apartment complex displays the basic components of a solid, nuts and bolts beginning in Social Media community development.
Grade: B
La Maison on Twitter
La Maison on Facebook
