With more folks cooped at home nowadays, the average time spent on social media has increased substantially. While stay-in-place orders went into effect in mid-March in many locations, consumers quickly turned to social media as a source of news and information and to stay connected during the pandemic, with usage of these platforms having increased by as much as 40%.
Given these circumstances, apartment marketers have a real opportunity to engage prospects and renters during these times. By implementing customer-centric strategies across your social media platforms, you can boost your engagement and generate more leads for your property. Here are some helpful tips you can use to make the most of your social media now.
Focus on quality, and deliver value.
Resist the temptation to inundate your pages with rental specials and unit availability. While this provides for helpful content on some days, it should not be your main attention grabber. Instead, ensure your content is centered on information on added or new amenities or upgrades, virtual property events, helpful community resources and more. Whenever possible, your content should appeal to both current and future residents alike.
Stay active.
Remember, the content that you’re posting should be both relevant and engaging for your audiences. While you should post content frequently (at least twice per week), you should not, however, post for the sake of meeting a “quota.” The key to creating engagement is to offer value to your customers, so make sure each of your weekly posts offer some benefit for those viewing.
In addition to posting regularly, you’ll also want to remain available and ready to respond to incoming questions or reviews that are generated through these channels. Whether the post is positive or negative, you’ll want to show your viewers that their feedback is valued and you are committed to resolving any concerns or questions that have arisen. And, if a conversation happens to linger on your page, feel free to let the respondent know that you would like to continue offline.
Know your impact.
You’ll want to know how your social media channels are performing at all times and which platforms or posts are outperforming others. To help you track this information, you can easily leverage UTM parameters for your posts. These short text codes are incorporated into all of the links in your social posts and provide great, detailed data on the source of your traffic and conversions. UTMs help you determine the value of your social media efforts by showing exactly how posts refer traffic to your website. You’ll gain greater insight on lead generation, conversions, referrals, cost per lead, and more so that you can better determine your ROI.
In addition to UTMs, you can also set up unique lead phone numbers for your property across each of your platforms. This simple tactic makes it easy to determine which source is offering the most leads and if your existing social media strategy is performing at all.
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Rentbot can help.
Before you decide to give your social media strategy a boost, you’ll first want to ensure that your website is up to par, as it will likely be the location you’re referring your online traffic. If your current site isn’t responsive, optimized for conversions or offers designated online features like rent payments, maintenance requests and real-time availability, it’s time for an upgrade.
That’s where we come in. At Rentbot, we’ll work with you personally to determine your property needs and create a new and responsive turnkey website with a mobile-friendly design and tons of added features, like built-in SEO, optimized layouts, real-time availability and more. And, what’s even better is that your new Rentbot site is guaranteed to score you more leases, higher retention and greater leads. Try us for 30 days, and if you don’t experience increased results from your new site, it’s on us.
About the Author
Jonsette Calloway joined the Rentbot team in 2015. With a background in public relations, advertising and copywriting, she has helped a multitude of clients achieve their marketing and communications goals within various fields, but she particularly enjoys working with the apartment industry.