Using Social Media for Property Managers

Property Management involves the oversight and administration of properties. The property manager works on behalf of an owner to preserve value and generate income on properties. Managed properties include residential and vacation properties, commercial retail space or industrial warehouse space.

Property Managers need to be in contact with property owners, tenants, and maintenance teams. Connecting with property owners will help grow your business through having new properties to manage. Good quality tenants are key to filling the vacant overseen properties. Your maintenance team needs to be available and ready to fix any issues that arise with your properties. Using social media for property managers is a great way to keep all these things organized and available. The main focus of social media for property managers is to network, communicate and increase SEO. 

Networking

-Taking the time to connect with others through social media will allow you to grow your company awareness. Networking with property owners is key to growth and the more people you know the more your business will grow. Referrals through networking allow the best “foot in the door” your business could ask for. 

Communication

-As a Property Manager you need to be available. The less available you are the more frustrated your tenants become. With the use of social media your tenants can send questions or you can answer questions 24/7. You also need good communication with your own maintenance team to limit wait time for tenants when something goes wrong. Lastly you need to be able to communicate with your property owners because they are the reason you have any business. Keep them happy through having clear communication and they will be more likely to refer you to any other property owners they know. 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

-You need to be available and reachable by those who know they need you and those who don’t. When someone needs to find answers to their questions they turn to search engines such as “google”. SEO will allow your company an edge when these type of searches are made. When someone wants to find your business they will access it directly or organically. Directly through typing in your business name and organically by stumbling upon it. When someone knows they need a property manager they will search that directly and when someone does not know they will search for a solution to their problem. Having well developed SEO is key to reaching both of these groups.

Over all Social Media is the best and easiest way for a property manager to achieve good networking, communication and SEO with their tenants, property owners and maintenance team. Take the time to establish yourself online and you will be able to see how it can greatly benefit your property management business. 

 

Quantity vs. Quality

When I take the time to finally post a picture or thought on my social media networks I feel excited to see the “likes” build up. Right when I think everyone in the world has liked my picture I receive a text from my 17 year old sister saying, “go like my photo I’m at 99 and I just need one more”. My excitement is instantly gone because I look at my post and see my whopping 20 “likes”. How is she able to do this? Are her posts more creative? Artistic? Or is it her large following? Why does this matter?

PBS Frontline has a great article about “Generation Like” discussing the teens of today viewing “likes” as social currency. Their actions online are fully focused on gaining more likes just as a businesses full focus might be on gaining more money. For these living in “Generation Like” quantity is all that matter. They want to see their followers, likes, reposts, and comments increase daily. They do not care about building actual relations with their “followers”. Their posts might be about anything and they most likely only know 10% of their followers but its all about the numbers.

When looking at my blog post “Rapport Comes First” you can see the reasons why a business needs to build relationships with their customers and leads. Having a relationship, as stated above, is not the goal of someone striving for a large quantity of social network connections. This leads me to think that the quality of followers on social media should be more important  for business but I would be wrong. 

The truth about quantity and quality is that they can and should work together. Thomas Edison had to go through a large quantity of failed attempts in order to create quality inventions. The same aspect can be applied with business’ social media networking. To really increase brand awareness and loyalty, companies need to have a quantity of quality postings that interest and benefit their followers. Not every follower or post will be quality but, to continue and grow your image you must have both the quantity to keep top of mind and the quality to prolong interest.

What do you think? Does the business world need to stick to quality posts and followers? Or is it better to have that large quantity? Does having more likes as an individual make you cool?

Is a mobile presence important?

One In Every 5 People In The World Own A Smartphone, One In Every 17 Own A Tablet

 

The usage of smart phones and tablets is skyrocketing. It will only continue to grow as the PC usage slowly declines. I remember the first time I saw a tablet I was on an airplane sitting next to a concept tester for Sony. It was an early example of a simple E-Reader but it was amazing. Ever since that day it has been amazing seeing tablets change and grow in popularity. People today enjoy the quick and easy access to the world of the internet through smart phones and tablets. 

Much like the new movie “Her” operating systems and smart phones are apart of our lives. People eat, sleep and breath with their smart phone by their side. Those of us that have a smart phone cannot remember the days without it and we don’t really want to. For this very reason businesses need to be prepared.

Your mobile presence needs to be up to date, attractive, easy, and interesting. People do not want to waist their time trying to figure out how to navigate your complex, in-depth mobile site. This is especially true in the banking world. Banks today such as Chase and Bank of America have an excellent mobile presence. They have each created applications that are downloaded directly onto the phone. Once opened each step to access your account is simple and well displayed. There is no confusion and no waisted time getting lost. Many businesses are catching onto this change in the world of customer-to-business relationship and if you do not you will be left behind. 

As a business small or large you need to be prepared for the future! You need to be willing to grow, adapt and change as the world around you shifts. If you stop moving forward you fall behind and if you fall behind you will be left behind. 

Rapport Comes First

Rapport is “a close and harmonious relationship in which the people or groups concerned understand each other’s feelings or ideas and communicate well”.

I enjoy comparing the Sales process to everyday personal interaction. If I talk all about myself and everything I am good at when meeting someone for the first time the person will lose interest and leave. There will be no relationship or friendship built. If instead I ask about their interests and truly care, then they will be more likely to listen. 

Top 6 Steps to Building Rapport

1. Mirror Body language

2. Mimic Tonality

3. Breath as they do

4. Match Rate of Speech

5. Repeat and Approve 

6. Assume you already have Rapport

Social Media makes building rapport even easier because of the amount of personal information people post. You can find their interests, relations, and many other information just by looking at the person’s page. Research should be done before any attempt at building rapport begins. 

Building rapport can sound very strange but they really works if you handle your interaction appropriately. These interesting steps come from “6 Steps to build Rapport” and can be applied to any interaction between two people. This article also shows how being obvious about your actions can destroy any already built rapport. The best way to be discreet in building rapport is by actually wanting to build a relationship. Growing relations and connections is always an important activity in the business word so make sure you take the steps to be prepared for building rapport. 

Why Social Media Marketing?

With over 72% of all US adults using Social Media why stay away?

Our world thrives on social interaction and as shown above the Internet is where these interactions are taking place. When starting out you will need to understand how to act and what to post where. Each network has an overarching style of interaction. As a business you must do your research to better understand the atmosphere within each of these social networks. For example “Linkedin” has a theme centered on connecting the business world. An individual’s profile may contain everything from past work experience to personal interests. Linkedin is designed to be a social media resume for the individual, but they also have pages specific for your business. Your business can create a personal page where you are able to gain followers, likes, and potential employment interest. In contrast “Twitter” is based on streaming ones everyday thought or action onto the web. Many companies or famous individuals spend their time “tweeting” about how they enjoyed some sporting event or recent movie. There is almost no formal interaction between customer and business through this social media. These two examples show just how knowing the theme and atmosphere of a social media is important.

Social media will also help build relations and understanding between your business and potential customer. This relationship is built through pictures and tweets, through “follows” and “likes”. Networking for your business to the potential customer helps initiate a sense of personality behind your brand or corporate image. When a company spends all their time on posts about how they are the best and how they can improve your life, the interest level plummets. If a company seems personable by posting pictures or employee interest, people can relate. Building relationships increases trust that allows for interactive communication to take place.

The most overlooked and miss understood social network of all is google.com. “People tell Google things they wouldn’t tell anyone else” Daniel Watrous. If your company wants to be seen by potential customers, then you must know that the first place they will look is Google. To increase your views through Google you must build a presence. This is done through your own personal Social media pages and the buzz about you as a company.

In conclusion you need to be where your customer is spending their time, link every social network you are using together, and post only what your reader or customer would want to read. If these are accomplished your brand and company will grow through the exciting world of Social Networking. People will know who you are and why you do what you do.