"I've got a great name for our kid."

It’s reported that Twitter gets 300,000 new users daily. Many join without understanding the basics of what makes a Twitter account successful. You don’t have to have thousands of followers on Twitter to be successful. In fact, only 74% of Twitter users have more than 10 followers. It’s really simple: When people want to follow you, reply (@) to your tweets, AND retweet (RT) your tweets; you’re successful!

Everyone is new at Twitter at some point. In case you’ve gotten started and feel a little stuck, here are 6 simple steps to being successful on Twitter:

1. A rose may be just as beautiful and smell as sweet if it weren’t named a “rose”, but your Twitter name might stink. I think everyone would agree that the worst Twitter accounts are the spammers. One of the fastest ways you can determine a spam account is the username. Many spammers add numbers to names, thinking that will fool the average user. Jackie1975236 is far less appealing than WackyJackie or even JackieSmith. On Twitter, we like to know that we’re talking to a human, and most human’s have names (unless you’re George).

2. Use a real picture of you or something unique that represents who you are. Early on, Twitter was made up of real people wanting to share information and have real conversations. Even in 2009, Twitter’s users preferred people to use pictures or avatars of themselves. The key is to follow the culture of the site you are using.

3. The Non-Bio hazard. Share a little information about yourself if you want other users to follow you on Twitter. You can put personal or professional information in this space, make a joke or share a poem. No matter what you do, it’s better than nothing! Wait, unless your bio talks about selling something like “Follow me to learn how to get rich on Twitter!”

4. Know who to follow. Twitter has developed an application within their online interface that will give you ideas about people you should follow. These suggestions are made by comparing the user profiles of people that you’re already connected too. Use Search Twitter to find people that share similar interests. If you’ve established a friendship with someone on Twitter, you can look at their friends on Twitter and follow a few.

5. Itty bitty Bit.ly. 140 characters isn’t much to convey your thought or share an idea. Remember to shorten hyperlinks when you tweet, it’s considered polite. By using a hyperlink shortener, you will be able to share more information with fewer characters. I choose to use bit.ly because I can track clicks and views of the urls I share. Tinyurl and Ow.ly are two other useful url shortening tools.

6. Be careful what you tweet. Unlike Vegas, what happens on Twitter is shared with the world. Twitter has made it possible to delete tweets but nothing prevents users from taking screenshots and reposting. In addition, Twitter has donated ALL tweets on their service to the Library of Congress for research and preservation. Who knew your tweets would be history in the making? What do you want to be remembered for? That chicken sandwich or that new study? Remember to be personable without being too personal.

That’s it! 6 simple steps to being successful on Twitter! Do you have any to add?

Related articles:

• 5 Secrets of Highly Effective Twitter Users (inc.com)
• 5 Simple but Important Tips to Make the Most out of Twitter (shoutmeloud.com)

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As a social media marketing strategist, one of the most common questions I receive is “How can I get people to like  our new Facebook page?” (By “like” we mean click the little button that means they’ll receive updates from us in their own feeds.)

I know it’s rude to answer a question with a question, but we need to collect all of the data first. “Who do you want to like your page?”

Silence….  “Huh?”

If you don’t know the audience you’re targeting, how can you inspire them to show their friends they like you?

Let’s take a moment to review why people like pages on Facebook:

*March 2010 Morpace Study

According to a recent Morpace study, people like to support the brands they love and demonstrate that support to their friends. Yeah, we’re talking about WOM (Word of Mouth Marketing). This is important because now it’s even easier to tell your friends, family and the world that you like (or dislike) a brand or product. One little word, like, goes so far today compared to last year.

Coupons and discount offers are another reason people connect with your company online. This leads me to my next question, “Why should I like your Facebook page?”

Basically, if I’m a resident I just want to know if I’m going to get anything out of connecting with my apartment community online. If so, what will I gain?

• Entertaining contests or community news?
• Updates on renovations?
• Specials for renewal or referral?
• Introductions to new leasing agents or maintenance staff?
• To give me a forum to share my thoughts on living at your community?

If YOU don’t know what you have to offer, how will I know if I should connect? Here are a few tips for getting started on Facebook – from a resident’s perspective:

• Have a clear call-to-action. This means take the time to post somewhere on the page what it is you’re offering me. You get one shot to make an impression and I don’t like every page I see. You can place this information on a tab or in the profile box.
• Don’t be a microphone hog. If you’ve locked me out of posting to your wall, you don’t really want to be my friend do you?
• Conversation Avenue is a 2-way street. If you don’t respond to me in a reasonable time frame (admittedly impatient and instant-gratification generation) then I’ll either hammer you with questions/comments until you respond or I’ll “unlike” your page. Wait, I might do both.
• Honesty is STILL the best policy. If I’m grumpy and call you out on Facebook for the trash in my hall, admit there is trash in my hall. Otherwise I’ll just take a picture and post it on Facebook.
• Don’t you know I’m special? Offer specials only for your fans. Many large brands do this for brief periods of time.

Don’t get me wrong, being social with your customers can be fun if you understand who you’re talking to and what they expect from you online. Once you’ve got that down, the rest is similar to answering the phone. If you’re a business that’s serious about building relationships with customers online, the world will know it by how you use Facebook.

Now that you’ve read my post, can you answer this question, “Why should I like YOUR Facebook page?”

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“Social Media is FREE!”

“Why pay for assistance when social media tools are free?”

“What are we paying you for? Our staff can do this a few minutes each day and be as successful.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Let me show you why:

If a single employee, making approximately $12.00 per hour, is required to spend approximately  an hour blogging, 30 minutes tweeting, and 30 minutes on Facebook per day; your estimated monthly expense is $480.00.

OR

Take a salaried employee… earning about $30,000 annually. If this person already has a job, and you add on a little social media expense to their job description, what would that cost? What if they only participate an hour on Facebook and an hour on Twitter each day? (Keep in mind: no set-up, monitoring, or reporting is included here.) Just 2 hours a day would cost $576 per month.

ADD

Now, add in printed materials. Let’s assume you need a bootleg/bandit sign, some door hangers, and posters to announce your new social presence. If this costs $100, the pro-rated monthly cost would be only $8.

Next, add in a CallSource number, because you want to track where your leads are coming from; $10.

Last, you want a new application. Doing it yourself takes time, so say you build a single custom FBML page for your Fan Page. You design for an hour, code for an hour, test and work out kinks with a total of 4 hours; $115.

TOTAL = $709.

“Time is money,” is a reality in business.

But don’t take it from me, see what other industry professionals have to say in response to “Is doing-it-yourself FREE?”

How much time, per day, does your staff dedicate to social media? When it is convenient? News flash! Social media isn’t about convenience, it is about availability and responsiveness. Can you rely on your staff to be responsive and still do the other tasks you’ve assigned to them each day?

I’m not saying that getting your staff involved is a bad thing, to the contrary. Staff involvement is critical for success. However, does your staff have the time built in to their daily schedules each day to contribute to your social media plan?  Honestly, 2 hours a day is not enough. How would you scale your social media marketing initiative? Hire more employees? How will they be trained?

When relying on in-house staff to contribute, be prepared to be disappointed. Ask yourself, your business, if you would want an employee to represent your business on camera during primetime. If the answer is no, then do you want them representing your business on social networking sites? There are several ways your company can approach the implementation of a social media strategy. Hire on more employees, train current employees, hire a 3rd party service provider, or all of the above. In any case, it is not “FREE”.

Success depends on the investment and commitment to the strategy. How is your organization currently implementing their social media strategy? Do you think social media marketing is free?

Image Credit: barrylou.com

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Using the hashtag #SweetestTweets, Macy’s is rockin’ Twitter using their own contest with over 1,500 tweets.

The question of the day is: How can you use Twitter during Valentine’s Day and other holidays?

First, list your goals. What are you expecting to achieve? More renewals, referrals, walk-in traffic? Are they reasonable?

Next, pick your prize! Determine what interests your residents and prospects. Do you know what your residents REALLY want? Here are a few ideas, please share your own in the comments section:

• Free Rent
• Renewal for their current rate
• Better parking
• Upgraded appliances

Then, pick your hashtag. If you don’t know what a hashtag is, check out my post #Hashtags: for Beginners. Choose something unique. Consider the holiday carefully, and pick a tag that represents the holiday, the prize, or your community.

Last, decide on the contest criteria and the marketing: how many and what types of prizes, submission deadlines, and marketing platforms (print, Facebook, signs).

I’m very curious to see what your business is doing. If you have ideas for contests, please share them!

WordCamp Atlanta 2010

The very first WordCamp (#wcatl) in Atlanta is taking place this Friday and Saturday, January 8-9 at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I admit, I am very excited about this event! In fact, I was so excited that I registered during the first few days as a personal sponsor.

I think it’s important to not only attend these local networking events, but support them when we can.  WordCamps provide an opportunity to learn about blogging, from beginner to expert. But it’s also an opportunity to network with other people in and out of your industry. There is so much to learn from other industries and their use of social media tools like blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

I am also attending SoCon this month! SoCon (#SoCon10) is a Social Media and Social Networking Conference at Kennesaw State University on January 29 – 30. It is my first time attending this conference, and I look forward to hearing from Coca-Cola and Obama’s social media team.

Keep an eye out on Twitter and Facebook for local networking events and please consider attending and/or sponsoring. Even if you cannot attend yourself, please share the event information with your friends.

Are you coming to WordCamp and SoCon? I hope to see you there!

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If you’re new to Twitter, I’m sure you have seen that # sign. Some people call that a pound sign, and that’s okay. But on Twitter, # is a hashtag. In this post, I will explain what hashtags are, how to use them, and a few tips and tricks.

A hashtag is:

A hashtag is a keyword preceded by a # sign. We use these on Twitter to track conversations on specific topics. Some of my favorite topics are #socialmedia, #mfi, #AptChat, and #blogchat.

Hashtags are also a great way to determine trending topics on Twitter. You can view these trending topics on the right side of your screen when logged in to Twitter or just by visiting Twitter.com.

How to use a hashtag:

Searching with hashtags.

The whole point of using hashtags is to be able to communiate directly with others on a particular topic. We do this by searching for hashtags in use, then responding and including the hashtag within the response.

There are different ways to search with hashtags. Search.Twitter.com is excellent, or if you’re signed in to Twitter.com, search is made easy on the right side of your screen or simply click on the hashtag. There are also tools that can be used to track hashtags, and chats.

What’s a Tweet Chat?

A Tweet Chat is a scheduled event on Twitter where individuals determine a specific time and hashtag. Then they tweet related messages using the hashtag to identify their participation in the conversation. There are several tools you can use to follow along with a Tweet Chat.

Tweetdeck can be modified to include a Twitter search column for a specific keyword or hashtag. The downside to Tweetdeck is that there is a limit to how many tweets you can read within an hour.

TweetChat.com is very convenient for following along and tweeting in a conversation. The best part is that it automatically inserts the hashtag into the tweet so you don’t have to. The negative is that sometimes it moves too slowly to keep up with the conversation.

What the Hashtag is also great for looking up statistics on hashtags. Try it now: Click here and in the search box (upper left) type in AptChat. Note the description, related hashtags, the Twitter activity, and the most frequent users of the hashtag? You can also get a transcript of all public tweets including #AptChat, join in with a tweet of your own, and subscribe to an RSS feed of tweets that can be delivered into your email inbox for convenience.

A few more Tweet Chat tools include TweetGrid, Monitter, and Twitterfall.

Create a hashtag:

When possible, use hashtags you know already exist. If you need a to create a hashtag for your brand, it is acceptable to do so. For example, my friend Brent Williams with MultifamilyInsiders.com created the hashtag #mfi to label tweets to/from the community. There aren’t hashtag police, but please don’t get too ‘creative’! What I mean is, don’t over-complicate it. Use as few words as possible, unless you’re trying to be funny #imjustsayin and #dontIknowit!

Placement of a hashtag:

The biggest complaints I read about hashtags are that people use too many per tweet or that they place them at the beginning of the tweet. Too many hashtags within tweets can make tweets appear spammy. Pick 1 or 2, but no more than 3. Remember, the more hashtags in the tweet, the less room for the message.

Try to keep hashtags at the end of the tweet unless you are substituting words within the tweet with a hashtag. For example: I loved the article on #mfi today (link here). Otherwise, it would look like this: I loved this article (link here). #mfi

Avoiding hashtag spammers:

Hashtag spam is a growing problem on Twitter. Basically, a spammer will see a trending hashtag on Twitter, then use the hashtag to spread their spam in order to gain more click-thru’s. My advice  regarding spammers: Quickly block and report spammers to keep them from your tweet stream.

Another new solution that I’ve noticed recently is that some Tweet Chats are changing their hashtags weekly to decrease spam. Spam is particularly irritating when you have a limited number of tweets you can view (API limitations).

Tips for hashtags:

To break it all down:

• Use hashtags to communicate with others on a specific topic.
• Create hashtags that make sense.
• Place hashtags at the end of your tweets.
• Use only 1-2 hashtags per tweet.
• Don’t be a spammer, only use hashtags if they apply to your tweet.

Do you have any other advice to share regarding hashtags? Or any questions you need answered?

For more infomation on hashtags, Mashable has an informative post.

Photo Credit: Tony Gigov

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Would you rather hang a ‘Now Leasing’ banner like everyone else…

When aren't you leasing, anyway?

Or have unique patios?

Now this makes a statement!

Although the image above is an Ikea ad, it doesn’t have to be. Why not do something different than your neighbors? I’m thinking images of patio furniture, planters, and desks. How can the community be represented in a unique way that captures attention?

Upgraded Appliances?

What if your community has all new appliances? (See image above.) How can you use your building for your own ad?

Thanks to Penn Olson for the unique images.
Now Leasing banner image courtesy of Peachtree Business Products for Apartment Marketing.

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Facebook contests have new rules. But these rules don’t apply to your email marketing initiatives if your promotion is administered outside of the Facebook application.

Above is a snapshot from a recent email sent by Lands’ End. I like that this contest has an expiration date clearly listed, and that current fans are already entered into the contest. But then I went to the Fan page and it was filled with 200K+ active and loyal fans, compliments, complaints, and even customer service responses. Good job Lands’ End! (BTW: I’ve never shopped here before.)

This technique obviously boosted their fan base considerably. What I didn’t see, other than the monetary motivation, is what ‘fanning’ the page will do for me long-term?

When creating your own page, determine what it is that you will be providing to your fans. Are you focused on the short-lived monetary rewards, or the long-term relationship building? If using a promotion, such as this, please don’t forget to include a long-term strategy for continued fan engagement.

Note: I haven’t seen a list of the winners posted on the Fan Page yet… this would be a great way to develop trust.

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I just got off the phone with my friend Kim Cory. We were discussing last weeks #AptChat and the term ‘engagement’ as it relates to social media and our personal definitions of the term. But before I get into the various descriptions offered for the meaning of engagement, let’s see what Dictionary.com has to offer us:

en⋅gage: [en-geyj]

1. to occupy the attention or efforts of (a person or persons): He engaged her in conversation.

3. to attract and hold fast: The novel engaged her attention and interest.

4. to attract or please: His good nature engages everyone.

and just for fun:

5. to bring (troops) into conflict; enter into conflict with: Our army engaged the enemy.

#5 happens when opposing views are shared!

Here are a few interesting thoughts on engagement shared during the chat on Friday:

What is ‘Engagement’ to me?

Those were some interesting thoughts from our #AptChat crew! I really liked Jonathan’s description “to me engagement has the tone of genuine interest in a subject”. When Kim Cory and I were speaking this afternoon, we agreed  that being engaged is about the quality of the conversation. It’s more than how many comments your blog post receives, or how many fans you have on your Facebook page. Engagement demonstrates you have a vested INTEREST in the conversation, you’re INVOLVED in the conversation, and you CARE about what is being said and who is saying it.

We all approach our online relationships differently. For example, my connections online usually begin with a professional outreach and I build on that relationship until it becomes personal. For property managers, I see this happening much the same way. At first you’re just connecting with everyone you can to begin establishing your relationships online, then you feed and water the relationship until it grows personal.

What does ‘Engagement’ mean to you?

Please share your thoughts below. Don’t be afraid to comment; there are no right or wrong answers, it’s all a matter of opinion!

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During last Friday’s #AptChat on Twitter, Lisa Trosien asked “How do you make the time for FBook? Should I use a service like Sherpa or just try to do it myself? Help!”

Over the years I’ve read many opinions on the matter, but they seem to be divided into 3 groups.

• Group A: The social media purist – All social media activity should take place at the property level.
• Group B. The outsourcer – All social media activity should be outsourced or managed by our marketing team to ensure brand integrity.
• Group C. – Social media outsourcing with participation at the property level. (Those of you that know me, know that I fall into this category.)

The BIG Social Media Question

Some people have expressed “If your company can’t do it right (“internally”), don’t do it at all.” By this, they mean there is a single “right” way to engage online and every other way is wrong. I respectfully disagree. I understand there are concerns regarding authenticity and transparency but let’s face it, not all companies are technologically savvy. Like every marketing solution, the “right” social media marketing solution depends on each individual company.

When coming to my own conclusion, I considered how other industries are using social media. Do we really know who is behind the keyboard? I see some pretty amazing Facebook Fan Pages that I am positive were built by PR or Marketing. It seems to me the most successful social media programs integrate internal and external resources to build and engage their online communities. Why should property management be any different? Yes, I understand onsite staff really know the property best. But do they have the know-how and the time to engage? The majority property management groups I’ve worked with are opposed to onsite staff spending time online and struggle with finding the right solution.

There is No One-size-fits-all Solution in Social Media

Because I’m a big fan of Mack Collier, a social media consultant, trainer, blogger and industry leader, I participate in the #blogchat Mack moderates on Sunday evenings. Last night I asked Mack what he thought about outsourcing blogging.

Mack said,  “Companies outsource other business functions, why should blogging/social media be different?”

Mack, myself, and many other social media professionals believe that while outsourcing is not ideal, it is a practical short-term solution for any small business that is just getting started using social media tools. Before deciding what direction your property should take, please compare internal and external strategies to determine what makes the most sense for your property.

What do you think? Should there be a single answer to this question? Should properties be responsible for blogging, Facebook and Twitter? If so, how much time should they allocate to social media and how will they know they are accomplishing goals? Do your onsite staff blog, tweet and Facebook?

*Disclaimer: I am a social media consultant currently working with the 3rd party social media solution provider, Community Sherpa.

Photo Credit: Zen

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