10 Social Media Hacks To Boost Your Multifamily Marketing in Under 60 Minutes

Alex Middel
May 19, 2016

When you ask apartment marketers their number one reason for not having a dedicated social media strategy, one of the most common answers you’ll hear is “it’s too time consuming.”

It’s true that social media marketing takes up a good deal of time. However, most apartment marketers actually spend more time than they should. Worse, they’re wasting time on tasks that don’t produce results.

Instead of spending hours sending out ineffective Tweets, dedicate just 60 minutes to implementing any of these 10 social media hacks and you’ll be surprised by how much more you’re able to get done!

1. Revisit Your Social Media Bios

It’s a sad reality, but too many apartment marketers have useless bios on their social media profiles. They’re not descriptive, engaging or informative. As a result, they get overlooked.

Your bio is typically the first thing people see on your profile, so it should clearly state what makes your apartment community stand out, where you’re located and attract your ideal renter.

 Social media bio example

If you’re one of the few pet-friendly multifamily communities in your area, put it in your bio. If you’re in the luxury apartment rental space, make it known.

Not only does optimizing your bio make it easier for potential renters to learn about your company, but it also improves your chances of showing up in social media search results. Include keywords (organically) that people might use to search for your apartment community.

Don’t let your bio go to waste.

Time to complete: 5-10 minutes

2. Review Your Social Media Analytics

This social media hack is all about data. Diving into social media analytics gives you insight into who your audience is, what content is performing the best and other important information that’ll help improve your social media strategy.

A few social networks like Facebook and Twitter give you a good amount of data with their own analytics.

 Twitter Analytics Dashboard

You can use social media management tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social to get even more data. Of course, Google Analytics is another great source.

When you’re reviewing your analytics, some key things to look for are:

  • Which social networks refer the most traffic to your site?
  • When is the best time to post?
  • How often are you posting to each social media channel?
  • Which posts get the most engagement?
  • Who’s sharing your content the most?

Now you have a better idea of what type of content to create/share, when you should post and who to engage with.

Time to complete: 20-30 minutes

3. Schedule Posts Ahead of Time

This is easily one of the best social media hacks you can implement. If you’re not scheduling Tweets and Facebook posts, you’re losing out on valuable time.

Before the days of Buffer and Edgar, apartment marketers were limited to posting to social media during business hours. In order to be successful with social media marketing, you need to be able to deliver content around the clock, not just when it’s convenient.

Dedicate part of one day to scheduling out your main posts for the week. Then, you can spend the rest of the week engaging with your audience instead of searching for content to share.

This graphic should give you an idea of how many posts you need to schedule for each network. These numbers can vary depending on your audience.

 how often to post on social media

Most social media management tools have browser extensions and mobile apps. Whenever you come across a good piece of content you want to share, you can easily schedule a Tweet right from your browser or phone.

Time to complete: 45-60 minutes

4. Create Social Media Graphics

Have you ever considered making graphics specifically for Instagram or Pinterest? Most apartment marketers don’t, which is what makes this social media hack so powerful.

Visual content generates 65% more engagement for Facebook campaigns. Also, marketers rate using photos or images as the most important tactic for social media optimization.

 Visual Content Social Media Hacks

You can use a visual editing tool like Canva to make graphics perfectly sized for each social network, even if you’re not a graphic designer.

 Canva Social Media Post Size

For apartment marketers, Pinterest and Instagram should be at the top of your list. Creating infographics, apartment decor guides and other visual content are great ways to build your brand without stretching your budget or taking up too much time.

Time to complete: 10-50 minutes

5. Engage With Someone New

You should be engaging with new people every day on social media. Whether it’s a potential renter, influencer or another business, start replying to posts and @mentioning other users.

Not only will you make new connections, but you’ll also build your following by engaging with people who were previously unaware of your brand.

Finding people to engage with is simple. Just do a search on any social network for keywords relevant to renters, or your area.

For instance, you could do an Instagram search for #apartmentliving and reply to relevant posts.

 Engagement Social Media Hack

The key is to leave a thoughtful comment. Just writing “cool” won’t make you stand out. Come up with a genuine reply that’ll catch people’s attention, and you’ll be able to draw them to your page!

Time to complete: 10-20 minutes

6. Track Your Profile Links

Most companies just use their home page URL for the links in their social media profiles. It’s quick and simple. However, you can get even more out of this link by using a trackable URL.

Instead of using the raw URL (yoursite.com) in your profile, use a tool like Bit.ly to make it trackable. With a Bit.ly URL, you’ll be able to see exactly how many people clicked your profile link.

 Bitly Link Social Media

You can dive even deeper by integrating UTM parameters with Google Analytics. UTM parameters are tags you add to a URL to get more info on people who visit your site through the link.

You’ll be able to see what pages they’re visiting, how long they stay on your site and other helpful data.

Trackable links are also great if you’re running a special. You can monitor exactly how many people are reaching your landing page from your social media profile. If the numbers aren’t as high as you hoped, it could mean you should optimize your bio, or make other changes to entice people to click.

Remember to use a different Bit.ly link for each social media profile. That way you can distinguish Pinterest visitors from Facebook and so on.

Time to complete: 5 minutes

7. Upload Apartment Photos to Social Media

When you have a new unit available, you automatically think of heading to apartment listing sites to advertise it, right? In addition to those platforms, you can also upload images to social media.

Use Instagram to list new apartments. Take high quality pictures, and upload them to your Instagram account. In your caption, include important information about the apartment like you would on any other site.

  • Price
  • Number of bedrooms/bathrooms
  • Square footage
  • Location

Thousands of people list their apartments for rent on Instagram using hashtags such as #apartmentforrent.

 

You’ll be able to kill two birds with one stone by promoting your new rental while adding new content to your Instagram page.

When you upload a photo of a new unit, you can even put “Link to full listing in bio,” then change out your profile link to the apartment listing. That way, people know exactly which unit to reference when they call or email you.

Don’t forget to geotag your photos.

Time to complete: 5-10 minutes

8. Split Test Social Media Headlines & Copy

If you have a blog and share your posts on social media, don’t just Tweet a link once and forget about it. Get in the habit of sharing each post multiple times across your social media channels.

The secret to this social media hack is not to use the same exact copy for each Facebook post or Tweet. Split test to see what gets the most engagement.

For example, if your post is “5 Best Restaurants in D.C.,” you could split test your Tweets like this:

  • Looking for a place to satisfy your lunch cravings in D.C.? Try these 5 amazing restaurants!
  • Here’s our list of 5 D.C. restaurants we can’t live without. Did your favorite make the list?

Both Tweets are for the same article, but the copy is different. You’d have to monitor your analytics to see which performed better.

You can also test out different posting times. This ties back to social media hack #3. After you publish a new post, schedule it to be sent out to social media on multiple days at different times.

 Schedule Social Media Posts

Time to complete: 10-15 minutes

9. Save Your Top Twitter Searches

Twitter Advance Search is a social media hack in its own right. Putting together different search strings can uncover highly targeted Tweets.

When you come across amazing search results, it’s a good idea to save the search. That way, you can come back to it and see the latest Tweets for the query.

Saving Tweets is easy to do. After you do a search, click on the “More options” tab, then “Save this search.”

 Saved Twitter Search Social media Hack

Time to complete: 1 minute

10. Integrate a Social CRM

Social media is one of the first places renters go to complain about their current apartment. Whether their space is too small or they don’t get along with the landlord, social media is a great way to find potential leads that are contemplating moving.

Start by finding people with complaints about their current apartment. You can do an advanced Twitter search such as the one below.

Make sure you check the negative sentiments box. This filters your results to show people Tweeting about something sad or disappointing. You can even set your location to target Tweets in your city.

 Advanced Twitter Search Social media hack

With less than five minutes of work, you can find Tweets just like this one that could be potential leads.


The next step would be to reply to the Tweet, letting the person know your apartment community might be a better fit.

Having a CRM of some kind can help you track your social media conversations and get them into your database. Many popular CRM’s like Salesforce integrate with social media, so check to see if your CRM tool has a similar feature.

Time to complete: 20-30 minutes

Get More Done

These 10 social media hacks will help you become a more productive apartment marketer, and generate real results.

If your social media strategy isn’t where it needs to be, contact us to see how we can help you build your brand and nurture leads with social media.

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