#AptChat

Social media may have recently surpassed email in terms of total share of our time spent online, but email is still an incredibly effective way to reach your audience (and email is still the most popular online activity on smartphones).

With that in mind, we asked Mark Juleen and DJ Waldow to help us understand how to get more out of our email marketing efforts. Mark (known to some as the Apartment Nerd) is the Director of Marketing for JC Hart Communities in Indianapolis, and DJ is the Director of Community at email service provider Blue Sky Factory.

They’re certainly not the only ones with something to say about the topic … it was exciting to see a number of faces – new and old – jump into the conversation to share their tips and ideas.

Here are the highlights from the discussion:

Why do I need to incorporate email into my marketing strategy? Aren’t the autoresponders to prospects enough?

• Jonathan Saar: autoresponders are not personal … you are in fact emailing people.
• Charity Hisle: Integrate, Integrate, Integrate! Tactics should work together to be effective.
• Heather Blume: Auto responders are never enough. They’re canned, impersonal, and often get filtered out by SPAM filters. Keep it human.
• Courtney Anderson: Auto responders are some of the most interacted with emails because they are real time – positively impacting deliverability.
• Erica Campbell: Auto responders can b effective if they r done correctly like using personalization & dynamic content to meet their needs.
• DJ Waldow: Why Email Marketing? Easy. According to the DMA it had a $43.62 ROI in 2009 (assuming you do it correctly)
• Courtney Anderson: The more interaction recipients have w/the email the more favorable the ISPs rate your IP reputation.
• Kim Cory: Auto responders are usefull and effective for certain situations. Better than no email at all, but has 2 be custom
• Kim Cory: If U send junk, that’s exactly where it will go! Don’t get lost with the other 100′s of emails your customers get daily. B unique.
• Michael Pickens: We send out autoresponder but require the properties to give a personal response within 2 hours.

Typical emails might be an auto-responder, then a custom response. How else can we use email to reach our audience?

• Courtney Anderson: Interaction based emails, welcome emails, drip campaigns, surveys, many more.
• Jonathan Saar: Newsletters for residents and non
• Kim Cory: We use email for surveys, resident alerts, announcements, holiday greetings, newsletters, promotions, list is endless.
• Meg Fowler: Most marketers treat people like opens, not readers. Content strategy exists beyond the blog.
• Erica Campbell: Email plays a huge role in multichannel marketing – other channels drive before the inbox and after the inbox.
• DJ Waldow: Send updates about cool new apts in their area. Targeted FTW.
• Laurel Zacher: Love email to drive new visitors to our site/fb/videos (from my sig). i just wish I could better quantify it!
• Mark Juleen: We do surveys, monthly news, notifications, introductions to social, etc. and more to come.
• Meg Fowler: How about emails with neighborhood profiles — links to amenities, stories of happy residents… along with rentals.
• Ryan VanDenabeele: Email is a great communication tool with residents. Not as invasive as text. I still wouldn’t like to get text from my community.
• Erica Campbell: Email is great 4 viral marktg, promoting sweepstakes/contests, internal cross promotion, affiliate program referrals.
• DJ Waldow: Consider pics and video when sending email to apartment folks. Keep it real, human, interactive.
• Meg Fowler: Don’t forget to link to social properties. you could even have “apartment love stories” of folks who found a great place.
• Meg Fowler: I also love the idea of checklists on how to assess an apt, how to set a housing budget, how to work out a lease…

What are some of the best ways to capture emails? (Online or offline)

• Duncan Alney: Email and SMS/text should both be opt-in with value added content.
• Meredith Mobley: SMS email capture is a good one.
• Gillian Luce: Homepage sign-up is a good one!
• Erica Campbell: Offline list growth printed materials, direct mktg, in-store display, CS/IT, reg, call center/outbound, tradeshow.
• Charity Hisle: How about capturing emails thru Facebook apps for those that want to learn more about your community?
• Joe Foster: Mailing list sign-ups at community events. Great for refreshing your resident list and scooping renters.
• Ryan VanDenabeele: Offline … we’ve been doing door hangers with tear-off tabs to submit emails to win prizes like ipads & TVs.
• Erica Campbell: I saw a newsletter sign up for weight watchers on the box of their microwave meal- pretty neat.
• Courtney Anderson: If I am in need of an apartment accepting my large dog, an email with properties that do is a great idea.
• Meg Fowler: As far as capturing opt-ins, I’m a big fan of eBook offers — give content sample to assure value.
• Sue Anne Reed: Apartment decorating on a budget would be a great ebook / lead generation campaign for multi-family.
• Sue Anne Reed: As someone who just recently moved, I think you should put a 9 or 10-month trigger on prospects.
• Courtney Anderson: Be compliant with CAN SPAM such as link to unsubscribe, physical mailing address, etc.

We mentioned timeliness earlier. Successful email campaigns are both timely & valuable. How do you ensure timeliness?

• Vacancy.com: Pick your days carefully. Don’t send out an email campaign late in the day- be aware of when your audience will view it.
• Charity Hisle: Email to Poll their move-in experience, Check-in again monthly.
• DJ Waldow: Capture “what is your timeframe for new apartment” info on email capture. Use to send timely emails.
• Resite Online: We find that our marketing emails get better response when sent in the middle of the week. We are B2B though. Know your audience.
• Ryan VanDenabeele: Traditionally Tues & Wed are best email days. Then after 9:30 But before Noon. Before 9, people get delete happy with morning email.
• Mark Juleen: Automate what you can. We often leave too much responsibility to a human scheduling an activity.
• Laurel Zacher: I think we can all learn from the ILS’ outreach emails: useful content about process during search, recontact 9 mo later.

Is your email social? What are some ways you can integrate it with the rest of your marcomm efforts?

• Erica Campbell: Decorating tips, integration w groupon, coupons, partnership deals w local bars ect r effective retention based emails.
• Mike Whaling: Once you have the email, use tools like Flowtown, Blue Sky Factory or MailChimp to see where else your audience is online.
• Resite Online: Include links to your social networks in your emails. You could even give them a taste by including your latest feeds.
• Erica Campbell: Take the HTML version and copy it into your FBML on your FB profile and create a monthly message tab.
• Mark Juleen: Email strategy needs to integrate w/ your social, or your social and/or email will only get you so far. LINK, SHARE, SYNDICATE.
• Meg Fowler: Email only as social as YOU are — if you’re just broadcasting, it’ll read that way. if you’re starting a convo, it’ll ring true.

What metrics are you using to evaluate your results?

• Courtney Anderson: Standard ones, open rate, click thru rate.
• Vacancy.com: A/B testing is a great way to see what worked best.
• Courtney Anderson: Leads per email sent, lead per email open help gauge performance ie bottom line indicators.
• Erica Campbell: For an ILS- guest card submissions, CTR, unique clicks, open rate, opens, % of traffic to overall site traffic.
• Charity Hisle: Subscription counts, web visits, email referral counts are all good metrics.
• DJ Waldow: Opens are a start, click-throughs better, conversions WIN.
• DJ Waldow: Shares/fwds create more eyeballs which increase opens and potential clicks & conversions. Double win.

Videos responses from Mark Juleen:

• Q1: “Have an ongoing strategy to follow up.”
• Q2: “The sky is the limit.”
• Q6: “Besides metrics, keep in mind how you can be ‘top of mind.’”

More resources:

• Full transcript of this week’s #AptChat
• 50 Ways to Build Your Email List (Free ebook from Blue Sky Factory)
• Ways to integrate email marketing and social media (Presentations by DJ Waldow)

How are you using email as part of your marketing and communication mix? What is working well for you? What gives you the most trouble? Share what you’re doing … tell us about your experience with email marketing in the comments!

This week’s chat included 404 tweets from 56 different contributors.

When it comes to marketing your business online, you probably already know how important it is that your website and other online assets rank as high as possible on Google and the other major search engines.

However, the search engines don’t publicize all the factors they take into account when ranking sites, so optimizing your site for search (often called search engine optimization, or SEO for short) is a science that can be tough to grasp. We’re in luck, though, as our industry has some top-notch SEO experts who got together for this week’s chat to discuss the best ways to grab the most valuable real estate online. Erica Campbell from ForRent.com is one of those experts, and she joined us as guest moderator for this week’s chat.

Here are the highlights from the discussion:

How can I use SEO on my website and in my online ads?

• Erica Campbell: In order 2 make ur biz a success & stay ahead of comps u need 2 tap into SEO 2 draw more customers to ur business website.
• Ryan VanDenabeele: Always fill out your Alt tags and name your photos with key words.
• Erica Campbell: First and foremost you need to go back 2 to the basics w SEO and use meta tags.
• David Kotowski: First thing (and easiest) is to make sure your website incorporates lots of different media and isn’t entirely Flash.
• Erica Campbell: The search engine spiders deem the title tag as the most significant meta tag.
• Ken Shafer: If you’re looking to optimize your online ads on other sites, b sure to include property name & the city/hood in the desc.
• Jessie Lambert: choose your keywords wisely…use resources like google adwords so that you are optimizing your potential traffic.
• Erica Campbell: Do not use a URL as the Title Tag. Every page that you want indexed on your Web site should have a different title.
• Ken Shafer: You should keep your title tags to right around 70 characters.
• Erica Campbell: Make sure when u upload videos to YouTube that u use titles, desc, URL and keywords- same SEO approach with social.
• Erica Campbell: Tip: Have no more than 24 words in description tag (repeat words max 2 times). This tag should utilize keywords & keyphrases.
• Tanni Mannan: Location or the most important keyword at the beginning to the title tag.
• Ryan VanDenabeele: Get a new CMS! RT @30lines: And what if my website vendor’s CMS doesn’t allow me to change title tags on each page?
• Erica Campbell: It’s important to keep your SEO tactics as natural possible so that you don’t raise flags to the SE’s.
• Resite Online: Flash files with database driven content are still not crawlable. With HTML5 and CSS3 there are non-Flash animation options now.
• Mike Whaling: Google has openly admitted they don’t look at keywords anymore … too easy to game the system.
• Tim Grace: Not saying don’t include geo terms where appropriate, just that they don’t always need to be 1st.
• Ellen Thompson: You should be trying to rank for a broad array of keyword related to your property, geography.
• Tim Grace: Trying to rank for “apts for rent” or “chicago apts” is largely a fool’s errand for most props/mgmt cos.
• Mike Bozeman: We also find that more details people tend to search for (long tail), the more apt the are to convert.
• Tim Grace: Long tail = go for searches w/ neighborhoods or other qualifiers like unit/prop attributes i.e. “Cheap apartments Buckhead”
• Ken Shafer: Don’t get bogged down in “high volume keywords.” Research, less-competitive, focused keyphrases.
• Erica Campbell: According to @comscore, 62% of search engine users don’t look past the 1st page of results.
• Tim Grace: The tools on @seomoz are fantastic if you have a few bucks to spare. Money well spent.
• Erica Campbell: Other things 2 consider: site nav, screen size, speed of display of ur pgs, spelling (get it right), usage of tables,url structures.

How important are photos and videos on my site? Anything specific I should be doing with them to improve my rank?

• Erica Campbell: Photos and videos are absolutely important especially for Google Universal Search.
• Ken Shafer: Hosting your videos on YouTube and embedding on your site is a great way to boost views…big signal for YouTube SE.
• Ken Shafer: Having your videos on other channels will increase the likelihood that they will appear in blended results.
• Ellen Thompson: Videos on your site keep people on the page longer, an indirect factor in SEO.

Does Foursquare help SEO? Does Facebook? Twitter?

• Erica Campbell: 4sq helps with your linking strategies- he more links you get the more likely you are going to get a higher search ranking.
• David Kotowski: Foursquare listings do not appear in Google searches, although Bing includes them.
• Ken Shafer: NOTE: links from social media sites (FB, Twitter, etc.) do not pass page rank or link juice.
• Resite Online: Our Facebook and Twitter updates appear in our Google Alerts daily. They definitely effect search results too.
• Mike Whaling: Easy “follow” link: Add your website to your LinkedIn profile. Use appropriate anchor text.
• Tim Grace: Your presence on social sites is yet another result in a SERP [Search Engine Results Page], which is certainly still powerful.
• Tanni Mannan: Twitter, flickr, linkedin, youtube, digg, stumbleuopn, del.icio.us are very helpful for SEO.

I’m hearing more about getting inbound links to my site. What is this, how does it help and how do I get them?

• Erica Campbell: Make sure you are partnering up w authority sites such as .edu, .org and .gov sites for linking & have them use strong anchor text.
• Erica Campbell: Make sure you don’t 4get to submit your site to local directories and Dmoz is still good in our book!
• Eric Brown: All Inbound Links are NOT Created equal, Another plug for partnership Marketing with larger brands,
• Erica Campbell: Ask your local chamber of commerce and college/university for a link.
• Ken Shafer: Don’t forget! It’s not the quantity of inbound links, it’s the quality.
• Erica Campbell: Send it (your website) to Yahoo! Directory also optimize ur floor plans on your ILS ad b/c we send those to Google Base.
• Michael Pickens: Inbound link: Wife works for a major university and all the med students doing residency need a place to live. = link to Colonial.
• Erica Campbell: Want to find out how many ppl r linking to you? put this in google: “link:www.sitename” and it will tell u who is.
• Jessie Lambert: Writing whitepapers, creating photo galleries, viral contests, etc. are all great ways to create link bait.
• Eric Brown: Apartment Operators are going to wake up to the Value of PR, Great PR = Great Inbound Links.
• Erica Campbell: Also get ideas from your top referring sources of traffic coming into your site and ur destination urls (where r ppl going to).
• Ken Shafer: Visit siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com to find out who’s linking to you.
• Erica Campbell: Optimizing ur press releases is huge and don’t forget to submit them to reddit, newsvine, digg, etc. It’s free.
• Eric Brown: Word of Mouth Always = More Sales.

I’m also hearing more about local search. Is this different that regular search? Is there anything I should be doing differently?

• Michael Pickens: Working on claiming/verifying all our properties on Bing AND Google Places. If you have the time why not get it all set up right.
• Ellen Thompson: Don’t forget yahoo local, merchantcircle, citysearch, yellowpages.com etc.
• Tanni Mannan: Give as much information as possible for local SEO.
• David Kotowski: Add GPS info to your pictures (this can be done automatically with some cameras) and they will appear in local image searches.

If I could only do one thing to improve my rank in search engines, what should it be?

• Ken Shafer: Be an authority with great content. It’s the best way to get people to link to you.
• Duncan Alney: Create keyword rich valuable content.
• Meredith Mobley: Spending more time on social network sites=tons of link bait!!!
• Jessie Lambert: Optimize your on-page strategy: title, header, navigational links, keyword density, alt tags, etc.
• Resite Online: Get social! That includes a blog. The term ‘search’ is being redefined constantly.
• David Kotowski: Make sure you have a mobile version of your site b/c lots of people are searching with their phones.
• Mike Whaling: Follow all the experts from today’s chat & check out the resources/links they’ve provided!
• Erica Campbell: Bottom line: People notice top search engine results. The higher the position, the higher the click potential.

More resources:

• Full transcript of the SEO discussion
• Top 10 SEO Tips for Your Web Site and Internet Listing Ads (from ForRent.com)
• Search frequency of various apartment-related keywords (from Erica Campbell)
• Erica’s favorite SEO gurus to follow on Twitter: @sengineland, @dannysullivan, @seomoz, @seobook, @sewatch, @BruceClayInc, @mattcutts
• Want to know what terms ur comps r ranking 4 & compare it 2 u? Chk out this site: www.thumbshots.com (from Erica Campbell)
• 10 Likely Elements of Google’s Local Search Algorithm (from Ken Shafer)

What are you doing to optimize your website? What are the tips you can share with us from your own experience? What are some questions you still have about how the search engines work and ways to increase traffic to your website? Thanks again to everyone who joined us for this week’s chat, especially Erica Campbell for helping us out as our guest moderator!

This week’s chat featured 342 tweets from 55 different contributors.

Everyone seems to be experimenting with social media in some way, shape or form these days (regardless of whether you think it’s working or not). But one thing that many people seem to struggle with is how to manage their brand’s presence across so many different platforms.

After Jonathan Saar from the Training Factor posted their own case study sharing their successes with social media, we asked him to join us for a discussion on the topic. As it turns out (really no surprise here), you all have great ideas and examples to share. Here are the highlights from the chat:

How do you manage the time commitment? It seems to be HUGE time sucker in our office.

• David Kotowski: If you get into the habit of checking in it becomes routine and doesn’t take up much time.
• Jonathan Saar: Time and discipline go hand in hand. There must be a routine or else you are lost.
• Kim Cory: I set time aside each day just like I would reviewing reports, statements, plans, emails, etc. must make effort.
• Mike Whaling: Focus your efforts. You don’t need to be on every site.
• David Kotowski: Let’s face it. Your employees are ALREADY checking their personal accts and sending texts during the day. Get them involved.
• Mike Whaling: Set routines based on goals. 1 routine for monitoring sites, 1 for creating content, etc.
• Jonathan Saar: Make sure you give yourself an “off” time — that comes from my wife
• Erica Campbell: Use Web analytics 2 determine what sites r converting best 4 u. Look @ referring sources of traffic & inbound links.
• Mike Whaling: Take the time to set up alerts, feeds, etc. It makes the process much easier once you get into it.
• Erica Campbell: Use RSS & automation properly & u can have some big wins w/ time. Also, believe it or not policies & procedures save time.

What social media tools do you find to be the best for managing your presence?

• David Kotowski: Google Alerts is tha jam! Whenever our name is mentioned I find out automatically through an RSS feed to Outlook.
• Sam Gainous: For our company it is Facebook along with a bit of Twitter.
• Mike Whaling: Try HootSuite or Postling. Multiple users can manage multiple sites … all browser-based, so no downloads.
• Matt Hendrick: Twitterfeed is a good tool to automate RSS content, but use wisely (& sparingly) – & only from blogs whose content u count on.
• Sam Gainous: I use TweetDeck and HootSuite and prfer TweetDeck for monitoring our “brand”
• Ryan VanDenabeele: Our blog and facebook seem to create the best results. By results I mean traffice/leads/questions.
• Erica Campbell: Twitter doesn’t even deliver a noteworthy amount of guest cards but FB does so we spend more time there & YouTube.
• David Kotowski: I recently started using @SproutSocial. I can track FB Fan Pages, Yelp reviews, and Foursquare checkins in one place.
• Mike Whaling: Most important tool for managing your presence: A smartphone. Preferably one that allows you to download apps.

What are the “top three” social sites I need to be on for my property? (And why?)

• Mike Whaling: #1 site is always your own.
• Elysa Rice: Sites properties should be on: Facebook & Yelp; should at least be monitoring Twitter & Foursquare.
• Jonathan Saar: 1- Facebook 2- Foursquare 3- Twitter
• Meredith Mobley: I think this answer will vary depending on your audience.
• Kim Cory: I believe it is all about where your audience is hanging out. Know your customers & where they are.
• Gillian Luce: Think Facebook is a safe bet 4 most demographics!
• Mike Whaling: Collect emails. Plug them into a tool like Flowtown. That will give you a good starting point.
• Rosa Green: We use mainly FB, some twitter, just starting Foursquare & Youtube. FB by far the most interaction!
• David Kotowski: Whatever 3 sites are most popular with your residents. Ask them.
• Erica Campbell: FB (clean interface, comes w analytics, no brainer), YouTube (Google Juice & analytics) & have a blog (links, traffic).
• Mike Whaling: Check out other local blogs. Start following them & leaving relevant comments. Get involved.
• Heather Kattelman: From our exp, FB generates the most interaction w/ pros/res – leasing & res retention

How do I create content that doesn’t s*ck? A lot of what I see out there is lousy. I want mine to be the best.

• Frederic Guitton: The OODA loop (for observe, orient, decide, and act) This is what web analytics, SM and all marketing is all about.
• Jonathan Saar: Start with google alerts folks.
• Sarah Cooley: PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE! you won’t know what’s good until you get out there, start creating content and see the response.
• Ryan VanDenabeele: We create content that is a value to our residents. Put yourself in their shoes. What do they like. If you don’t know. Ask.
• Christian Flickinger: If you talk to me and sound like a salesman, a big douche, or a robot – you’ve lost my attention.
• Matt Hendrick: Decide if the “contrarian” route is for you – it can sometimes provoke more discussion than simply playing it safe.
• Mike Whaling: Check local trends on Twitter. See what’s popular now, then share your own spin on those topics.
• Erica Campbell: Mix it up & get outside writers every once in while like mommy bloggers, consumers, partners etc gives new perspective.
• Resite Online: When it comes to SM content its really trial and error. Keep trying until you find topics that people react to.
• Erica Campbell: Also look in ur analytics 4 top referring keywords for suggestions and ideas.
• Mike Whaling: Comment on other local blogs, share them w/ your audience, then write a post on the topic w/ your own viewpoint.
• Heather Kattelman: We do Weekly FB Plans to help with ensuring creative & interactive content is posted on the pages.
• Rosa Green: We partner with local businesses for giveways/prizes, residents love it and its FREE!
• Ryan VanDenabeele: Humor is good. It shows people that a real person is behind the message.

How can I delegate this effectively? How can I train my staff to do this so I can focus on managing the property?

• Elysa Rice: Use a service like CoTweet or Hootsuite that allows for collaboration of team members.
• Sam Gainous: Assign staff writing assignments, get them to research for new relevant content that can B used on all your SM outlets.
• Kim Cory: Why not get them involved w/u in the 1st place. Give them freedom 2 explore & show interest & encourage them.
• Erica Campbell: Turn to the industry 4 assistance w training. Create modules, checklists & documents that can be used even w/ turnover.
• Eric Brown: Why would we ever think that apt site staff are writers, they could be, but not typical.
• Sondrah Laden: Maintain a policy on communication – avoid FH issues. HUD is watching SM.
• Heather Kattelman: Got 2B careful here – U can only give this 2 some1 that WANTS 2B the Social Voice otherwise it be really bad.
• Jonathan Saar: Make sure SM does not become the marketing teams responsibility … collaborate.
• Gillian Luce: Gotta have someone u trust 2 speak on behalf of the brand! Someone who can interact w/the audience & is easy 2 relate 2!
• Jonathan Saar: Social media can help connect your depts and make that internal culture grow.
• Mike Whaling: Make sure you measuring the right things. If resident retention is the goal, then don’t measure by # of new leases.

Good quotes and tips along the way:

• Jonathan Saar: Social media has been the main direction TTF has been using to connect with its customers and reach out to new ones.
• Matt Hendrick: Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Find your audience and target them accordingly.
• Jonathan Saar: Avoid syndicating the same content across your channels (this is not a time saver)
• Mike Whaling: Focus less on the tool. Focus more on doing things that get people talking. The content will follow.

So what did we miss? What would you add? If you’re struggling to find success with social media, where are you having the most trouble? If you’re finding success, what tips or examples can you share with the rest of us? Thanks again to everyone who joined us this week, especially Jonathan!

Tools mentioned throughout the discussion:

• CoTweet
• Facebook
• Flowtown
• Google Alerts
• HootSuite
• Postling
• SocialOomph
• Sprout Social
• Tweetdeck
• Twitter
• Twitterfeed
• YouTube

More resources:

• Full transcript of the discussion
• Demonstrating Social Media Patience — Our Case Study (from The Training Factor)
• Survey: What are your biggest hurdles in accomplishing your social media initiatives and goals?
• Keyword Strategies – The Long Tail (from Search Engine Guide)

This week’s chat featured 640 tweets from 64 different contributors.

With summer heat bearing down and air conditioners, fans and sprinklers cranking at full capacity around the country, we thought it would be a good idea to discuss ways to be more mindful of the energy, water and other resources we (and our residents) use at our properties. We connected with Kim Madrigal — a certified sustainable building adviser, certified energy auditor and author of GreenLandlady — who helped us out by sharing all kinds of great tips, ideas and resources to help us reduce, reuse and save in our property management operations. Here’s a recap of our discussion:

Starting with the ground up, what can MF mgrs do with existing landscaping?

(Submitted by Elizabeth Madrigal)

• Heather Blume: You can start by examining your watering procedures – timing of watering, aim of sprinkler heads, leaving grass longer.
• Kim Madrigal: Landscaping is water intensive. Plant native vegetation.
• Kim Madrigal: Mature plants need less water than young plants. Ck yr watering schedule seasonally. Consider smart irrigation system.
• Elizabeth Madrigal: Local arboretums are great places to start, and local universities and plant nurseries.
• Heather Blume: I’ve heard great feedback on putting rain sensors on your property – $1500 to install and saves at least twice that the first year.
• Susan Welker: Also consider rain water catchment systems. 1″ of rain on 1000 SF equals 550 gallons of free water.

I am interested in hearing about electricity savings … what tips are available?

(Submitted by Jonathan Saar)

• Susan Welker: Replacing incandescent lighting with Fluorescent, adding insulation, occupancy sensors and low cost energy savers
• David Kotowski: Billing residents for use of their utilities also helps with conservation.
• Kim Madrigal: Motion sensors or vacancy sensors turn lights/appliances etc. off when no one is around. I use them in hallways, kids rms!

Low-hanging fruit … if I’m on a budget, what are some things I can do that will have the greatest impact for my dollar?

• Kim Madrigal: Replace incandescent bulbs w/ CFL. reset water heaters to 120 degrees, lower pool temp to 78, install lting controls.
• Kim Madrigal: Better manage vacant units, weather stripping of doors & windows, aerators, low flow fixtures will pay for themselves.
• Elizabeth Madrigal: One thing we forget is the HVAC system “tune up”, which can save 15 to 20% on an energy bill even with old equipment.

What can we do to go green in the leasing office? Has the paperless office finally arrived?

• Elizabeth Madrigal: Let staff know you care about green management – and train them in it – and your NOI will increase. It’s good green economics.
• Heather Blume: Stop printing every report every week for starters. U don’t need physical back ups if you do a full system back up weekly.
• Christian Flickinger: VG (Village Green) doing paperless applications & leasing, also moving internal processes paperless. reports being send in PDF to corporate/owners.
• Gillian Luce: Recycle, change thermostat temp, shut-down computer & turn off lights. Tips 4 Going Green at the Office http://bit.ly/dCrkJ6
• Will Clark: Electronic check registry, file invoices remotely, accept automatic rent payments, reduce waste and hot machinery.
• Mike Whaling: Why not send an intro email w/ links to resources on your website? Get rid of the paper & boost SEO…
• Charity Hisle: Many of our customers use their blogs as newsletters rather than printing & distributing or emailing.

Let’s talk resident education. What works best? How can we make residents more aware of their energy/resource usage?

• Jason Tripp: Resident education is the hardest, especially as it relates to Sustainable Development…the two aren’t always in sync.
• Resite Online: Resident portals and blogs are great places to post educational information for residents.

What are the most common misconceptions about “going green” that you hear from residents? From others in your company?

• Resite Online: People tend to see the costs before the benefits.
• Kim Madrigal: Misconception? That technology will fix things! Tech will help but it will require behavior mods as well.
• Heather Blume: “it’s too expensive” “takes lots of work” “it will b a long process” “it will cost us more 2 go green b/c it’s not easy”
• Jason Tripp: Most of it relates to the tangibility – are floors recycled, is a material green, perceptions on paper.
• David Kotowski: “Going Green” is pretty much just using less paper.
• Jason Tripp: Cost is hurdle – people want a green apartment, but aren’t willing to pay the premium. We have to appeal to wallets and hearts.
• Kim Madrigal: People aren’t often aware of the link between water and energy. Using less water means using less energy too.
• Kim Madrigal: Use 0.5 or 0.75 aerators on faucets including kitchens! In showers use 1.5 – 1.75 low flow heads. These are better than min stds.

More great tips shared along the way:

• Susan Welker, AIA: Those most ROI I would think in green apartments is insulation. Inexpensive and pays for itself in 1 year or less!
• Elizabeth Madrigal: If you haven’t seen the DSIRE website, check it out as it is a searchable state website for incentives, rebates, tax credits, etc.
• Kim Madrigal: Beware “green products”. To Quote @mfguide Reduce. Reduce. Reduce. We actually have to stop consuming so much.
• Kim Madrigal: Green leases? Be sure you have clause that allows you access to energy usage. May not need it now, but will in future.
• David Kotowski: We’ve started giving out reusable shopping bags as move-in gifts.
• Elizabeth Madrigal: We can’t control much in life, but we can control our own actions, reactions and behaviors. Living a sustainable life matters.
• Kim Madrigal: Check out the OccuSmart sensor for interior hallways, Vending Miser for vending machines.

More resources:

• Full transcript from the discussion
• GreenLandlady
• DSIRE (Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency)

What are you doing to ‘go green’ at your company? Do you have a resident education program focused on sustainable living? What other ideas or suggestions do you have to help save energy, water and other resources?

Thanks again to Kim and Elizabeth Madrigal for your time and expertise!

This week’s #AptChat included 294 tweets from 38 different contributors.

If there’s one apartment company that’s been recognized for its success using social media to reach it residents and prospects in the community, it’s Urbane Apartments in Royal Oak, Michigan. The founder of Urbane, Eric Brown, is a regular participant here on the Apartment Chat, but this time, we aimed the spotlight on him to learn more about how they’ve done it and where they’re going next. It was quite a chaotic discussion with a LOT of great questions from the group. Here are some of the highlights:

Urbane runs a successful, active company blog. What’s the secret sauce, and how do you keep it going?

• Eric Brown (EB): Participation and support to and at the community at large.
• EB: We use our Digital Reach to promote local businesses, restaurants, bars, and any other places our Residents hang out.
• EB: Think about your Community of Interest, (followers, friends) and its size and correlation to your apartment community.
• EB: SM Marketing is Word of Mouth on steroids, and when it works, your friends rent the apts for you.
• Erica Campbell: So true! “91% say consumer reviews are the #1 aid to buying decisions” (JC Williams Group)
• EB: Provide content that folks want/need, or find interest in.

With the myriad of other duties the property has, how do you prioritize their blog participation?

(Submitted by Jon Harrington)

• EB: I think the time constraints of a Social Media Program is overrated.
• EB: Bottom line, we still need/must rent apartments, but we also carve out the req time for effective SM marketing.
• EB: One thing we cut out were “Tours”, We use a Go Solo Program, (lots of folks don’t agree with this angle) I love it.
• Mike Brewer: I think the really successful companies will resign themselves to the idea that it requires more than 9 to 5.
• Lisa Trosien: Have seen properties been able to cut their ‘out of office’ outreach marketing time by investing in SM.
• Gillian Luce: Social Media shouldn’t replace but rather act as a complement in your marketing mix.

You talk a lot about the benefits of partnership marketing? Can you explain this & provide an example?

• EB: We just partnered with Coke, and their Vitamin Water brand, Partner with like demographics to your brand.
• EB: The Big Red Machine (Coke) drops off product to use every week for Move In Packages, plus stocks a branded fridge in Urbane.
• EB: We partnered with Chevy on a project, and were included in thousands of targeted tweets and word of mouth chatter.
• Lisa Trosien: It would make sense to me for them to go with a major player, larger bldgs, more residents, etc.
• EB: You would be surprised what Big Brands will do if you just ask.
• EB: Remember, Local Brands can and are very effective to partner with, too.
• Leigh Curry: Eric’s ex-employer at Village Green has done a very good job of co branding.

I’m sure you hear that you can do what you do because Urbane is small/niche. How can we scale it? Can it scale?

(Submitted by Doug Chasick)

• EB: We have LESS resources, not more, that is a myth.
• EB: If I had a large portfolio to work with, it would be intoxicating the things you could craft.
• EB: Large portfolios are still segmented by region, there are just more of them.
• EB: People, Training and Culture, but mostly Culture.
• EB: All regions should be operating under the same premise.

What are the top things you would recommend to a company that wants to use social media to reach their audience?

• EB: Start with a Community/Company blog, That is by far and away our biggest lever.
• EB: Next would be tossing out your own dumb rules that some desk jockey originated.

What do you think of outsourcing blogging and/or SM efforts?

(Submitted by Sara Graham)

• EB: I think in most cases you must outsource blogging and SM Marketing.
• EB: I also think when you outsource blogging and SM, the focus is lead generation.
• EB: All of our bloggers are profiled on the blog, and 98% of the comments are answered by the blog writer.

Check the transcript for more details on the Go Solo program and other topics discussed throughout this week’s chat. Thanks to Eric for giving us some insight into his operation, and thanks to everyone else who participated.

What tips can you share from your own experience about successfully building buzz and incorporating social media into your efforts? Who else should we interview for a future #AptChat?

More Resources:

• Full chat transcript from WTHashtag
• The Urbane Life blog
• Eric Brown’s blog at TheUrbaneWay.com