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Your Apartment Community’s Facebook Page Needs a Vanity URL

Jan 11th, 2010
by daisynguyen.
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Your community’s facebook page should have a facebook username, also known as a vanity URL.

Why? Being able to choose the URL for your facebook page is like a vanity license plate – it not only makes it easy to remember (and hence share with others), but helps you claim a little piece of facebook space as your own. Why let someone else (facebook) randomly set your URL, when you can control how people find you, remember you AND how google ranks you?

(Photo provided by aprilzosia on flickr through creative commons license.)

What am I talking about?

Most facebook URL’s are something like http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456789  – that’s hard to remember!

Now take for example, RENT SODA’s facebook URL: http://facebook.com/rentsoda – WAY easier!

In terms of SEO, having a facebook vanity url will help your facebook page rank higher in google searches than pages without a vanity url.

Follow these steps to claim your facebook vanity URL for your apartment community:

1.) First, carefully think of a username you want to use. Once it’s been selected, you won’t be able to change or transfer it. Usernames need to be at least 5 characters made of only alphanumeric characters. A period (.) is also allowed.

2.) Go to http://facebook.com/username  . Follow the prompts for your profiles and each fan page administered by your profile. For fanpages, facebook requires that your page have a minimum of 25 fans.

Don’t get it? RENT SODA. GET IT!

-Daisy Nguyen in Minneapolis, Minnesota MN

CEO

RENTSODA-small

Business & Marketing Consulting to the Apartment Industry

Web: RentSoda.com   Email: Daisy {at} RentSoda(.)com

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Dear Apartment ILS: KISS! (Keep It Simple Silly!)

Dec 1st, 2009
by daisynguyen.
3 comments

We all have a love/hate relationship with our apartment ILS’s. We love them for everything they do, and we hate them for everything they do. Yes, I’m talking about Rent.com, ForRent.com, Apartments.com, Move.com, ApartmentFinder.com – those are my big ones, but I’m sure I’m not mentioning dozens of other ones. I’m talking about ALL of them! Don’t get me wrong, I love all my providers! They bring me traffic. Traffic is king these days. The provider’s sales agents are great – friendly, helpful, a HUGE resource to apartment communities. But, the actual services all lack something EXTREMELY important - make it easy for the prospect! KISS! (Keep-It-Simple-Silly!*) (*I hate calling anyone stupid, so have replaced stupid with silly)

A recent blog post I did and two recent discussions on Multi-Family Insiders got me to thinking:

Give the prospect what they want. In the end, they are our customer.

To read the recent RENT SODA blogpost and discussions on MFI that got me to thinking, click below:

There’s a MARKET for THAT! (my RENT SODA marketing blogpost)

Advertising on Yours (and Others’) Good Names : an MFI discussion started by Mike Whaling

The ILS Conundrum – an MFI blogpost by Mark Juleen

Why can’t the ILS model be more simple, and cater to the prospect? Make it easier?

If they get THEY want, you get more traffic, and you drive more traffix to US, and we get WE want…everyone’s happy!

I’ve been a renter before, and as a renter, or anyone looking for a service for that matter, I love it when:

  1. …someone else has aggregated all the information for me into 1 BIG list. i love LISTS! I’m lazy, I have limited amount of time, and I need to find the RIGHT apartment without spending all my free time looking for an apartment. Come on, I have a life that I want to live. Being a professional apartment shopper is not my gig!
  2. …once I’m on your site, make it simple for me to find my dream home. (i.e. if I’m looking for Minneapolis, don’t give me all the listings out in the suburbs! REALLY? Do you think that providing me with listings all the way out to Timbuktu serves me in anyway?) The more time I spend frustrated on your site, the unhappier I become.
  3. Provide me with reviews. REALLY. Amazon does it, ebay does it, Best Buy does it – everyone and their dog allows for comments and reviews. I want to hear what other people like me who have done this before think.
  4. Link me to the property. Come on, I know you want me to stay on your website so you can provide a report to those that pay you on how long the average user stays on the website. But REALLY? Once I have narrowed down the list of who I want to visit, I want to VISIT them. Make it easy for me!

What do YOUR prospects and renters want from an ILS? As a renter, what do they want to make the experience easy and enjoyable? Please leave a comment with your thoughts. In the end, we should give the customer what they want, and they’ll continue to come back for me. Let’s see if we can get the attention of the ILS’s!

Dear Apartment ILS: KISS!

Don’t Get it? RENT SODA. GET IT!

-Daisy Nguyen in Minneapolis, Minnesota

CEO

RENTSODA-small

Business & Marketing Consulting to the Apartment Industry

Web: RentSoda.com   Email: Daisy {at} RentSoda(.)com

Become a fan of RENTSODA on facebook.  Connect with RENTSODA on LinkedIn!

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Facebook-itis: Addressing the fear of facebook head on!

Nov 18th, 2009
by daisynguyen.
1 comment

Part II: Facebook-itis: Addressing the fear of facebook head on! AKA Should my site(s)/apartment community(s) ”do” facebook? - This is usually asked by someone who realizes that they NEED to be on Facebook – because everyone ELSE is thinking about it or already “DOING IT.” Heard the buzz, now wondering…

This is PART II of a 3-part series. You can read the intro here:

3 facebook questions everyone asks when starting out… 

OR Part I: The ROI of Facebook – the Value of Creating Community

This is a great question. And the answer is as simple as YES.

KNOW THIS: In the Multi-family residential industry, we know who our typical renter demographic is - the biggest group of renters is ages 18-30. (Demographic information from NMHC - to see more demographic information, click here.) Our second biggest group, ages 30 – 44, and then 3rd largest demographic age group is 45-64, and then 4th is 65+.

KNOW THIS: Facebook demographics, as reported by istrategylabs.com as of 07/04/09, reported that the largest demographic of facebook users, ages 18 – 34 years old, totalled over 36MILLION users. The 2nd biggest demographic age group reported was 35-54 years old - totalled over 20MILLION users. The 55+years old user group totaled over 6MILLION users. The 55+ group was growing at a rate of 513% from the first half of 2009. (For complete istrategylabs.com statistics on facebook-click here. To see facebook’s statistics click here.) If your renter or prospect isn’t already on facebook, they WILL be. Will you be there to welcome them?

Technology continues to change, and with change comes new technology. Stay current with the new technologies – that’s how today’s business is done. (And for the most part, they can make life easier!)

If you think facebook maybe a fad – so what? A fad that has the attention of over 62MILLION U.S. users. WOW. GET IT while the gettin’s good. And if something else comes along, you can get GET THAT too.

And what about fear? Let’s address those fears quickly: Fear that you maybe exposing yourselves to liability? Fear that you may project the wrong image? Or fear that you may say the wrong things? Or fear that this might be too much work?

Well, to quote one of John Mayer’s recent tweets, ” …life may continue to be hard for you.” (For John Mayer’s full tweet/quote in its original context, click here and look at November 7th, 2009′s tweet.)

-Hey, I’m just being real. Agree? Disagree? LOVE IT? HATE IT? Still undecided? Want to chat? Leave me a comment!

Don’t Get it? RENT SODA. GET IT!

-Daisy Nguyen in Minneapolis, Minnesota

CEO

RENTSODA-small

Business & Marketing Consulting to the Apartment Industry

Web: RentSoda.com   Email: Daisy {at} RentSoda(.)com

Become a fan of RENTSODA on facebook.  Connect with RENTSODA on LinkedIn!

Follow RENTSODA on Twitter!

Be the first to like.
Unlike
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