Social Media 101 

Social media has lead a profound shift in marketing and advertising, and it has unleashed a new world order in online engagement that businesses cannot ignore. But what is social media? Who does it? Where do they do it? And how do I do it?

“Social Media” can be defined as Internet-based applications that allow and enhance the creation and exchange of user-generated content in a community experience. The community can be any group of people with some common interests that decide to connect with each other to work, play, learn, share and socialize. In this context, we started using the term social media in 2004, and it started showing on Google’s list of most searched terms in 2006. It is now among the top three online activities, trailing only e-mail and search.

According to a Forrester Research report, more than 75 percent of worldwide Internet users have a social media account. It took radio 38 years and television 13 years to reach audiences of 50 million users, but Facebook added 100 million worldwide users in just a nine-month period. Twitter, the microblogging site, added more than 20 million users in the first six months of 2009. LinkedIn, the professional networking site, just recently surpassed 50 million worldwide users, and it has been adding users at the rate of 1 million every 12 days.

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating services and bookmarking. Some of the more recognized technologies and sample sites include: blog sites (Mashable and Techcrunch), picture-sharing (Flickr and Photobucket), video blogs (YouTube and Vimeo), social and professional networks (Facebook and LinkedIn), bookmarking sites (Delicious and Digg), wikis (Wikipedia), microblogs/SMS/voice (Twitter), consumer networks (Yelp) and virtual social worlds (Second Life).

Because of the rapid growth of so many social networking sites, a new type of service has developed. Social network aggregators, such as FriendFeed and Plaxo, represent one of the fastest growing areas in social media. These sites are designed to reduce all of a person’s social news feeds into a single news feed. Additionally, persons can update their status on the social sites directly from these aggregator sites.

So as a business wanting to dip your toe or jump head first into this arena, where do you begin? Start with the basics. Social media marketing is more about listening, sharing and participating and less about talking and selling. Among the challenges for businesses entering the social media networks are how do you:

• successfully engage clients, prospects, partners, employees and the general public via social media?
• monitor and positively influence your brand message across all of the social networks?
• measure and increase the bottom line contributions social media can deliver?
  Opportunities for businesses could include:
• listening to uncensored conversations about what clients, prospects and employees want, need and think about your company;
• sharing information, providing valuable insight into your company and/or communities through creative media to capture the attention of your current clients, employees and prospects;
• positively influencing brand knowledge and reputation by responding to questions and frustrations across many social media sites;
• dramatically expanding networks of friends, fans and colleagues; and
• becoming an industry resource, even if you’re a small or medium-sized company, whose opinions are widely known and respected.

To get started, develop a social media plan. Here is a checklist:

Define your purpose. Do you want new customers, customer retention, recruiting, corporate communication, PR, brand loyalty? Start small, and don’t try to be everything to everybody. For a property management company, this could be as simple as creating Facebook fan pages for communities.

Set a goal. Where are we now? Where do we want to be? How do we get there? And what does success look like?

Decide on what metrics matter to your business and goals. In a recent research paper, “Four Components of Engagement,” Forrester Research broke down leading social media metrics:

• Involvement—Web analytics can help measure site visits, page views, time spent, etc.
• Interaction—addresses the actions somebody can take while visiting your site, such as posting a comment, signing up for e-mail updates, adding photos and video, etc.
• Intimacy—the sentiment or affinity a person exhibits in the things they say or the actions they take.
• Influence—addresses the likelihood this person will recommend your service to someone else. This can be measured with surveys that measure brand loyalty or by monitoring the quantity of recommendations posted to particular sites.

Set the metrics:

• Set metrics that are qualitative and quantitative.
• Use a dashboard to see the metrics in process.
• Track information that is valuable to defined goals, not just because it is measurable.
• Decide who will be the online voice. Identify team members who will contribute content, which can include industry insight, community knowledge and thought leadership.
• Determine the right outlets and social media tools your business can leverage to achieve ongoing success.
• Publish and post interesting content for all audiences. Remember social media is about sharing and being a part of the conversation. It is about having a dialogue within personal networks, not a monologue.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, promote. Promote to internal associates why the plan is being undertaken. Promote Web presence in all company communications from e-mail signatures to business cards. Promote interaction with clients, residents, prospects, employees and industry peers in every piece of communication that is sent.

By following these guidelines and building upon experiences, successes and missteps, businesses will see positive results through its social media marketing campaign.

Following are other information resources for social media strategies and tools that can enhance a social media plan:

• Mashable.com, a great social media resource on the Web;
• Delicious and StumbleUpon, two bookmarking sites that document what users are reading and what they like to view online;
• FriendFeed combines a person’s social networks into one single feed; and
• Tweetdeck, a tool to monitor Twitter mentions and conversations.

Several multifamily housing industry leaders maintain blogs, Facebook fan and group pages, or Twitter and YouTube channels (Lincoln Property Company and Milestone are two property management companies that have both recently undertaken social media marketing initiatives). Additionally, the NAA and state and local apartment associations participate in these channels and sites, and members can follow those pages to stay current on the latest news and trends. Those pages also are great places to check when researching the social media marketing arena.

Finally, start slow, be strategic, listen to the conversations about your company and the industry and then share observations and insights. Social media’s power is about giving consumers and users the insight and choice that enables them to make intelligent buying and life decisions. Make sure the message is heard and that a company’s brand is protected.

John Cullens is President of apartment career recruitment site ApartmentCareers.com and can be reached at jcullens@apartmentcareers.com.

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