Comments on Multifamily Technology 360°: Apartment Search Goes Social ... Almost

@ Todd: Thanks for stopping by. The new design loo...

2009-04-04T12:11:00.000-05:00

@ Todd: Thanks for stopping by. The new design looks great.

I agree with you that the Share This button is one of the easiest, most comprehensive ways to make any site's content easily shareable. You can also easily access stats to see which pages are being shared most, which provides obvious benefits. I think it's a smart move on your part, and I'd be interested to hear more about the results you've seen so far ... if you care to share that info with us.

That said, Facebook, Google and the OpenSocial movement are all increasingly making their data openly available, which provides opportunities to deliver more personalized user experiences by tapping deep into that specific user's "social graph." This can't be done with simple buttons or widgets, but in the long run, I think it will provide many advantages over the basic "Share This" option.

Great example -- thanks for sharing! Please keep me posted on your future updates!

@ Anonymous: I agree that companies need to be car...

2009-04-04T11:47:00.000-05:00

@ Anonymous: I agree that companies need to be careful of vendors that may just be taking advantage of buzzwords, but there is a clear trend toward integrating social applications into traditionally more static websites, and case studies are emerging that prove the benefits.

Businesses are successfully tapping into the social networks of their existing and prospective customers, and it's making a difference ... the "viral" effect of the Facebook newsfeed is a powerful phenomenon that all marketers should try to leverage in one way or another.

The data is available ... if you're leaning on an expert to help with social media, make sure they can tell you how it fits into your business and how they show results.

Mike, for full disclosure, I run the interactive b...

2009-04-03T15:38:00.000-05:00

Mike, for full disclosure, I run the interactive businesses at NCI, the parent company for Apartment Finder. We have been participating in the social networking space for quite some time now.

Take a look at what we have done at ApartmentFinder.com as we have taken a very different approach to solve the same problem. For starters, we believe that forcing enrollment before a customer is interested in reaching out via email discourages interaction. To that end our "Share This" button is available to both casual users as well as registered visitors.

Additionally, we agree with you Mike that the posting should go into the Newsfeed - and by using "Share This" the listings do just that.

We try to give our customers as many ways to interact with our information as possible. Through social networking, social bookmarking, traditional email, etc. That is why we picked a network agnostic tool that includes everything from Ask to Yardbarker, inclusive of Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed and others.

Also, I am curious to know your reaction to our recently updated look and feel (introduced 3/31)!

Todd Dubner, SVP Interactive, NCI

This seems to be a strategy in the race to incorpo...

2009-03-04T00:41:00.000-05:00

This seems to be a strategy in the race to incorporate the "social" aspect into their portfolio. It does not have to work. As long as they can say "facebook app" to a property manager they win..for awhile. Remember, the property manager is looking for the expert. They know that social marketing is the current buzz. They know they need this. It is irrelevant whether or not it works right now and MNP knows this. To be an expert you just need to know more than the person you are selling to.

Mike, Thanks for the post and for testing out this...

2009-02-20T07:44:00.000-05:00

Mike, Thanks for the post and for testing out this product, it looks pretty cool.

Matt, a HUGE Thank You for participating! To Mike Brewers point, you are practicing Social Media herein and with your comments and your twitter efforts, Really Refreshing!

As facebook users start to leave comments about a given apartment community on their facebook walls, is there any way to track those comments. Is there anyway for the property management company to participate in those conversations.

How do your customers feel about open source comments being generated from your site. I for one welcome all of this, however once apartment owners figure this out, do you see this hurting your approach?

Thanks again for the input and participation

Matt, thanks for taking part in the discussion ......

2009-02-19T23:05:00.000-05:00

Matt, thanks for taking part in the discussion ... that alone says a lot. Thanks also for the clarification. I love the idea, and as Mike said previously, I think it puts you far ahead of many of the other listings sites out there.

I understand that it will take some time for your application to work its way through the Facebook algorithm. There are some great articles about the art and science of what some have called "News Feed Optimization."

Please keep me posted on your progress as the application picks up steam ... I'm very interested to learn what kind of results it produces for your and your advertisers.

Hey Mike, thanks for the write-up, I am going to t...

2009-02-19T17:55:00.000-05:00

Hey Mike, thanks for the write-up, I am going to take this opportunity to write beyond 140 character limit on Twitter. (i've been on all morning and it's been really great reaching out to apartment marketing pros.)

So, the Facebook news feed, the first page that you see when you sign in, amalgamates all of your "friends actions" onto one page. This is all the stuff that facebook thinks is best suited to you. Remember, they want you to go through as many pages as possible during your visit.

So, they try to determine what information is most likely to engage you as a site user.

Now, we want to be part of that interaction; we think that by showing your friends what apartments you are thinking about moving is interesting to your friends and will encourage interaction with the site. Encourage a friend to move to the neighborhood, look for a possible roommate, get advise on a variety of factors that will all go into choosing the place you want to live, all while increasing apartment listing visibility across the web.

Now, a crucial part of becoming part of that interaction is indeed getting information on that "front page." Our goal is that for every person that posted an apartment to facebook, every one of their friends saw that they were looking at that apartment and could offer advice if so inclined. This is where we see this functionality really blossoming and reaching it's full potential.

So, today we see that Facebook does NOT place all MyNewPlace application actions on your news feed even though you know that one of your friends has posted to their wall using Facebook Connect and you can see it on their wall but not on YOUR newsfeed? How then, do we get Facebook to make sure that MyNewPlace actions make it to the news feed?

Well, keep in mind that the MyNewPlace application is brand new. It went live late last night and has just been introduced to Facebook. It will require some time and traction in order for it to be included in Facebook's general news feed. Think about all of the actions that all of your friends perform on a given day on facebook, and then compare that to what is shown on your news feed. Facebook's algorithm for how they determine what is to be shown on the home page, (though we make no claim to be authoritative on the subject) must be based first on a given user's settings as well as that user's history.

So, as the feature matures as Facebook connect approved application, it will be granted more weight in the Facebook News Feed Algorithm.

And then, the permeation of MyNewPlace's apartment search into Facebook's social interaction will have a huge effect on traffic and on driving high quality leads.

quite a bit over the 140. let me know if you have further questions and feel free to comment over at our blog - www.mynewplace.com/blog

Thanks for the comment, Mike ... I definitely agre...

2009-02-19T17:17:00.000-05:00

Thanks for the comment, Mike ... I definitely agree with your take on the situation.

I'm glad to see MNP push the use of this application in our industry, and I'm sure they already have a lot of great feedback to build on. I look forward to seeing how other online companies respond with new features on their platforms, as well.

I subscribe to the Tom Peter's rule of innovat...

2009-02-19T16:19:00.000-05:00

I subscribe to the Tom Peter's rule of innovation - fail faster than anyone else.

The way I look at this is that MNP put it out there knowing that it would draw immediate feedback. Maybe I am assuming as much but the point is that they could then take that feedback and make an even cooler application out of it.

In my mind and whether they know it or not they made a brilliant use of social media today. They put out an application, they were willing and ready to hear the feedback, they participated in the conversation even going so far as to invite a blog Q & A and I believe they will act on it. I do think that Q & A would serve us all better if held over at MFI but nevertheless they put it out there.

I applaud the effort and the participation and I hope to see them join this conversation.

M