The Multifamily Social Media Toolkit: Part I

I had the opportunity to attend the inaugural NAA Student Housing Conference last week, and the first day of sessions went something like this:

"Millenials are different. Here's how to market to them..."
"Facebook."
"Here's a primer on development."
"MySpace."
"Let's talk operations."
"RealPage. Yardi."
"Facebook."
"Facebook."
"Facebook."

Don't get me wrong ... The conference was excellent, especially for a first-time event. But it struck me that, for all the talk about the largest of the social networking sites frequented by these students, much of the conversation was not incredibly accurate or useful for our marketing purposes.

I'm not going to dispute whether advertising on these sites is effective -- you have measurement tools to tell you that. But in general, I think our industry could use social media tools more effectively if we took some time to learn how other successful companies -- and our residents -- are using these sites.

Start by listening.

Before you jump into the deep end of social networks, you need to know where you stand. What are your residents and others saying about your community online?

Not every resident posts a review on Apartment Ratings. Do some exploring. Search for your property name and neighborhood on Technorati and Google Blogsearch. Set up a search engine alert so you'll be notified anytime another website mentions your community.

Don't do anything yet if you find a negative post ... we'll get to that soon. For now, just listen. Spend some time understanding how your property is perceived online.

While you're getting a handle on your community's web presence, you can also observe others. Find an RSS reader that you like (Google Reader, Bloglines, Sage for Firefox, etc.), and start subscribing to interesting blogs and websites. See how others shape their online story. Every blog has its own persona ... here are a few for you to get started:

Apartment Marketing Blog
MultifamilyPro
The Ground Floor
Seth Godin
Duct Tape Marketing

Pick a few you like, see how others do it, and start to develop a style in your mind that will work for you, your staff and your community. In Part II, we'll start managing your web presence by creating an online voice for your property.

From This Post:
Apartment Ratings
Technorati
Google Blogsearch
Google Alerts
Google Reader
Bloglines
Sage Firefox Plug-in

Retailers Provide DTV Education, But Is It Enough?

Lately, the questions from property owners surrounding next year's transition to all-digital TV have started to increase. Don't worry if you not familiar with this ... most of your residents aren't, either.

Both broadcasters and retailers are taking steps to educate consumers. Circuit City was the latest to step in, announcing this week that they would launch a year-long education campaign in advance of the February 2009 switch. This follows announcements from Best Buy and Wal-Mart about similar programs earlier this week.

As part of the effort, Circuit City will present an interactive web forum with Sound & Vision Magazine on Feb. 19. Both Circuit City and Best Buy will start stocking DTV converter boxes the weekend of Feb. 17 in preparation for the first round of coupon buyers.

So I ask, will it be enough? As a property owner or manager, are you making any special efforts to educate your residents (and your staff) that they might be affected by this impending change? Folks expect to be able to come home, fall onto the couch and tune into their favorite programs ... especially now that they'll have something to watch besides reality shows.

And besides your residents, have you looked at how this will affect your own TVs throughout your community? Any TV that is already connected to a set-top box from a cable or satellite company won't be affected by this at all, but my guess is that many properties still have analog TVs in fitness centers, lounges and other common areas that are about to become expensive paperweights.

Now might be the time for a conversation with your video service provider and a quick property audit to determine how much February 17, 2009 will affect you.

Wi-Fi With Care

A couple new federal rules meant to protect us from two very different things will have a direct effect on property owners who offer Wi-Fi services to their residents. If you put up a hotspot in the clubhouse or by the pool, keep reading...

CALEA
The first law is called CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) -- it's meant to give law enforcement agencies and the Department of Homeland Security the ability to conduct surveillance. It went into effect earlier this year, and it requires telecommunications carriers and equipment manufacturers to "modify and design their equipment, facilities, and services to ensure that [law enforcement agencies] have the necessary surveillance capabilities."

The way I understand it, if you, the property owner/manager, own any piece of active electronics used to deliver public Wi-Fi (or any other telecommunications service, for that matter) anywhere on your property, you could be obligated to comply with a warrant for information about a user on your network. This means capturing and sending Internet communications in real time to the law enforcement agency or another third party. This can be complicated and expensive, so it's best left to the ISP -- their network should already be CALEA-compliant.

Check with your ISP and your communications attorney to see if you could be subject to CALEA requirements.

SAFE Act
Just this week, the House of Representatives voted on legislation called the SAFE Act (Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online). While CALEA is meant to protect us from possible terrorists, SAFE is meant to protect us from kiddie porn.

Anyone providing an “electronic communication service” or “remote computing service” to the public who learns about the transmission of certain illegal activities or an illegal image must (a) register a bunch of information with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s “CyberTipline” and (b) “make a report” that must include information about the suspected person or Internet address and the illegal images themselves.
Supposedly, this bill won't require you to police your Internet, but we'll just have to wait and see how the final legislation is interpreted by the courts.

More commentary on the SAFE Act here, here and here.

Wi-Fi is a great amenity to offer -- it's become almost universally available and expected by residents. It's not going to go away anytime soon, either. However, it's increasingly becoming a requirement to outsource the service. Make sure you know what you're getting into before you hang an access point from Best Buy in your leasing office, and consider providing some basic resources about wireless security if you allow your residents to install their own access points.

You didn't really expect them to make this any easier for you, did you?

HD Ready for the Masses, But Are the Masses Ready?

High definition home theater is not quite an option for every consumer, but it is getting much closer, according to a recent report.

HDTVs with the best resolution (1080p) now start at around $1,000, and HD DVD players start at $299. As with all consumer electronics, the prices will continue to come down.

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that almost 10% of American adults plan to buy a flat-panel television this Christmas season, and 8% more said they'll go for HD during the holiday hangover clearance sales.

Here's the problem: Everyone wants a fancy new high-def television, but few people actually know how to hook them up or get HD channels on the screen.
Consumers aren't even aware of what they don't know. One survey shows that about 20% of HDTV owners in the U.S. mistakenly think they're watching high-def programming when they're not. As the Dallas Morning News reports:

Often that's because they went into a store, bought a fancy television, went home and plugged it into their regular cable outlet and assumed they were now watching high-definition programming.

"People are very interested [in HD], but we also find that people aren't quite sure what that means," said a spokesman for Panasonic. "They're not really aware of what they need to get high definition."

TV makers and retailers are working to reverse that trend, because unhappy customers generally lead to returned televisions and lost sales. Your video service providers should do the same ... education about HD services can often lead to sales of premium channel packages and other digital services.

For multifamily property owners, the key is to understand that HDTVs, and particularly flat-panel TVs, are here to stay. Help residents find a way to recycle that old tube set. Work with your service provider to let your residents know what equipment they'll need to get the services they expect.

In new buildings, plan your unit layouts accordingly -- flat TVs mean that units can potentially get smaller. In the living room, reinforce the wall at the TV location, and consider adding an extra outlet higher on the wall so residents can hang their new toy.

It looks like it's going to be another busy holiday shopping season, and electronics are at the top of many wishlists ... What else can you do over the next few months to ensure that your residents are watching the big game in style come February?

Traffic Jam: Another FCC Ruling to Watch

A company called Vuze -- a cool online video site similar to Joost -- has filed a complaint with the FCC, asking the agency to stop broadband Internet providers from blocking or slowing peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic. Depending on how this ends up, this is a bigger deal than you would think for apartments ... more on that in a minute.

Vuze uses the popular BitTorrent P2P service to distribute its videos. Their petition asks the FCC to set rules restricting 'network management' by ISPs. Vuze's filing follows recent reports that cable broadband provider Comcast is slowing some P2P traffic, including BitTorrent.

Vuze rightly claims that ISPs like Comcast sometimes slow access to P2P services like their's. One Vuze executive said, "They say that they're engaging in reasonable network management, but what they're doing is slowing down some traffic."

Here's my question: Have you ever been driving in traffic and not had to slow down at some point during your trip?
The fact is, some traffic management is necessary in multifamily communities to ensure that all residents who are trying to get online will have a reasonably good connection speed.

If the ISP doesn't manage the traffic coming and going from a building, then all of the bandwidth to that property could potentially be consumed by a few heavy users -- effectively choking off others' connections by downloading a lot of music, photos, vidoes and other large files. I wouldn't do business with an ISP that didn't have a strategy for managing P2P traffic in a densely-populated apartment community.

(While we're at it ... This is another good reason to keep security systems, surveillance cameras and other IP-based in-building communications systems off of a shared resident network. Do you really want your monitoring systems choked off by the guy upstairs downloading the complete first season of 'The Office'? Probably not.)

ISPs should not decide by themselves how to treat access to any website, including Internet-based file-sharing services. However, while I agree that large-scale content blocking should probably be prohibited, properly administered network management by the ISP is a necessary and good thing for property owners who want to ensure that everyone has a quality online experience, not just the heavy users. We'll keep you posted as this story develops...

Do you know your ISP's policy regarding peer-to-peer traffic?