Last modified on October 8th, 2018
By Stephanie Vernon

With our co-hosts Grace Hill and NAA, we hosted an informative webinar titled “Local Social Media Is Your Competitive Advantage” featuring Charity Zierten, Social Media Marketing Expert.

Charity is a fantastic presenter and this webinar was fully packed with several tips and ideas of ways you can optimize your local presence on social networks to drive more traffic to your website and online communities.

Watch the recording to learn tons of tips on how you can attract and retain residents by amplifying your local reach through social media networks. Attendees learned that being local is about educating potential prospects and current residents.

Here are some interesting highlights from the webinar:

• 78% of people who search locally on their phone make a purchase
• 20% of searches are local searches. Searching on-the-go is a hot trend right now and nearly 86 million people access local business information on a mobile phone.
• 70% call a business after searching, 66% visit a businesses after searching. This means you need to be available when people are looking for you and answer your phone.
• Google + posts are crawled and indexed almost immediately unlike other social media platforms.
• Pinterest drives the second most traffic to businesses, first is Facebook.

Check out the recorded webinar and slides below to learn even more.

Video

Slides

Q and A:

How do I change the phone # on google maps for my business? Okay, so this will depend on if you’re using your phone app or a computer. If you’re using a computer, this link to Google Business is a great starting point for all things Google! If you’re using a mobile app, there is an option to “Report a problem.” Anyone can report if a business has permanently closed, has an incorrect name, address or phone number or if the map marker is incorrect.

Would choosing an actual face for our community profile be a Fair Housing issue? Not at all! In fact, rotate the images regularly for employee of the month or use multiple faces within the profile if you have concerns. As long as you treat Facebook as you would any other marketing and/or advertising, you are covered. That said, it couldn’t hurt to add a Fair Housing logo to the image and get a model release form signed from anyone who has an image on your company presences.

Can you give an example of anchor text? Certainly! When writing a blog post don’t use terms like “Click Here” and then hyperlink back to your website. This is a blog I write for one of my clients, Trinity Property Consultants. Notice how I used the text “Trinity Property Consultants” to actually link to their website? That is anchor text. Feel free to browse their blog for more content ideas!

How much does Facebook charge to run Facebook ad? This is going to vary. You can start with as low as $5-$10 for sponsored posts, to get the hang of it before you dive into the real advertising! This presentation about Facebook ads for AppFolio and Grace Hill in August 2012 is a little outdated, but it may help you get a handle on ads.

How do you make a Facebook page for your property? This webinar about setting up Facebook from AppFolio and Grace Hill is from July 2011, but the basics are still the same.

Do you have a beginner social marketing class? Absolutely! Reach out via email at charity@sociallyengagedmarketing.com to learn about the training options available for your organization.

Can you touch real quickly on setting up auto posts on Facebook? I love the Facebook scheduler! Sometimes it doesn’t work though, like this past Monday when Facebook was having issues. I prefer to use the actual Facebook scheduler for updates. Although it has been said there is no preferential treatment for those using the Facebook scheduler over those using a posting tool, like Buffer or Hootsuite, I tend to believe all companies favor their own tools. Try not to schedule too far ahead – this will prevent you from appearing insensitive during a national crisis like the Boston Bombing.

What is the best way to manage social marketing from a portfolio/regional manager standpoint? Do you know of/see any great platforms for this? There are so many and the right tool usually depends on the budget. Cheaper solutions include Hootsuite and more expensive solutions include Hearsay Social. I highly recommend Hearsay Social for larger property management groups.

In Facebook does it effect the searches if you are part of a managed page? What I think you’re asking is if the results you view are based on your page administration rights. Yes, absolutely! When attempting to research how others are viewing the results in search, try to borrow a phone and ask a friend to let you observe as they search.

How can we have our residents engage more on our Facebook page? Share content worth liking, commenting and most importantly – sharing. Promoted posts, contests, and incentives do help. It is unfortunate that businesses have afforded the expense to expand their fan base and now have to pay to reach those fans within the News Feed. If 20% of your fans even see your content without ads, I would be surprised and call your efforts a success.

How & where to find local listserves? Believe it or not, the best results may come from searching Google using keywords and phrases like “listserve in City Name”. For example, this website about a Colorado local food community is using a Listserve as is this Art Community in Atlanta. The release of Google’s new Hummingbird update should provide you with local search results.

For those who don’t know what this means, a ListServe is a mailing list system. When a group of people with a common interest want to share and receive information without the hassle of collecting information and generating email newsletters, they form a ListServe community. This allows people to join and share without a human administrator and/or moderator, thereby reducing time and effort.

How do you get a review removed that’s incorrect? This is tricky. It depends on the platform and what is meant by incorrect. This is a great reputation management question though! You can learn more about reputation management on this webinar for AppFolio from 2012.