Last modified on January 5th, 2016
By Alexis Hammond

If you want to drive more traffic to your property management website, and generate more social buzz, you’ll need rich, engaging visuals – photos, infographics, videos.

Not sure how to use visual content to connect with apartment seekers and property owners? Here are four tips to help you achieve your business goals and attract more interest to your properties.

Align Business Objectives with Visual Content

In a social network-driven world, it isn’t enough to post high-quality photos and videos. You have to create appealing, shareable content.  Before you post to Instagram, YouTube or Pinterest, consider how your audience will search and find your message. Identifying which channels are most likely to amplify your content is crucial.

Virtual tours allow you to showcase floorplans, amenities and community features. Use these tips to help you create a winning YouTube video campaign.

• While visuals boost your search ranking, organic YouTube videos don’t typically garner as much traffic as paid services and native ranking.
• If your objective is to build awareness, devote extra time to creating sharable, relatable content.
• If your objective is to share information, improve customer experience or build a better relationship with existing customers, focus on benefits.
• Visuals are easy to digest, but text still matters. Videos are indexed on search engines by titles, descriptions and headlines. Use keywords and tags to your advantage.
• Post a summary of your video under the YouTube “Show More” fold that highlights key points.

Give Social Influencers What They Need

Journalists and bloggers are always on the prowl for sharable content to attract more readers to their websites. If you want to capitalize on “free buzz,” make sure your visual content makes it easy for social influencers.

You can do this by creating visual content that meets platform requirements. Use landscape mode for YouTube videos and check Facebook image requirements. The easier it is to share your content, the higher your return on investment. The time you spend discovering how to create sharable content for diverse platforms will come back to you many times over in the form of expanding your reach.

Don’t be Afraid to use Free Tools and New Techniques

If you can afford a professional photographer or videographer, great! If not, take advantage of free creation tools like Piktochart that allow you to create engaging infographics. Have some experience with editing software? Consider tilt-shoot photography techniques that create a miniaturized effect. Take property photos at night or after a heavy snowfall to create stunning images that trigger an emotional response.

One unique way to use visuals to engage current residents and capture content for your property management website at the same time is to photograph residents having a great time attending a community gathering. Read more about incorporating this strategy here.

Remember Your B2B Partnerships

Your property management website is a valuable tool for attracting high-quality residents and building brand awareness. But, don’t let your business partnerships go unattended. If you aren’t already using SlideShare for visual content, you should, especially if your property management company has a blog.

Why? According to marketing experts from Artillery, companies who publish blogs have 434% more indexed pages than companies who don’t. And, content management is one of the most valuable benefits for SlideShare users. SlideShare draws some 60 million visitors per month, and most of these viewers are business owners.

So, what do you think? Are you ready to take your visual content efforts to the next level? Tell us about your experiences with visual content and property management branding in the comment section.