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Apartments.0: Is Social Media Really the Future of Multifamily?

By Sule Aygoren Carranza

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There’s no denying we’re living in a digital age. These days, people are more likely to communicate via text messages, email and Facebook before they pick up a phone. And while the real estate industry is notoriously behind the ball when it comes to technology, those in the multifamily business are making a pretty good effort to keep up with the times.

Over the past few years, the apartment business has embraced social media. The Internet is now not only being used as a marketing tool, but also as a way to maintain a dialogue with residents and even to conduct property management. Just about every major apartment firm has some sort of a presence online, be it a resident portal through which maintenance requests and rent payments are made, or a full-blown Facebook page and Twitter account.

It only makes sense; after all, the demographic most likely to rent is also most likely to be tapped into technology. Add to that busy work schedules, and it becomes even more understandable for tenants to want a way to access their property managers at any time of the day. (I don’t live in an apartment, just a townhouse now, but even I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was when our HOA organization and property management company decided to start using email more often!)

As much as social media and networking is being touted, however, how much of an impact is it really having? Is an online presence something residents look for when seeking an apartment? Has it helped attract and retain tenants? Made operations more efficient?

Anecdotally, most folks you speak with will say yes, of course, and launch into examples of how their company is using the inter-webs. But I’ve been hard-pressed to find anyone who can actually say it’s provided significant value or upside to their business.

You may remember J Turner Research last summer released the findings of a survey on social media use among apartment residents. The results were interesting. Although the majority of residents of conventional apartments and student housing use social networking websites (69% and 90% of residents, respectively, had Facebook accounts), most of them really didn’t care as to whether their apartment community was online.

When asked how important an apartment community’s social networking page is for communication, on a scale of 0 (not at all important) to 10 (very important), just 7% of respondents marked the latter. Two-thirds of those living in conventional units and 56% of student housing residents ranked the importance as five or under. In fact, 93% of apartment residents, and 60% of students, have never even visited any community’s social networking page on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and the like.

And among the communities that have an active online presence, 39% indicated that it had no impact on their properties and 12% weren’t sure of the impact.

Have those numbers caused multifamily companies to reconsider their positions or approach to social networking? Or is it just too early to fully gauge the impact of such tools? Will it eventually become an indispensable part of doing business, or will it end up being a waste of time and resources? Where do you see it headed?

(To search across all ALM blogs, go to www.Lexis.com.)