Social media plays a significant role in modern rental property marketing.
It is increasingly important to develop a brand for your business, or a sense of who you are and what your values and goals are. Prospective renters will assess your branding along with your content to determine if you are a credible and trustworthy place to rent housing.
Landlords have varying levels of experience with social media marketing—some are new to every platform, while others feel comfortable engaging with a variety of content on many platforms.
No matter how experienced you are with social media, you can learn to leverage it to gain traction for your properties around your area.
Here are a few simple steps to starting a rental marketing campaign on social media.
Choose a Platform
The first step to successfully marketing your properties on social media is to choose a platform.
Each platform has a different audience and user base. By understanding your target audience, you can determine where they are and be there too.
Rather than trying to develop content for three or four platforms, it’s best to stick to one or two that you know your target audience use.
For example, if you’re aiming to attract student or Gen Z renters, try focusing on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube.
If you’re more interested in Millennial renters, you’ll probably find them on Instagram and YouTube alongside their younger counterparts. However, you should also check Facebook and LinkedIn.
Provide Valuable Content
Once you’ve chosen a platform, you need content to post. One strategy for content creation is to discover what is important to your target renters and advertise that.
For instance, suppose you ask your residents what attracted them to your properties. If you find out that many of your most reliable tenants were drawn to the location, a certain amenity, or the quiet community, advertise these aspects in your posts.
Don’t post just to post—make sure you are providing something engaging and useful to renters when you use social media. The most successful posts are brief, authentic, and transparent.
Use Visuals
You can’t use social media without photographs and videos.
Because social media platforms are multimodal, it’s important to post visual content. This could include photos of your properties, graphics, virtual tours, or pictures from resident events.
Photos and videos of the units you post should be accurate representations of your properties. Use professional equipment if you have it, pay attention to natural light, and do some light editing to adjust brightness and contrast before posting.
If you want to give renters a truly immersive experience, try creating virtual tours. These can be prerecorded or professionally designed with 3D virtual tour software. Any visual content that allows users to explore your properties is bound to boost engagement.
Consider Digital Management Resources
You may find that generating new content and staying active on social media is too much to juggle with your regular landlord responsibilities.
If so, consider using a social media management tool. Tools like Hootsuite and Buffer allow you to schedule posts, view metrics, and track your engagement on social media over time. Although premium plans usually charge a fee, you can do a lot with a free plan and a few social media platforms.
Another tip is to interlink your social media feeds with your company website and property management software. Interlinking is a great way to get renters from your landing page to your social media pages and vice versa.
Both social media management tools and property management software are excellent ways to organize your social media habits and track growth over time.
Conclusion
Understanding social media might seem like an impossible task when platforms and user bases are constantly changing. However, by investing a small amount of time into developing one or two social media profiles, you can build your brand and attract many new applicants to your properties.
