Who to Follow - Lisa Trosien

If you are in the apartment industry you may have seen Lisa speak at an Apartment All-stars event or an industry convention. Online she gives even more. She writes an excellent blog that always surprises you with her insight. She helps to host the #aptchat on Friday afternoons on Twitter. She's not only extremely active on Twitter she also is super active on Facebook. How she has time to do it all is beyond me, but the articles, blog posts, and links she shares are always full of great information. I'm really excited to add her to the list as the first apartment industry person of Who to Follow. You rock Lisa!

Episode 38 - Average No More, Change Your Game

I love the "don't shoot the messenger" posts Lisa Trosien has had recently. Check them out here: Dear Onsite Staffer & Dear Mr. (or Ms.) Property Management Exec.

All excellent examples for why teams don't progress and move forward. Unfortunately, we all have different expectations of each other, but it's how we manage those expectations that affect the game in my opinion. Most people have a tendency to settle and point fingers. Either direction, this just isn't fair. It's not fair to settle for an average boss that continues to just point out your shortfalls, and it's also not fair to settle for average employees that continue to just show up and coast. The lists Lisa shared just points out complaints against the average. It's time to kill average and not accept it anymore. We must do this not by complaining about average, but by overcoming average. You're not being fair to yourself if you don't.

We all have our good days, and we all have our bad. I am not perfect, and I don't believe anyone is. I make a number of mistakes, but always strive to fix them. These are not excuses, but realities and challenges in overcoming average. I have my own shortfalls, and individually everyone else does as well. It's the choices we make to battle through those and no longer use them as excuses that push us above average.

Yes, it's difficult to consistently strive for above average, let alone remarkable, but you could argue that the reason it's difficult is because failing is uncomfortable and scary. What I'm suggesting is that to be successful you don't have an option. Discomfort and fear are no longer excuses. Average in an economy like today gets you laid off, gets your bonuses cut, and could put you out of business. Flying below the radar is no longer possible. Everyone is under a microscope. Customer service jobs are even more so under the microscope and expectations continue to rise. Multifamily is no exception and we all know it.

I get passionate about a number of things, but I believe we can all get passionate about being better people. It's your choice, it's your career. Are you going to change the game? Are you going to become a better student of the game? It's an individual choice. No one is going to make the choice for you or hold your hand and guide you through. I'm going to continue to make mistakes along the way striving for remarkable, and I hope you join me for the ride. Thank you to those that have already joined the apartment nerd ride and have shared and continue to share the messages.

Episode 36 - Something to think about

Seth Godin has a new book out, I wrote a post over at Tidbits from The Marketing Nerd, and Lisa Trosien wrote a post about how on site people view execs. It got me thinking, and I hope you think about it too.

Is Social Media Stretching You Out?

Let me preface this post by saying that I wrote about half of it a week ago and decided to sleep on it to see if I was just in a funk or if my thoughts have changed. Some recent readings have allowed me to make some revisions and additions so I can let ‘er fly. I will apologize up front for the length of the post, but it is what it is. No video this time, just The Apartment Nerd in black and white. Enjoy.

Recently I have felt super stretched for the time to dedicate to blogs, twitter, email, and just my regular job and personal life. It’s been frustrating to not read blogs that I used to somehow find time to read and comment on, and to find myself getting buried in emails that require my attention but don’t get the immediate response they probably deserve. Then, by chance, I saw a tweet this weekend by Jeremiah Owyang*. He linked to the most recent post on his Web Strategy blog speaking to the scalability of humans. While he references how difficult it is for his peers online and in the blog world to scale what they do as they grow and do more, I think we can look at this as an example for why online Social Media and Social Networking is so challenging for anyone.

A couple weeks ago Lisa Trosien had an interesting post with "Maybe It Should Really Be Called Social NOTworking?" After commenting, feeling the way I have in recent weeks, and reading Jeremiah’s post, I want to ask the question a bit differently and more in general for all business and marketing. Should it really be called Social NOTworking because people just don't have time? And I'm not just saying us as companies trying to use the tools for networking and marketing, but also as a consumer.

We know it takes time from a business perspective to participate in social media, but are we making an assumption that consumers aren’t stretched for time as well? Maybe it’s too much to participate in social media and fulfill the needs of our day jobs and personal lives? I find myself up at midnight writing things like this blog post wondering if it's just a bunch of nerds getting psyched about social media for marketing and trying to push everyone else on board. How many everyday people really have the time or desire to participate online as a hobby or even regularly? Yes, the number of accounts and the growth has been staggering, but what about the ongoing usage and the falloff? Is social media just another fad?

Are we mainly connecting with a small group of nerds that will always think it’s cool, or is social media really sticky? How many of your friends on facebook never have new status updates? How many people do you know that don't even have a facebook account and never intend to? How many of you have completely abandoned your MySpace account? How many people do you know that have created a Twitter account, but have never posted to it and most likely never will? (And one post that says “Checking out this Twitter thing” doesn’t count.) Have you read about the recent studies on Twitter usage? How much time per week would you say you "waste" using social media sites? Do you feel guilty wasting that time? As a consumer, do you engage with any brands online consistently? I’m an Internet nerd and have never used Yelp!, ever. Is there too much focus on online reviews?

I may be contradicting some of my opinions and thoughts that I shared in commenting on Lisa's post (and in my general point of view), but I'm thinking things through a bit differently and playing devil’s advocate to myself I suppose. I love the multi-family, marketing, and social media relationships I've built using Twitter, facebook and www.multifamilyinsiders.com, but I don't take any time to engage with brands like Lexus, Apple, TaylorMade Golf, HyperLite Wakeboards, Nintendo, Samsung, Taco Bell, Gatorade, Budweiser, etc. Am I fans of these brands on facebook? Maybe. But that's as far as it goes as I just don’t have time. If we ourselves are not engaging with our favorite brands, why would we think our customers would do so? And even if they do, is it sustainable?

I believe there is a niche for social media in every business’s marketing plan, and I also believe that companies can leverage these tools to build keyword rankings on search engines, provide content for their brand, and communicate with customers. Let’s just not lose sight that there is a total plan and that there are many pieces to the puzzle that we still don’t do well in our industry as a whole. Email being one example. Heck, most statistics will tell us that just answering the phone is a challenge.

Unfortunately, I view social media as more of a challenge than a solution today in marketing apartments as well. It is a challenge as it fights for time with the phone, email, and good old face to face communication. It is also a challenge in that our customers face the same battle for time as we do in using the tools. Until social media tools can be used to consistently SAVE people time, I believe its best use is to enhance search engine optimization for a company and/or communities. There are exceptions to the rule, but I think those exceptions are rare and have not experienced the scalability challenges Jeremiah suggests in his post. I’m sure there will be an evolution in social media that addresses the issue of time and scalability, but until then I’m not certain the majority of consumers and businesses will completely embrace the tools available as we see them today. Thus, Social NOTworking.

*(If you’re not familiar with Jeremiah Owyang visit his blog with one of the links above or visit the NAA Education Conference website to learn more about him and his participation in the upcoming panel discussion on Social Media with Tony Tsieh - CEO of Zappos.com, Pete Flint - Founder of Trulia.com, and Moderator, Eric Wu - Co-Founder of RentWiki.com at next week’s conference in Las Vegas.)

Episode 6 -Twitter #AptChat

I know, it's crazy! Two posts in one week, but I had to do it. @LisaTrosien is rockin' it with her Friday #AptChat on Twitter. While I have yet to be able to participate, I like to go back in and read through the stream. This last Friday was all about Twitter and using in to market your properties or management companies. I have a few thoughts on the topic and would love to know your opinion as well. You may want to read this article as well for some food for thought.

I look forward to someday participating in one of these #aptchat sessions, but 4 on a Friday in the summer is tough. We'll see. So here's my thoughts on one particular aspect of the chat and I also pose a question to everyone in regards to being or not being on Twitter. Enjoy!