This document provides an agenda for a social media training session focused on using social media to stretch marketing dollars. The agenda includes sections on finding your inner social media ninja, implementing trends and techniques across various social channels, actions that can be taken today, and valuable links and resources. The training will help attendees learn social media strategies and tips that can be implemented on a low budget.
High Impact on a Low Budget: Using Social Media to Stretch Your Marketing Dollars!
1. Ansley Sudderth
Social Media Training
& Communications
Coordinator
High Impact on a Low Budget:
Using Social Media to Stretch Your Marketing
Dollars
2.
3. • Find Your Inner Social Media Ninja!
• Implementing Trends and Techniques
• Social Channels
• What You Can Do Today!
• Valuable Links
• Q&A
Agenda
44. WhatYou Can DoToday
• Work smarter, not harder!
• Conduct an audit of your budget.
• Compare your marketing costs against the
benefits.
• Tweak accordingly!
46. • October Social Media Training Calendar:
http://bit.ly/SocialMediaTrainingCal
• #MyAptView Contest:
http://bit.ly/MyAptViewContest
• Build a budget-friendly 2014!:
http://bit.ly/FRMSDiscover
Valuable Links
Hi everyone, I’m AnsleySudderth, Social media training and communications coordinator with For Rent Media Solutions. Thanks for joining me today. Today we are going to cover a topic that most of you can relate. It’s answering the question, how do I get the biggest bang out of my marketing bucks? So before we get started, we are using the hashtag #FRMSChat on twitter so if you have any feedback, questions or maybe some insight, feel free to use the hashtag and one randomly selected person will receive a $20 gift card! And we’ll announce the winner at the end of the webinar so hangout with us! Before I go over our agenda, I want to explain why we talk about social media every month…
If you’re not familiar with FRSocial, please get with your For Rent account rep but FRSocial is a rich suite of tools exclusive to For Rent customers only. FRSocial is a social media solution made easy. FRSocialExpert concentrates on management, advertising, listening and education – saving you time and making social marketing easy. The package includes tools designed to enhance audience engagement and improve your online reputation, driving more leads to you. FRSocial positions you to gain a competitive edge by utilizing social media for your brand. This is WHY we touch on social media every month. The goal is to onboard and train you on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, etc. so that you are well equipped to use FRSocial at its optimal capacity. So again if you are interested in learning more about becoming an FRSocial Expert customer, get with your For Rent rep and we can set up a quick demo for you.
First, I’m going to show you how to channel you inner social media ninja, then we will take about implementing cost saving trends and techniques and I’ll explain which social channels offer some great and free tools. We will tweet out a few valuable links so be on the lookout, then we’ll wrap things up with any Q&A. I also want to remind you that there are two ways you can ask questions and share feedback. The first way is by using the GoTo Webinar questions box. I can see those questions come in in real time and will most likely answer them on the spot. The second option is for you folks following along on Twitter. Our FRSocial expert is interacting with you right now if you’re using the hashtag but after we conclude the webinar, I will be jumping on Twtter as @AptsForRent to answer any other questions you may have!
It’s time to do a little role play my friends. Believe it or not each of you has an inner social media ninja just waiting to make a debut!
Stretching your marketing dollars is all about being crafty and stealthy when it comes to social media. It’s also about knowing what you can do on your own and what you can’t afford to do on your own. It’s about evaluating your surroundings (in our case, the social arena) and making adjustments to acclimate. When I think of this type of mind set, I think of the characteristics of a Ninja. A Ninja is always timely, always is anticipating the next move, and is constantly mastering his or her craft.
First, you must ensure you have the right tools to be a savvy and effective marketer.
This means that conducting an audit is necessary to know what’s lacking in your marketing tool belt. By conducting an audit, you’ll also uncover certain unnecessary services that may be draining your marketing spend.
As many of us know, budget season is in full effect andnow is the time to re-evaluate your marketing plan to ensure that you are maximizing those budgeting dollars! For Rent Media Solutions™ offers product enhancements that will help you reach more renters and stay ahead of your competitors in 2014 while being friendly to your budget!We all could benefit from tools that offer more traffic and boost retention right?! Of course! Well, you can discover more about these product enhancements from For Rent Media Solutions by visiting http://bit.ly/FRMSDiscover or contacting your local For Rent rep today for more information!
Once you’ve conducted an audit and have uncovered the things that are draining your marketing budget and have replaced them with tools that are within your budget, it’s time to build up that marketing flexibility and agaility.
Think of the way a ninja moves in the shadows. Envision how reactive you must be online! As the person in charge of social media and the budget, the worst thing you can do to your brand is to be stagnant with the products and services you use. What may have worked 5 years ago more than likely won’t work in today’s social space.
Take on an unconventional way of thinking. This is going to free up the monotony and allow you to shift from a traditional mode of marketing.
I challenge you to be a marketer who lives outside of the box! Sure, it may be a little scary at first but the only thing that’s holding you back are those old marketing strategies that ate up your budget and gave you a horrible ROI! After all, who created the proverbial box anyway?!
Not quite sure how to market outside of the box? Implementing marketing trends yourself is a great way to begin to see results and save a dollar. In marketing, it’s all about working smarter, not harder.
Often, we tend to overcomplicate our marketing initiatives which in turn, drain our budget. One way to avoid that from happening is by simplifying the process by executing grass roots effort you can handle on your own.
One of the ways you can do that is by using cross promotions to promote your brand. Cross-promotion may involve two or more companies working together in promoting a service or product, in a way that benefits both.
When you partner up with a local business, it’s one of the most symbiotic ways to bring recognition to your brand while officering some type of incentive to residents and prospects.
I have yet to see a property connect with the local food trucks in their city and invite them to be part of a cross promotional campaign that allows residents to taste food from the local vendors. Implementing a cross promotional plan like this requires more heavy lifting on the part of the food trucks because all you need to do is promote the event.
This is an example of a shopping center in Atlanta that hosts a weekly event called ‘Food Truck Fridays”. The turn out is incredible, the brand promotion is highly visible and the word of mouse is exponential.
Providing an experience like food truck Friday for your residents not only helps promote your brand for free, it converts hungry residents into full, satisfied brand ambassadors!
To piggyback on the cross promotions trend, creating a referral campaign can be great for your marketing budget because it gives you a large return for a small investment.
When you tell a resident that they can receive a prize for spreading the word about your property to their apartment hunting friends, that gives them a challenge and a call to act.
If you can dish out $500 for a return of a signed 12 month lease, that’s definitely going to benefit or marketing spend and keep you in the green.
Create cards or flyers to hand out to your residents when they come into the office. If it’s not in your budget to print out the collateral, take the same image and share it on Instagram and Facebook!
What better way to gain insight on the wants and needs of your resident than by conducting a survey?
You may think it costs money to run a survey but there are tools out there like Survey Monkey that will uncover the wants and needs of your residents just as well as paying vendor who provides this kind of service.
This is an example of a property who loaded the Survey Monkey app to their Facebook page. Residents can fill out the survey through the Facebook app and the answers provide important insights to property management.
After you run the survey, you can repackage the insights that you gain and turn that info into marketing tools like an infographic.
Adding a survey app to your Facebook Timeline not only saves money but it communicates to your residents that you are actively listening.
Your property’s social presence can be built and maintained with as little as 10 minutes a day believe it or not. By taking social management into your own hands, you not only control your brand messaging, you create a direct line to your audience.
With all of the social channels out there, it can be a bit tricky figuring out which channel is a right fit for your property.
Facebook is probably one of the most crucial social networks to be on just because it’s currently the most popular and heavily used social site according to Statista. Facebook ‘Offers’Optimize your profileConsider Edge Rank and Facebook Graph Search factors for Facebook’s algorithm Run contestsInclude photosCreate ‘Events’Use Facebook Insights to measure your success
From a marketing standpoint, the tools Facebook offers are extremely informational in terms of audience demographic and content breakdown. Facebook Insights is a free feature within Facebook that helps you pin point what content is getting high numbers of engagement and who it’s appealing to in your audience.
Instagram eliminates the need to pay for a graphic designer because you can take your community photos and create visually engaging photos and now 15 second videos with the touch of a button.
As you know almost all social networks use hashtags to segment photos, videos and other content. If you are looking for an easy way to see which hashtags are currently popular and trending, tagboard is a platform that serves up a custom experience to the user regarding the hashtags of interest.
Speaking of hashtags, We want to know if your residents have community spirit!From September 23rdto October 22nd, your community and your residents will be eligible to enter the ForRent.com® #MyAptViewInstagram® Contest. ForRent.com wants to see your community through the eyes of your residents with photos and videos of their apartment community. Indoor and outdoor photos are welcome. The community with the most photo and video entries will win a pizza party worth up to $500 for the whole community! In the event there is a tie, a winner will be randomly selected. Here’s how to sign up your community: Fill out a short form to opt in, we will be sharing the link with those of you on the twitter chat now. After you’ve filled out the form,Check your email & print out flyer (IMPORTANT: This flyer will have a unique hashtag specific to your community)Share with your residents and spread the word! Your residents will also be eligible to win up to $350 if they are chosen as an individual winner. Encourage residents to participate in the #MyAptView Contest by reminding them to use your community’s hashtag to win. For complete contest details, be sure to check blog.ForRent.com for updates. Best of luck!
We’re seeing marketers for big brands use Pinterest as a vessel to generate leads. We’re seeing pinners write captions with strategically placed key words and hashtags that help with search engine optimization and findability. We’re seeing brands with blogs, websites and videos pin with links that drive directly to that blog or website. Also, Pinterest is a great way to engage in a dialogue with other pinners and prospects.
Also, Pinterest has introduced a new side best known as Pinterest for business. With this, you have access to learn the basics on how to pin from an SEO and marketing perspective. You also have insight to case studies of brands and verticals who are making their mark and…
Like with Facebook, Pinterest has its own free web analytics at your finger tips so that you’re able to better monitor the impressions and reach of your pinning activity.
Analytics are useful when you’re needing to track how many impression your pinning activity is garnering and this is essential when you are trying to get to know your audience and boost engagement.
Flipboard is a great marketing tool for finding relevant content. It’s similar to a virtual magazine so when you’re in need of fresh, timely content, go to flipbaord. You can use that content to create a Facebook post to load into the FRSocial Social Management dashboard and post in real time or schedule it out for the future.
Bitly is a great tool that not only shortens your links, but offers great analytics and stats which allows you to see click counts for all bitly links saved in the past 30 days. You’ll see the total number of saves on bitly and total clicks the link has generated.
Woobox is a service that varies from free to paid. The free version of woobox offers a surprisingly sleek function which lets you integrate your Pinterest account into Facebook as an app as well as an Instagram app. If you are on Pinterest or Instagram and want to promote that brand presence through Facebook, Woobox allows you to do that pretty seamlessly.
Here are some tips you can put into play today…
Considering how much ground we’ve covered today, you can’t leave without some valuable links right?
We’ve tweeted most of these during the session so make sure you go to Twitter to get the links. We will also share these with you now. Use these resources to get help you craft your marketing budget for 2014.
At this time, I’m happy to take any questions you may have. As question start to come in, we are going to get ready to announce moment you’ve been waiting for!
While questions are coming in, If you want to check out any upcoming webinars feel free to visit the Social Media Training cal as it’s updated monthly. The link to that is bit.ly/SocialMediaTrainingCal
Upon your exit, we will have a quick list of questions for you that will ask you about the legal questions and hang ups you face in the social space. I’m excited to share that next month, we will have Nadeen Green joining as a guest to talk about mitigating your social media risk. Nadeen serves as Senior Legal Counsel for For Rent Media Solutions but you may know her as the Fair Housing Lady. So this questionnaire is crucial to provide you the answers that are frequently asked regarding this topic.
Before we close, let’s announce today’s winner! The winner is… Congrats and thanks for participating on Twitter. If you would, please DM us your info and eel will get your giftcard in the mail!
Thanks to all of you who are listening. We hope you can find you inner social media ninja and find unconventional ways to make your marketing dollars work for you! Make sure you follow and Like us on our social channels, we absolutely love interacting with you!