Social media is vital to multifamily brands, but it takes a pro behind the wheel to drive your brand towards the best results. While most people understand the value of social media, they don’t understand the level of work that goes into creating and executing a successful strategy. We see this as one of the most important parts of any marketing plan, and for clients like Novel at Bishop Arts, it’s our job to make sure they’re at the top of their game.

The Challenge

Novel at Bishop Arts had a unique challenge — simultaneously hire and train new staff, market the property on social media, and meet lease-up goals. To add to the equation, Bishop Arts is a highly competitive and growing area with a truly distinct personality. Nestled in this unique neighborhood full of quirky people and places, Novel’s online presence needed to fit the niche culture and artistic vibe.

MMC needed to find a way to balance the management workload and develop a process that would allow the leasing team to post on-brand and beautiful content. For staff unfamiliar with our design and marketing methods, empowering them to independently create work consistent with ours posed a challenge. However, their intimate understanding of customers, the area, and the property was a strength we could build on.

The Plan

Our strategy began with the delivery of a comprehensive social media marketing game plan, along with monthly social media content that the Novel team could easily execute while also juggling the management of a new property.

Additionally, we wanted to equip the leasing staff with the tools they needed to write their own posts and make graphics that matched the developed aesthetic. In order to fully coordinate this cohesive and in-depth approach, we created a complete set of social media guidelines. This included:

• Detailed social media brand standards, in line with overall brand
• Prescriptive social media strategies for suggested platforms
• Content calendar, including optimal times to post on each platform
• Visual examples of on-brand post
• Social influencer and engagement recommendations
• Story/highlight tips and optimization ideas
• Graphic template quick-tools for on-site staff to quickly create on-brand posts

For Novel’s voice, they had previously established a strong personality in their website copy and collateral. Expanding on this strong base, we pulled together a quippy voice that would accurately reflect Novel’s personality and attract the fun, quirky residents they were looking for. This required an authentic tone to convey an attainable good life, without coming across as forced or sales-driven.

Using this voice, our goal was to create content that would show off the property best. By developing a formula to balance posts about the neighborhood, events in the area, the property itself, and inspiration, we targeted what readers respond to the strongest and painted a holistic picture of the community. We were not just selling a property, but an entire lifestyle. This expressed the excitement that came from the entire experience of being in the heart of Bishop Arts.

With a firm strategy and process set in place, we effectively moved into a monthly maintenance stage in which we create content regularly. When creating actual content, we started by choosing subjects that would be relevant to that particular month, and working with the community in Bishop Arts to share upcoming and important events. Our plan allowed for us to create a set number of posts, with the rest drafted by Novel’s on-site staff to share on-the-fly. As part of the collaboration, we tap into Novel’s staff’s insight each month for subject matter that MMC can then develop, while also strategizing more content on our own.

Despite being in the middle of construction, Novel had an arsenal of high-quality, professionally shot neighborhood photos. This shoot used human models to bring the neighborhood spaces to life. Using these in the first few months helped us to put their best foot forward, filling in the gaps with beautiful stock images when needed. As construction rolled along, more photo shoots produced great shots of the apartments and finished social spaces, letting us expand into more visual and visceral promotions of the building itself.

The Results

Since implementing a social media strategy, Novel has increased their following on Facebook and Instagram, and is already seeing an increase in the number of new residents. In just a few months since implementing our strategy, Novel’s Facebook followers have doubled and through building up their Instagram following, engagement there increased more than 200% on average.

In addition to seeing an uptick in their following, Novel’s staff now has an easy and effective strategy for not only approving and sharing our posts, but creating their own consistent content as well. This keeps their feeds busy and active with tons of timely posts.

Crafting a social media plan is one of our favorite projects, and we love when clients embrace professional-quality social media as a key tool in their marketing strategy. More and more, audiences rely on getting their information from social media, so having great content is absolutely vital to earning the exposure you are looking for, as well as creating a real relationship with your audience. If people like your content, they will continue interacting and engaging with it.

Visit @novelbishoparts on Insta to see it in action!

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