While it remains to be seen whether or not Google+ will be able to compete directly with Facebook or even last into 2012 (after their initial mass-joining, their momentum seems to have decreased by quite a bit), for the time being we are joining the bandwagon. Why should you join us?

1. SEO

As TechCrunch posted on Monday, “is a lot like Facebook Pages, but there’s one major difference: Google is baking some elements of Google+ Pages deep into its bread-and-butter search product.” Simply put, as we’ve always suspected with Facebook and Twitter, social affirmations (or Plus 1′s in this case) might very well be directly correlated with search results.

2. Direct Connect

Advanced Google queries have allowed a ‘+’ for years, to add a specific term to search results. However, now it seems that an individual searching can add +MyNewPlace or +Muppets (etc) into their search window, which will immediately add these terms to their Circles. This means they will receive updates and information in their individual news feeds automatically. This feature seems a bit comparable to a Twitter instant follow. Enabling this feature requires linking your Google+ page to your home page – Google+ will walk you through the process once you create your page.

3. Another Social Sharing Platform

Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube seem to have staying power…MySpace…not so much. If Google+ does stick around, its enhanced SEO and consumer-connect aspects seem worth the early investment. Those of us who have been paying attention to social media for the last decade or so have learned that early adopters often experience greater success than those late to the party. It takes a minimal investment to get involved now, giving it a chance seems worthwhile.

Questions? Comments? Doubts? We’d love to hear from you – here, or on our Google+ page

As a picture is worth a thousand words, let’s start there:

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo, Profile Re-Arrangement

(please click the image for a bigger size and less compression!)

This is the new Facebook ‘cover image’ (the huge one of my dog, Leroy) along with a smaller ‘profile picture’ which automatically imports from your current profile picture. As you can see, instead of left side tabs now your ‘Friends’, ‘Photos’, ‘Map’, and ‘Likes’ are buttons on top. Also important are the dates on the top right – they are clickable links that help you go directly to different periods on your timeline.

Next Up: Status Update Change and Life Event Icons

Status updates work much as before and can be found directly below the cover image and profile picture. Not the tiny, unfamiliar icons to the right of the familiar Facebook functions. It turns out these are here to help you retroactively fill in your timeline so it more accurately reflects a natural progression of your life’s events. In this way, Facebook Timeline becomes much like a scrapbook for helping you cobble together your memories, pictures, friendships, and life events. Each icon opens a drop-down menu to a series of suggestions and then an open ended entry link, as shown below:

Activity Listed In A Two-Column Format, Persistent ‘Ticker’ and Chat Availability Window On Right

(please click the image for a bigger size and less compression!)

Your ‘up to the minute’ activity ticker remains on the right, as in the new Facebook page design, and so does your chat availability. Your status updates, link shares, friends’ comments, and other information you upload to Facebook appears in a two-column format with endless scrolling capability (back until the day you were born). It’s all there- depending on how much information you personally choose to share. Facebook has also seriously upgraded/improved its privacy settings to help keep personal stuff on tight lock down!

When will this be available for your personal and fan page?

You can already activate your timeline if you are willing to go through about an 8-step process intended for developers. There is a great step-by-step guide at Mashable here. Not interested in becoming a Facebook developer but want to know when Timeline will be available for the general public to opt-in?  Mashable has the answer to this too:  Stefan Parker, Facebook UI Engineer on Quora, said “We are aiming to start letting users opt into Timeline in the next two to four weeks. There is no set date though.”

What does Facebook timeline mean for Multifamily?

As the ever prescient Brent Williams over at MFInsiders observed, “…the new Timeline… is a beautiful creation that shows the entire history of a user…  Whereas posts before tended to get lost after a few days, the new timeline encourages users to fill out their entire life on Facebook…(and) any post by your fans have a much longer lifespan.  But the posts that show up on the timeline don’t tend to be posts your fans made on your page, but rather status updates, pictures, videos, etc on their own profile, as well as app-related posts.  Therefore, if a fan posts something on your page, the long-term benefit won’t change, BUT if a fan posts a picture of one of your resident events on their profile, that picture will show forever in a pretty powerful way.”

Have questions or want clarifications? We’d love to hear from you – here or on our Facebook page!

Today Multifamily Technology Solutions, parent company of MyNewPlace.com announced RentEngine Marketing Solutions, a family of smart, easy and complete marketing services and tools designed for the multifamily industry.  RentEngine provides a full suite of web marketing services – including websites with search engine optimization services, property distribution and posting, social marketing services, lead tracking, and marketing spend analytics.  RentEngine solutions will enable customers to generate leads more cost effectively through a combination of expertise and technology. You can read on or watch a brief and fun tutorial right here!

RentEngine (watch video)

Less Technology Hassle, More Results. Property Management Companies face a bewildering and growing number of internet and mobile marketing opportunities.  Taking advantage of these opportunities today requires a number of skill sets that are difficult and expensive to develop and manage internally.  RentEngine Marketing Solutions addresses those needs with a set of comprehensive programs, which require fewer in-house skills and less in-house work:

• Property Website Marketing – including website design and hosting, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click search engine marketing campaigns (SEM), and Place page setup & optimization – for both desktop computers and mobile devices.

• Social Marketing – including Facebook & Twitter page set-up, search widgets, posting campaigns.

• Social Reputation Monitoring – including reviews from ApartmentRatings.com, Yelp, Google Places and other key review sites.

• Listing Distribution – marketing of properties to visitors on a wide range of web sites.

• Craigslist Marketing – Campaign set-up services including writing and template design, and tune-up services designed to optimize Craigslist results while remaining fully compliant with Craigslist terms of use.

• “True Cost” Marketing Spend Analysis – a new service and product already used by over 1,000 properties to learn the true cost of each lease by marketing channel.

Deep Industry Knowledge and Experience. The RentEngine marketing service team is lead by the folks who built MyNewPlace.com into a leading ILS through cost-effective internet marketing.  The team is skilled at multifamily marketing, internet marketing, and leading edge technology development.  The RentEngine marketing optimization process is based on years of metrics-driven optimization and a track record of continually lowering traffic costs.  Metrics-driven optimization relies on consumer behavior data – and results – as opposed to opinion and guesswork.

Exclusive Ability to Leverage Commercial ILS Platform and Traffic. RentEngine Marketing Solutions are based on statistically proven designs tested on MyNewPlace.com’s 4 million monthly visitors.  Plus, RentEngine solutions leverage the same high speed infrastructure, resulting in faster websites, mobile sites, and landing pages – which improve conversion rates.  (See:  MyNewPlace Is Fastest Apartment Website According to Google’s New Page Speed Tool).
Comprehensive, Multifamily-designed Technology. The new RentEngine Marketing Center is designed to drive quantitative marketing benchmarks out of the box by building on top of a rich, multifamily specific data model and proven campaign and channel tracking techniques.  The RentEngine Marketing Center supports:

• A Unified Dashboard – A web-based dashboard brings together campaign tools, campaign monitoring, channels, and lead management. Marketing Center has a multi-faceted design, suitable for both regional/corporate marketing professionals and property managers/leasing agents. This makes it easy to see what’s happening at anytime.

• Unlimited “Channels” (sources) – RentEngine manages leads from channels including ILSs (like Rent.com, MyNewPlace.com, etc.), Craigslist, property websites, social channels (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), free distribution networks (like Vast, HotPads, etc.), and even print channels (signage, printed brochures, etc.).

• Campaign Tracking – Enables tracking of various campaigns across supported channels. Provides an easy method to see all active marketing at a glance.

• Lead Management – The RentEngine Lead Manager supports managing leads from multiple sources with phone lead recording, email response generation, lead alerts, and lead activity reporting.

• Community Websites, Mobile Portal and Resident Portals – Complete website solutions designed for high conversion rates.

• Craigslist Posting – Campaign design, development, management and optimization with a complete Posting Suite

• TrueCost^TM Marketing Spend Reporting – Unique to RentEngine is the ability to track leads by channel and actual cost through to leases in your Property Management System.

“RentEngine Marketing Solutions represent a leap forward in providing customers with the power of analytic marketing in the real estate world,” said John Helm, president and CEO of Multifamily Technology Solutions.  “I’ve met with hundreds of property marketers who struggle with the complexity of marketing through dozens of different channels and trying to leverage site staff as a marketing arm.  Now we can provide a complete solution to those marketers.”

Twitter Instant Follow

Earlier this month, Twitter debuted its ‘Instant Follow’ button – which you can stick right on your webpage and amass followers with one click. (Previously, potential followers had to click a link TO your Twitter page and then click another button to follow you). Seems obvious, right? But it was a long time coming! If you are already in the habit of communicating important information to your residents or anybody who might have an interest in your apartment community – instant follow is an excellent new way to encourage new followers right from your website.

Links

With only 140 characters available in each compact Tweet, there’s not really space for texts that go into a lot of detail. 140 characters can often get the message across, but in many instances, its necessary to write more, a great deal more. When it comes to using Twitter as a tool to advertise available apartments, communicating up-to-the-minute information, and sharing cool stuff about your property –  a 140 character Tweet may seem like it would make a good blurb, kind of like a classified ad from the newspapers of the previous century. Though it may be tempting, the best use of your Tweet is probably not as an ad, but rather as a way to direct people to your own site, where they can get all the details you’re tempted them towards. Features now embedded into Twitter automatically create hyperlinks if the web address is proceeded by “http://”. Long URLs can also be shortened through third party services. We use Hootsuite!

Photos

In the past, third party software such as Twitpic was needed to upload photos onto Twitter. The latest version of Twitter, however, allows a user to upload and view a photo without having to leave the comfort of the Twitterverse. Just as with links, users are now able to preview photos, making the Twitter experience richer in many ways. Adding photos to an ad on Twitter is a great way to show possible renters what you have available; not just the customary long shot of the complex, but a picture of the actual unit. What about pictures of your summer party or your residents spending time together? These provide endless ways to advertise not just your property – but also your community. A picture, after all, is worth 1000 Tweets.

Related Info

Users who click on a Tweet can now quickly see information that goes along with that message including conversations, links and map information. This feature can be great for a company managing multiple properties. A Tweet can contain a wealth of information about an available unit that can let a potential renter know exactly where the apartment is as well as what businesses may be located nearby. With the street view feature on Google Maps, apartment searchers can even see what the neighborhood looks like (well, at least, what it looked like when the Google Maps car last drove by).

Integration with Apple

While its not at all necessary Tweet through an iPhone or an iPad, the new changes to the Apple OS5 will make it easier for users of these products to make the most of this social networking platform. Rental companies that expect to be heavy Tweeters may want to keep that in mind the next time they’re ready to upgrade their computer systems.

Of course, Twitter isn’t the only social media company to continue making improvements. Google also recently announced its “+1″ feature, which is a bit like a Facebook ‘Like’ (though not nearly as social just yet). Since appearing near the top of Google’s search results is the bread and butter of any company with an Internet presence, +1 could eventually become a very important component of a company’s search rankings. We will publish a full article about this feature and its potential benefits to Multifamily in the near future, but in the meantime begin to consider possibly adding +1 to your webpage. Note: the +1 feature can also be used privately to help keep track of favorites, or publicly to make recommendations to others, but does require the use of a Google account.

Already  using Twitter and/or +1? We’d love to hear about it – here or on our Facebook page!

Residents of Equity properties in Seattle, Washington D.C., New York and Boston will soon have easy access to Zipcars. The company is planning on providing cars right at the apartments, which will give residents easy access to these rentable cars. Though Zipcars can be rented out of many urban areas, being able to step out of the apartment and into a Zipcar will make it extremely convenient for people living certain Equity complexes to choose to rent a car rather than buy one.

People who chose to take advantage of the Zipcars that will be available at certain Equity Residential properties can expect to save money each month over the cost of owning their own vehicle. Zipcars come complete with gas, insurance, maintenance and mileage. Users of the service report an average savings of $7,200 each year by renting Zipcars when they need them instead of owning a car outright. Even people who drive every day can save money when using Zipcars.

Renting Zipcars instead of owning a personal vehicle is also good for the environment. Because these cars can be rented by the day or hour, people have them only when they need them. On average, one Zipcar rental takes 15 cars off the roads. This relieves congestion on the roads and also helps reduce carbon emissions because it helps people chose to take public transportation when it’s possible. Fewer cars on the roads also means less wear and tear on the roads. This can help reduce the cost of maintaining roads in heavily populated urban areas.

The partnership between Zipcar and Equity Residential will affect about 17,000 residents at first. If the program proves to be successful, more residents will benefit from the addition of Zipcars to their communities. Though Zipcar is a paid service, the deal with Equity Residential will offer discounts to residents of these properties; a little sweetener on an already sweet deal.

There are about 130,000 residents of Equity Residential properties across the nation. Residents in areas already serviced by Zipcar, which itself has nearly half a million members worldwide, may find the addition of Zipcar to their amenities in the near future, if all goes well in the trial run.

Perhaps you are already using cloud applications and don’t even realize it. Amazon.com’s new ‘Cloud Drive’ offers 5 GB of free online storage with unlimited access from any computer! You can keep important files but also music in this free drive (and more storage is available for a minimal fee) – upload and download to and from it anywhere you have a computer – and never worry about losing stuff. Are you a Pandora listener at work? Here’s a great way to listen to 5 G of your own music. On the job market and need to keep your resumes and paperwork readily available at all times? Amazon’s Cloud Drive to the rescue!

More related to Multifamily – what about keeping all your backups in a common cloud drive? This way, everybody has access to leases, forms, and documents in case paperwork gets misplaced.

The benefits of cloud management? Reduced cost, and people running each individual system who know the system frontwards and backwards. If you outsource your IT infrastructure, for example, people who are real IT experts can handle IT problems—probably much faster and better than you could’ve. And this will free up your time as a manager to be able to deal with other issues that do require your specific knowledge of your company and/or your residents.

Another example: if your housing servers are managed on the cloud, those who run the service will be responsible for backing everything up and for hiring technology people (if necessary) to customize the service to meet your specific needs; again, these cloud companies—sometimes also known as external service providers, or ESPs—will know more of the nitty gritty about servers than you ever would. Plus, since it’s their business, it’s unlikely they’ll forget to do routine tasks such as backups that could fall by the wayside if left to you (one busy apartment manager!) to do.

Using online property management systems for management tasks keeps your staff small and able to attend to immediate customer service needs. Typically you won’t need to know how to run the system; rather, you’ll just need to know what you want it to do, and then someone else who is well trained will be responsible for execution and delivery. You’ll have to hire fewer people (hiring your cloud company/companies instead), buy fewer specialized computing gizmos, drives and add-ons, and download, install and learn fewer new software programs.

Property management and cloud computing are natural partners: many property managers are often far from the “main office” anyway. Instead of each location having all the software and hardware that could possibly be needed for each part of the job, working off a single “cloud” location where everything is centralized will be a time- and space- saver for most companies—and probably a money-saver and stress-reducer, too.

Of course, there are possible downsides, but they can be controlled. It boils down to this: your managers need to be better communicators working with remote/cloud team members. Some tips for managers?

• Be sure to define clearly what you need when you have conversations with cloud partners

• Set in place processes and rules so that you’re consulted at critical points by cloud partners (or, conversely, so that people on the cloud know what to bother you about and what they’re empowered to make decisions about on their own)

• Be sure cloud contacts have backup systems in place and be sure you’re not trusting just one person at a company (if that person quits, your company will be in trouble)

Most of you use Facebook, and many of you have become quite familiar with Twitter. While you may be content with these social media applications – guess what! More are always on the way.

Let’s discuss one of the newest players – currently available only for iPhone, but an Android platform is on the way.

COLOR.COM – check it out! They just received $41M of funding, so we can probably assume they are planning nothing short of social media mutiny.

Color is a mobile photo-sharing application. Described succinctly by Mashable as a “public photo and video-sharing app for groups” WITHOUT “the typical friending or following that you’ll find on Facebook, Twitter, Path or Instagram. Instead, Color chooses which pictures you see based on your location and how often you’re sharing photos with someone else. Every photo and video is public, not only to the people you consider your friends, but to any stranger within your proximity.”

Color knows where you are. So when you take a photo on Color it’s automatically shared not just your friends, but also with the people in your physical proximity (generally within 100 feet, though this changes depending on the population density of your area).

The people that built Color call it “an elastic network.” That’s because if you walk down the street, the people you share your photos with will change, and the people you see photos from will change, too.  It sounds pretty cool. If enough people use Color—the app, I mean—it’s completely foreseeable that people will use Color to meet folks taking groovy photos. It also seems like using Color might be an excellent way to eliminate horrendous typos from our lives forever (!)

I’m not sure how comfortable initial users will be with the Big Brother capabilities of Color, written about in some reviews as “the ultimate voyeur app.” But I have a feeling that those using Color will be longtime transparency fans who already live in public and who aren’t worried about having a homing device tracking their every move and pinging it to both friends and random people nearby.

Potential Multifamily Application: For those types of people who are moving into a new area short-term (weeklong vacation to Asheville, who to hang out with, where to find a good bar?) or long term (new apartment in Brooklyn, only know my sister’s ex-boyfriend’s cousin who lives in Queens, where to find like-minded souls?) it does seem Color could be, as it aspires to be, “nothing less than the ultimate local discovery tool.” Imagine a potential resident coming to view your property (or simply driving by it) and loading a series of pictures taken by staff and other residents – like a spontaneous photo tour with personality currently difficult to display on typical Internet apartment listings. This is one to keep an eye on!

Using Color already? Wary of this sort of transparent technology? Tell us about it here or on our Facebook page!

“Your site looks great. It’s loaded with content your users want. Navigation is a snap.

Bingo, bango, bongo – let the leads roll in!

Right? Maybe. Only if your site is also fast. If it’s slow – and by slow we’re talking about fractions of a second – your great design, killer content and intuitive navigation is largely wasted.
Conversions will plummet. There are all kinds of studies demonstrating this.

And Google will penalize you too. The search giant began factoring site speed in its all-important Page Rank calculations last year.”*

Google just launched its new Page Speed tool, providing an independent and authoritative means of calibrating and comparing the performance of any web site. Research from Google and many other online marketing firms has consistently shown that site speed and uptime are critical to visitor satisfaction and eCommerce sales.

Well, good news for us!

MyNewPlace scored an 89, on a scale of one to 100 (the same score that Amazon.com received). In contrast, the average score for our four major competitors was 73.

Our page-speed score wasn’t so much of a pleasant surprise to MyNewPlace as a re-affirmation that our performance tests are necessary – and working. “Google’s Page Speed confirms what we have been doing all along to enable fast page load times and ensure the industry’s best  experience for consumer searching for apartments for rent,” said Ken Cluff, CTO and VP of Engineering at MyNewPlace. “We continually work to make improvements to our site speed by using many 3^rd party tools that test our daily performance and ensure our pages are always in synch with the latest standards and best practices.  Our dedication to site performance has resulted in greater visitor satisfaction, higher conversion rates and more residents for our client apartment managers.”

*Source: 1000 Watt Consulting

Effective Lease-Generating Mobile Website Based on Proven Design

Is your apartment rental company receiving leads through mobile channels? Could you be generating more? Today MyNewPlace is launching Mobile Portal, a mobile-optimized website solution for its growing Marketing Services product line.  Our enormous site traffic  provides us with a unique ability to test property marketing website designs – and we are constantly trying to find ways to generate more leads in simpler, more sophisticated ways. The new Mobile Portal design alone has been tested from a pool of over a million visits and tens of millions of page views on MyNewPlace’s mobile site. “Over 15 percent of apartment seekers are using a mobile device today and the growth is accelerating,” said Steven Pollock, VP of product management at MyNewPlace.  “We expect over 50 percent of apartment seekers to be using a mobile device by 2014, making a mobile-optimized website a critical part of the mix for apartment marketers.”

So what exactly is Mobile Portal and how does it work? Mobile Portal features sophisticated mobile device detection – which enables it to provide a distinctly different and tailored mobile experience depending on the capabilities of the visitor’s phone. iPhones, Androids and other smart phones experience a product that feels like an app – without any installation required. Blackberries and older smart phones experience a more simplified treatment stylewise, but still receive the same information. Likewise older phones experience an even more basic treatment – with clearly visible and accessible information.

Key features and benefits include high speed delivery, tiered availability packages, built in SEO, individual customization, and instant implementation that works with any existing website. For more information and press contact, please check out our press release!

And be sure to stop by our Facebook page to ‘Like’ us for a chance to win an iPad 2 on May 1st!