ForRent.com Dominates Social Media in the Multifamily Housing Industry

 

A big note of congrats to the insanely great team over at ForRent.com The Magazine....You gals/guys ROCK! M

NORFOLK, Va.—(November 19, 2008)—No other Internet listing service in the multi-housing industry has engaged its audience through social media quite like ForRent.com. According to Vitrue, Inc., a social media marketing company, ForRent.com is dominating the multi-housing sector’s social share of voice. As a product of For Rent Media Solutions^™, a division of Dominion Enterprises, ForRent.com, utilizes tools such as Twitter, MySpace^®, Facebook and YouTube^™, to achieve this accomplishment.

ForRent.com’s ranking was determined by Vitrue’s Social Media Index™ (SMI), the recently launched free tool that measures a brand's online conversations. Based on patent-pending technology, scores are comprised of various online conversations ranging from text-dense micro-blogs to multi-dimensional video sites.

“We are thrilled with the results found by Vitrue’s Social Media Index,” said Brock MacLean, vice president of national sales and development, For Rent Media Solutions. “Social media is a very effective way to communicate with our core demographic of 18-34 year old adults. For Rent Media Solutions’ involvement in social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and video sharing sites like YouTube allows us to participate in a true dialogue with consumers, giving us more insight into our audience and their needs. We plan on expanding our social media efforts in the future. The Social Media Index will help us gauge the success of our efforts and how we are resonating with our consumers.”

Generating more than 83 percent of social media activity, video sharing makes up the largest portion of ForRent.com’s SMI score. Apartment property video commercials seen on ForRent.com, called Community Theater^™, are distributed to an extensive network of channels including major search engines like Google^™ and Yahoo!^®, social networking sites such as MySpace, and video sharing sites including YouTube. During October alone these videos were viewed more than 17,000 times a day.

 

Generating more than 12 percent of the SMI score, communication through social networking makes up the second largest method of social activity for ForRent.com. MySpace has played a significant role in the success of For Rent Media Solution’s social networking efforts. More than 40 profile pages have been set up, representing more than 40 markets where the company’s anchor publication, For Rent Magazine, can be found. Through these efforts, For Rent Media Solutions communicates with more than 5,300 consumers. 

The remainder of the score is comprised of blogging and micro-blogging. This number includes activity from blogs, such as the ForRent.com blog, and key influencers who chat and push content through micro-blogs, such as Twitter. Twitter is a service that allows its users to send updates to their “followers” while trailing other individuals as well. For more details, please view the full Social Media Index report.

"The Vitrue Social Media Index provides invaluable insight for marketers to understand how they are stacking up in the social media space," said Reggie Bradford, chief executive officer of Vitrue, Inc. "Brands are being talked about in social settings and we are providing the ability to proactively track these conversations. We firmly believe understanding and measuring your performance in these environments is key."

ForRent.com The Magazine, Multifmaily Marketing, Apartment Marketing

Comments

[Eric Brown]

These guys claim to be able to measure Social Media presence, and are touting certain leaders in the field, is it truth or fiction? http://www.vitrue.com/

Has anyone checked out who they are and how they attempt to measure Social Media, are they really doing that, how is it validated? Who crowned vitrue.com the Social media judge for Multi Family?

I believe that there are companies out there so frothing at the bit to tout Social Media expertise, who really know little about what they are talking about. While I am not discrediting what Fir Rent has accomplished, and I thought that their Furniture Video was pretty cool, where are they having a conversation with their customer or their community?

For Rent and vitrue.com feel free to have a spirited discussion herein, we welcome the feedback.

[mike]

E,

You are beginning to sound like a regular Lisa Trosien. That is a back handed compliment and not a bad thing.

Thank you for the questions/comments as they are worthy of good solid answers.

I look forward to the discussion.

[mike]

In order to assist in moving this conversation along I have posted the following on vitrue's 'contact us' mechanism:

A reader posted some comments on my blog concerning the validity of your information concerning ForRent.com The Magazine.
Here is a link to the post and the subsequent comment in the event that you have time to participate in a conversation;

http://mbrewer.typepad.com/property_management/2008/11/forrentcom-domi.html?cid=140153986#comments

Thank you in advance.

mbrewer

[Mark Juleen]

Nice post Mike, and great questions Eric. Can't wait to see if a conversations developes. At this point in the social media game measuring someone's presence is too subjective. I'm not sure if some crazy algorithm will ever be a good measure. TwitterGrader from Hubspot is a great example of a system that should be questioned for its results as well.

[mike]

Thank you Mark. And, thank you for taking the time to participate. We shall see. Have a great Sunday.

[Eric Brown]

Hey Mark and Mike,
Something I forgot, Hopefully For Rent DID NOT employ vitrue, because if they did, it makes the whole thing even more suspect.

[Mike Whaling]

While ForRent.com may be the ILS with the greatest presence across social media sites, I believe this benefits ForRent's brand much more than it directly benefits any of the communities that advertise on their site.

This is best illustrated with a real example -- When I come across the ApartmentsForRent channel on YouTube, the page's primary purpose is to promote ForRent.com's value to property managers. There is very little there for a prospective renter. If I subscribe to the channel, I get videos from communities all over the country, which really doesn't do me much good if I'm trying to keep an eye on my rental options in Dallas.

Even when I search for videos about properties in a specific area, all of the videos are posted under the username "ApartmentsForRent," and all the links drive the user to the community's profile on ForRent.com. While this may add a small amount of value to the fees paid to the ILS, this makes it much more difficult for the property manager to use the video to build upon their own presence in social media.

Eric and Mark have invested a lot of time, effort and money in developing a social media presence for their communities. While videos posted with the intent of driving the user to a third-party site may end up in a lease (and in the short run, this may be all that matters to some people), they don't help that user to understand the real personality of the Urbane or J.C. Hart brands. A strong brand and direct communication will ultimately translate into greater word-of-mouth and resident retention.

Don't get me wrong ... I think it's great that all sides of our industry are trying to understand and stake their claim across social media sites. My only fear is that property managers are being told they don't need to worry about social media because companies like ForRent.com "have it covered" for them. Apartment companies will be best served by social media sites if they make the effort to connect with current and prospective residents directly.

[mike]

Mike,

Thank you for taking the time to comment on this one.

I think you point about property manager's buying into the rhetoric is spot on. I can see in the haste of all they do that it would be easy to default to someone else to do the heavy lifting on the social media side of things.

Great feedback. Thank you. M

[Eric Brown]

Well, Here You Go, It appears that For Rent DID employ Vitrue, see this post, http://www.ideamarketers.com/?Nationwide_Video_Contest_Gets_People_and_Their_Furniture_Talking&articleid=376957

So, The Fox IS in the Hen House. For Rent, how is this any different than the Wall Mart Social Media debacle? For Rent, How does YOUR agency that YOU hired tag YOU as the Great One?

For Rent, here is what is sad, you put on a great try with the $10k give away, however for a company your size, (50) submissions is not a success is it?, which tells us how much work there is to do, and in NO Way should you portray yourself as the leaders,

We still await you to join the conversation,

[Where's the strategy]

First of all Vitrue didn't just launch. This article is self congratulatory. You're lucky that none of the big social media analysts will cover this. First of Vitrue is unproven technology with inconsistent results. It doesnt cover consumer forums and give me a break is YouTube the only video channel? The fact that the company evaluating them was paid by them for something makes the claim dubious at best. The questions is where is the strategy? This is about their brand not the value they add to their customers marketing. Isn't that supposed to be their mission? Where is the For Rent's official
response.

Also share of voice is a bit more sophisticated than just raw data.

[Mike Strutton]

Hi Mike, I got your note and thanks for the invite to this discussion.

The Vitrue Social Media Index was developed to help marketers measure social media. It evolved from our clients' needs to measure the social landscape. The Index is designed to be an easy to understand measurement of a brand's online conversations and is comprised of data sources from blogs and micro-blogs to video-sharing sites to social networks. It's meant to be a directional indicator only.

In the case of ForRent.com, the resulting score illustrates the great strides they have made to date as an industry leader in the social space.  Both companies have been open, issuing a release on the UGC video campaign contest executed together. However, beyond the video contest, ForRent.com has embraced social media on many fronts and their efforts seem to be gaining traction per their Index scores.

Vitrue has been helping brands, cross-category, engage with social media for several years. In addition to tracking brands with the Index, it was also used to track Obama and McCain leading into the elections and the results closely mirrored the actual outcome of the popular vote. On our blog, http://vitrue.com/blog/ there's a series of articles and data available.

Thanks,
Mike Strutton
Director Product Management
Vitrue, Inc.

[Eric Brown]

Erica, Thanks for responding and offering up your comments, much appreciated. Please understand that no one is attacking For Rent for your strides in Social Media, that is not the point of this discussion. For Rent may well be leading the way.

The issue is that For Rent hired the firm that crowned them Social Media King. It appears that For Rent bought a Press Release. The press release wasn't done by an unrelated third party or from a news worthy source, it was done by For Rent's marketing firm. That is the Fox in the Hen House.

When a vendor hires their own marketing firm to do a self serving Press Release, how is anyone to ever believe any Press Release. It doesn't have credibility and fails the smell test.

[mack collier]

Definitely seems to be a conflict of interest happening here. Good detective work there, Eric!

[Lisa Trosien]

Wow, I have to weigh in on this - sort of.

As a sometime blogger, I tried Vitrue's scoring system and came out way, way, way lower than other folks in our industry who don't blog at all.

Can Vitrue explain how their scoring system works? 'Cause it looks like I am really bad and others (who, as I said, don't blog at all) are waaaay good.

Just curious.

Thx.

[Charity Hisle]

I agree with Eric. The situation leaves me questioning the credibility of the Vitrue results.

Like Lisa, I would like to see how the scoring system works. Everywhere I go (multifamily industry online), people reference Lisa. Her "return on influence" is obvious, but not so visible using the Vitrue application. I took the time and checked it out myself.

Perhaps the anticipated value of Vitrue may be better than the actual value? Time will tell, or Eric Brown and Lisa Trosien will!

I personally hope that the results were legit, not purchased.

[Eric Wu]

Interesting string of comments. In my ongoing battle to digest advertisers (ILS’s and property management) value prop to social media users, I find it difficult to see the significant impact in consumer behavior resulting from ForRent's social media efforts.

I think measuring should be about the depth of the engagement with the consumer. Just because you have 500 followers on Twitter or 500 friends on fb does not mean any of those 500 people matter or care. Are they customers getting value from the engagement or just competitors in the space?

I am guessing ForRent has done a terrific job having a presence on all the social media sites. I applaud their efforts and am excited to see the industry start to accept these mediums as viable distribution channels. But I agree with everyone else, I think that ForRent’s efforts may be more of a positioning strategy to the industry, than an effort to engagement the renter communities on these social media sites.

The most successful social media campaigns are not utilizing YouTube or Facebook, but creating their own community around the information, shared interests, and activities of the consumer. Nike created a very successful Nike Plus site, and LEGO’s has done a great job in reaching out to their evangelists. Though this may seem so apparent, I think the real value in social media is in the sharing of information, ideas, and connections amongst peers, and not self-promotion.

- Eric Wu

[Eric Brown]

Very well said Eric Wu,

Thank you for stopping by and joining the conversation, your comments are spot on target.

[Wendy Froehlich]

Guess it is time for me to chime in here. For the record, For Rent did NOT pay for this press release. We did have a relationship with Vitrue last summer, hiring them to power our consumer promotion platform. Vitrue's Social Media Index scoring tool was released months after our contest was over. They did let us know about this free tool (which is available for EVERYONE to use, not just former or existing customers). For Rent internally wrote and distributed this press release to let the industry know about the tool and the impact social media can have. The more brand awareness and traffic we generate for For Rent - the more Leads our customers receive. It's simple marketing.

Lastly, all PR is done through our internal marketing team - we do not have a PR firm or pay for press releases.

Wendy Froehlich
Marketing Director
For Rent Media Solutions

[Mike Brewer]

Wendy,

Thank you for taking the time to chime in on the conversation. I think it speaks volumes when an organization, like ForRent.com The Magazine, takes the time to engage. The other thing that speaks volume is that three of you, I assume independent of each other, have taken the time to engage. Each of you have added value to this discussion.

Have a compelling day. M

[Mike Whaling]

Wendy,

Thanks for the response. I have nothing against the press release. In general, I think there are still a lot of open questions for everyone in terms of social media right now.

However, I think your comments indicate a clear underestimation of the power of the virtual communities referenced by Eric Wu. I agree that ForRent has done an outstanding job of building a presence that gives its clients exposure across multiple websites. If that generates leads for those clients in the short run, they're certainly getting more bang for their buck than an alternative ILS that only posts ads on one site.

What ForRent's presence in social media does not do is build any kind of connection between the community and the prospective renter. Besides marketing, social media can be used for customer service, resident retention and general brand awareness. Those subjects are entirely up to the property staff -- they're out of your hands once you give the leasing professional that lead.

You and Erica are doing your jobs very effectively, and that is to be commended. But hopefully, apartment marketers aren't so shortsighted to think that they can rely on their ILS to build their online presence for them.

[Mike Strutton]

Lisa Trosien,
The Vitrue SMI is a free tool. We do not charge for use. It's designed to be a directional indicator of amount of brand conversation across social media. The tool does not measure sentiment, or influence. We suggest that the tool be used to compare two or more brands/terms. Alone a single SMI score is less meaningful, but in comparison or tracked over time the directional value is obvious.

I tried to search for "apartmentmarketingblog.com" as well as Lisa Trosien on many different social networks and found very few results. While I'm sure, as other pointed out, you are influential, I'd think that the Vitrue SMI is correct in showing a low score. Maybe you could share your influence beyond your blog and Twitter.

Eric Brown and Mac Collier,
The tool is publicly available, and free to use. For Rent didn't pay to use it. The tool can be used freely to compare results across different brands. Similarly I don't consider Google's AdSense, AdWords and Analytics to be a conflict of interest. We are not in the business of selling false data, we are in the business of creating and deploying successful social media campaigns for the best brands of the world.

Eric Wu,
Your notion "sharing of information, ideas, and connections amongst peers, and not self-promotion" is great in the general sense of social media. I think what's missing from your notion is the brand participation. Brands should encourage the behaviors and participate with their customers. Also, if you are inferring that brands like Nike prove that successful social media campaigns don't happen on Facebook, YouTube, etc. I'd tend to disagree. 45+ Million users congregate on Facebook, almost 70 million on YouTube. Brands who want to embrace the conversational power of social media will participate where their customers are, and only encourage them to leave for functionality that can be better served outside that network (Nike+ is a good example). There's plenty of examples, similar to Nike, who fare very well engaging on the social networks. Home Depot, Comcast, Starbucks and many others on Twitter. Ben & Jerry's, Starbucks, Dell, and Nike on Facebook. For Rent, Pepsi, McDonald's and Coca-Cola on YouTube. It's important to go to the crowds as it's always harder to ask them to move to your site, especially just to talk to you.

Thanks again for the opportunity to participate in such an engaging conversation. This blog post's comment thread is proving the point for social conversations with companies. I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.

Mike Strutton
Director Product Management
Vitrue, Inc.

[Lisa Trosien]

Hi Mike:

Thanks for your remarks. I share my 'influence'(your word, not mine) where I feel like it and really don't care what my score is. I never thought your blog measured influence; as a matter of fact, I don't think I even asked that question, but that was a few days ago. I simply measured my name against a fellow multifamily consultant who doesn't blog, doesn't Tweet and really has no social media presence whatsoever. So I still don't 'get' how their score was significantly higher than mine.

But my score is irrelevant. I don't follow those things for myself. I was simply trying the free tool on your site to gain a better understanding of this conversation. As with all posted and email items, it's difficult to gauge the sentiment behind the words as their is no voice inflection, no tonality, etc. I wasn't taking any 'pot shots' at your scoring or your site; quite the opposite. I was attempting to create a dialogue where you could explain your system.

[Mike Brewer]

Test

[Charlotte NC Property Management Company]

I wouldn't be able to own property without the help of property management companies. They makes things go quite smoothly.

[Mike Brewer]

Thank you for stopping by - I agree! Without a doubt it makes the process of the day to day much easier.