Apartment Trends Magazine September 2016 | Page 37

TECHNOLOGY

KERIE KERSTETTER | CANONBALL

Balancing Corporate Branding with
Community Character
For example, companies like Wood Residential are providing its properties with standard
corporate messaging for social media, then allows
each property to personalize its content.
The most important thing to remember, Misty
says, is that corporate training should be an ongoing effort.
“It’s the medium that has changed,” says Maureen Lambe, Executive VP of the NAA Education
Institute. “Training allows property managers to
see how the same rules of resident engagement
apply to new mediums.”
“Corporate management should never leave
the training mindset,” says Misty. Training never
sleeps.

Property Responsibility: Open
Communication
Residents are increasingly connecting with
properties online throughout all phases of the
renting process, from research to retention. As a
result, property managers need to be able to do
their jobs online, and that requires them to have
a certain amount of autonomy. Social media presents several opportunities for leasing, marketing
and building relationships. However, it also presents many risks.

A Balancing Act
It’s natural for corporate management to want
complete control over their properties’ online
activity, as doing so would limit risk and maintain
consistent brand messaging across all properties.
However, this isn’t realistic. The key to success in
digital marketing lies within the property managers—they’re the ones who know their residents
better than anyone else. They live and work in the
communities they serve, and they’re the ones
interacting with residents on a daily basis.
www.aamdhq.org

So how do we find a balance between brand
consistency (corporate-level) and local content /
personalized service (property-level)?
The answer is quite simple, actually. It just
calls for a little training and education.

Corporate Responsibility:
Training
Misty Sanford, owner of North of Creative,
draws on several years experience in corporate
property management.
“Resident interactions on social media must
be handled at the property level,” said Misty.
“Corporate management simply needs to take
the necessary steps to train property managers.
They need to provide resources [e.g., content
guidelines, tone], which property managers can
customize according to their residents. Employees
should feel empowered to communicate on social
media—that is corporate’s responsibility.”

Successful training requires an earnest effort
on the part of each property and its employees.
Without their commitment, an effective digital
marketing strategy is impossible to implement.
It’s the property manager’s responsibility to
consult their regional or national corporate representative anytime they have questions, feedback,
or insight regarding social media use.
Corporate management should serve as a resource for properties, and vice versa. Property
managers should provide feedback on local marketing efforts (What works? What doesn’t?). They
should also be able to ask corporate representatives
for help in unfamiliar situations and provide them
with insights from their resident community.
Open communication is the key to balancing
strong brand messaging on social media with
local personality and service.
Kerie Kerstetter is the Director of Content Strategy for
Canonball, a digital marketing agency in Dallas that specializes in both multifamily and mixed-use development.
SEPTEMBER 2016 • TRENDS | 35