Social Media and MF/ RE Fair Housing Compliance

So like most people in all industries, multifamily and RE execs are enamored by social media. They love it for being able to connect with current and future residents. What they forget though is the need to comply with fair housing. Fair housing and social media can mix, but policies must be developed and upheld from the top down to ensure that all protected classes are treated equal. I've reviewed a number of MF/RE social media networks and found breaks in fair housing. To point out just a few...

1. The easiest (and dumbest) mistake made when breaking fair housing is improperly setting up networks as closed networks. For example, a community sets up a Facebook friend profile or a closed group on behalf of the community rather than a public page. If an African American were to request friendship or admittance into that profile or group and admittance wasn't granted either from oversight or neglect, yet a non-protected class was admitted, well the community has broken fair housing.
2. If a community or PM company monitors the space and doesn't properly train the team to engage in a way that is equal to those being monitored, well then the community has potentially broken fair housing laws.
3. If a community scrapes information on certain audiences without consideration of fair housing, then the community has potentially violated in fair housing.

Case Study 4: Where are you on the social media curve?

It's been a fun ride for a bunch of people trying to reinvent themselves through social media. Everyone from PR professionals to graphic designers are sounding pretty remarkable to many in this new media. I find it humorous and at the same time short-sided. Why? Because social media isn't anything new. People have been social for as long as we've craved power and sought a stake or an interest in something. We align ourselves with others to strengthen our cause or position on items we find important, and we hope others will strengthen that case. I find that to be common sense business social media. Instead, as the person responsible for my company's overall growth, I look to see how the macro-level methods level of communication translate into successful dialogues between even the largest brands to the individual, and more importantly vice versa. We call that leveling the playing field. And so, we as a company are guiding ourselves on a foundation centered on how to develop technologies to steer that sort of interaction. 

We are not talking about simply designing applications and programs built for better user experiences. We are talking about developing applications that really do improve the brand/customer interaction for the sake of bettering the response from the customer. First, the customer only becomes a customer when they want to be a customer. Never before. So, we know that by the time we get a customer to be a customer that we have to create compelling reasons through content controlled programs to engage that customer. 

We have two applications on the verge of going live in very controlled environments. These are not just social programs, though we've built what looks to be a capped viral loop into one of the programs, but they're more about leveling the playing field. They each take advantage of the social space capabilities and offers the end user the functions to deliver and receive more from the space. The noise is cut, the focus is user-centric and the results will be (hopefully) beautiful. 

So, for those of you preaching social media. Well, good for you. But better are those that preach what's ahead of the curve.

Anyway, enjoy your tweets and your status updates and everything else you do that's social.

Carmen Krushas

Breaking news while it haapens in Chicago

Carmen Krushas
Fetch Plus, Inc.
Chicago • Pensacola
D: 312-613-6361
E: Carmen@fetchplus.com
B: http://fetchplus.posterous.com
W: http://www.fetchplus.com

The relevancy of conversation

We have now been living in a pretty social world over the course of the last few years. We've gotten acclimated to the speed of information, of filtering out information, of simply reading conversations pertaining to our wants and needs... Which leads to a more controlled environment on our personal desires... Which seems to go against strategies being used by business. And we, as a company, are no exception. For example, as a company, we are interested in reading all different types of snippets of information from as many sources as possible. We scrape and read, and read some more, trying to decipher the true messages being fed through readers, forums, etc., because, as a company, we are interested in trends and how trends relate to conversion (conversion is what I wrote, not conversation). As a person, I tend to do quite the opposite. I don't want to scrape and read, and read some more. I simply want to read. I want to read relevant topics associated by my peers and friends. I want to share in that conversation. So, given this dichotomy I feel as a person and as a business owner, I try to figure out if a happy medium exists between reading to find trends and reading to find relevancy. I am beginning to lean very heavily towards the relevancy factor. I believe that this type of engagement is really the root of being social and that at the end of the day, you as a person and as a company benefit way more than those that simply are trying to figure out what soap box to pitch for the day. 

 

loveliness resonates from this...don't ever go. Powderfinger - (Baby I've Got You) On My Mind

Case Study 3: best practices when developing SM splash campaigns

We continue to show great success when running our client's campaigns through social media. Seriously. For example, we ran two WOMI campaigns through the space for separate clients and each in a matter of twelve hours had hundreds of registrants and it viral looped itself three deep. How do we do this? Well, first while we are marketers (and pretty freaking good ones at that), we also have backgrounds in political science, economics, literature, WGS, and a host of other liberal arts concentrations coupled with our programming skills. This gives us a chance to see things not from a business perspective, but from a more refined angle that is cognizant of nuances found outside of business. We also work primarily in mid-size markets with primarily mid-size companies and our attraction to servicing these markets is the strong loyalty levels found from groups who associate themselves with our clients. So, best practice point number 1: focus on the local and play that card. If you are a company wishing to handle this yourself, well you are in the prime position to do this as you know your voice better than anyone. Go out and listen to your audience to help further refine and develop that voice. If you are in need of help, well, you can come to us to help you find that inner voice (hint, we sit down over a strong cup of coffee or tea and ask you tons of questions to the point that we feel the passion you want us to feel. When that magic happens, voila! You found your voice). Second best practice: be vulnerable and test. Vulnerability has to be one of the strongest elements that I encourage all clients to carry. Being vulnerable is actually a sign of strength. You are willing to expose your business and get a response. Why? Because you care that much about your business. Think of it like love affair. You love it and nurture it and want the baby to grow wings and carry you. So, be vulnerable...show your colors and you will gain greatness from it. Finally, have fun. Create memorable campaigns that are "sticky". Meaning, let your campaigns strike a chord that is unique and different and willing to be shared and downloaded for use immediately or at a later time. For us, it seems like a bunch of common sense. I hope this helps better your SM splash campaigns. Good luck!

Attribution Marketing...oh the buzz word of the day and why we like it so much

Remember this "big wave buzz word": attribution marketing. It is seriously on the radar screen these days for those in the world of search/digital advertising and how they measure up against their competitors, and for good reason, except if you've been trying to deliver it through non attribution methods. Why? Well, the whole premise behind behind "attribution marketing" is assigning accurate credit and measurement with online campaigns, which is fabulous and correct and I agree 100%. The problem I have isn't with the premise, but with how marketers are wanting to structure the effort. Currently, the goal is to get the conversions through the website. Wrong... unless you are using SaaS platforms to manage your website in a way that drives dynamic material to a dynamic website. If you don't use this type of platform then you've created simply a mess for the hundreds of thousands of those wanting to better understand your company's value proposition. If you can segment and create a long tail effect with your digital marketing efforts to convert, then you've mastered attribution marketing. And, quite frankly, for most companies asking that their websites be as dynamic as the hundreds of thousands of segmented audiences they message through PPC and social media ads just doesn't happen. So, to really adopt attribution marketing, you must adopt the tools to create the long-tail effects from the post-click efforts performed through your digital marketing efforts.

And that's why we are here. We do it every day. Over and over and over again. We segment and attribute each and every campaign to generate measured results. We know the respondent funnel through the entire visitation, conversion and post-conversion points. We help you every day get a better understanding on how to use your dollars as smartly as possible through measured accountability. Period. 

The Social Media Marketing Blog: Don't Waste My Time

Man I Love this Guy--SEO in a nutshell follow him. Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO

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