Snapchat for Student Housing

Attract new residents

By Erica Rascón on Dec 12, 2018 in Marketing

Of the top five most popular social media apps, Snapchat is the most cryptic to navigate and has the shortest content lifespan. Those are two reasons why young adults love Snapchat, and your student housing community can benefit from loving it, too.

So Snapchat…Who Cares?

Snapchat doesn’t offer traditional menus for navigation. It’s all about exploration and being in-the-know. The small nuggets of content posted by users can disappear in a fewer than 24 hours. If your student housing brand uses Snapchat, you’re demonstrating that you are relevant, timely, and engaging.

Your prowess can place you in front of the eyes of more than 130 million students. About 77 percent of college students use Snapchat and they use it often. Nearly 80 percent of users log in into Snapchat daily. On average, they send 34 snaps each day. With your content in the midst of the action, you can make major impressions.

How to Use Snapchat for Student Housing

The content in Snapchat has a very short lifespan. As such, your posted content may have a quick expiration date. Use snaps to explore limited-time offers at your property. Maybe you take Snapchatters on a tour of an available unit. Perhaps you use the platform to market a move-in promotion. Snapchat provides an opportunity to highlight content with a short shelf life.

Snaps are also great for “setting the scene,” depicting what it’s like to live in your neighborhood. Create short videos and pictures of daily life in the community. Excerpts of a resident pool party show the potential for fun and new friends. Residents enjoying sunset on the rooftop deck show to opportunities to relax amidst a hectic class schedule.

Take residents behind the scenes of your community through Snaps. Such snaps can be an interesting way to showcase updates at the community that benefit residents. Think of big ticket items like pool deck upgrades as well as small things like seasonal flower installations. Spice it up with a quick Q&A with the crew. Residents may like getting to know people they may see in their community.

Community events are perfect Snapchat fodder, especially when you have high attendance. Take advantage of the “crowd surf” feature, which stitches together multiple snaps recorded by users to create one continuous video at events.

Let Users Find You

Unlike a Facebook business page, your Snapchat profile provides minimal information about your student housing community. In order for prospects to find you, be sure to use geofilters on some of your posts. This creates a way for viewers to identify your location. When residents see your geofilter, they may be encouraged to use it as well. Geotags quickly and easily broaden your marketing reach.

Learn more about smart managing and marketing of your community with the Yardi Student Housing Suite.