Video continues to rise to the top of the digital marketing playbook. If you’re skeptical about the power of video, consider that almost 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store. And four times as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. Video content can also improve SEO, increase engagement and boost brand loyalty and awareness. Within the realm of real estate, the industry – from retail to residential to student housing – is finding creative ways to leverage video. What’s clear is video isn’t going anywhere, so it’s time to jump in feet first. Facebook Live offers an interactive, free and highly visible way to engage with an audience. The platform now sees 8 billion average daily video views from 500 million users. With help from social media experts, in-depth tutorials and best practice tips, even the most novice user can become a Facebook Live pro.   Here are five tips to rock Facebook Live: Step 1: Ask permission If you plan to live stream other people, ask for permission before you record them. Keep in mind some conferences and venues may have strict no streaming policies. When in doubt, ask. Step 2: Game plan Some questions to inform your live video strategy: Why do you want to do live video? Who are you hoping to reach? What do you want this audience to do? What will you talk about? How long will you go live for? Facebook recommends 10 to 90 minutes, but even 5 minutes is great. Do what feels right for your organization and your viewers. Where will you go live from? Walk the room and consider reserving a spot in front. Minimal background...

Pretty much everybody (and their mommas) is on Facebook. With 1.44 billion monthly active users at th end of Q1 2015, you can’t afford to not be on Facebook. But you can’t afford to waste your time on the platform, either. In 2013, Facebook changed its algorithm so that your content will only reach 3– 5 percent of your fans. To reach more people immediately, you must pay. To reach more people organically, you must build a long and reliable bridge to your fans using value-driven content. Value-driven or value-added content is an age-old approach that has received a fresh breath of life in the social realm. In the past, when we were told to add value, we took the request quite literally. We immediately wanted to ask, “How can we make their lives more simple?” “How can we save them money?” We’d offer coupons and discounts. When we became more in-the-know, we’d offer subtle goodies like life hacks. While these tactics are all great in their own right, there are more substantial ways to offer value-driven content while taking advantage of Facebook’s unique social media mega-status. But first, let me tell you a story. Super Bowl 2002. I only watched the game to spend time with my dad. When the half-time ads came on, I prepared to turn off my brain and settle into a bean dip- induced coma, but a certain image caught me by surprise: solemn townsfolk watched as eight Clydesdale horses marched from their perspective towns in America’s heartlands, and then through city streets. The horses stopped upon icy, isolated land overlooking the city of New York. In unison, they bowed to the recently altered skyline. My entire body shook until I burst into tears. My father nodded slowly in...

Congratulations: your attention span is now shorter than that of a goldfish…by one whole second. Recent studies show the average human attention span is now 8 seconds.  That means social marketers and digital advertisers have to hook you with compelling content within moments.  How much does that bait cost?  Advertisers spent an estimated $8.5 billion on social ads alone in 2014, all to keep your brain entertained long enough to get to the punchline.  And succeed they did. Our Social Media Team kept a keen eye out for those creative and unusual marketing campaigns with solid storytelling and strong social presence. Here are a few of our favorite digital campaigns from the last year. Mini Cooper  Mini USA – Multiple Social Channels Mini Cooper has created a world of engagement, and it’s truly an experience all of its own.  The iconic import has grasped attention and stolen the hearts of many motorists across the country, and to that end, they have established their own mini-nation: Mini USA. Beyond the exclusivity of an owner’s only club, the camaraderie and fellowship between Mini drivers curves closer to extended family.  And what better way to spend time with your family than to be “couped” up with them on the greatest of American familial pastimes?  “Mini Takes the States” is a clash of Mini Cooper clans cruising on a 5,000 mile road trip from [#MTTS]San Francisco to [#MTTS]Boston.  Motorists can post to social networks during pit stops with a set of branded hashtags, photos and videos.  Along with crossing the continental US, Mini’s social presence spans across platforms: Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter. Need some Mini maintenance? For continued care of your car, the company’s website features a downloadable PDF of your owner’s manuals, a roadside assistance...

Your friends are on Facebook. Your boss is on Facebook. Even your mom is on Facebook. In fact, this popular online network reached over 1 billion users in May – making it the largest social platform around. So are your clients on Facebook? You bet they are. If you’re ready to reach a larger audience and close more sales, you just have to remember the three most important rules of real estate: location, location, location. Where you do business matters as much, if not more, than how you do business. In today’s online marketplace, Facebook is a prime location to attract and interact with consumers. With that in mind, here are 6 tips that will help you optimize your Facebook business page to attract more prospects, whether you’re a real estate agent, a property manager or a leasing agent. 1.       Complete Your Profile First things first, complete your profile so that page visitors know who you are, what you do and how to contact you. Include your phone number, your email address and a link to your website. Add a description of your business that includes industry-relevant keywords. And be sure to choose attractive and professional images for your cover and profile photos. (For example, if you sell houses for a living, using a family photo as your cover image might not be the best choice.) 2.       Promote Your Page Share a link to your Facebook page on your website, but don’t stop there! You should also include the link in your email signature and post about your business page on other social media channels. 3.       Empower Your Fans Once you get people to your page, how do you keep them there? Think of your business page as the social version of your website....

Facebook employees in California are about to find out what it means to reside in a modern version of the historic “company town”. The social media giant is working with Yardi client St. Anton Partners, a local multi-family development and investment company, to develop an upscale multi-housing complex within walking distance of Facebook’s existing Menlo Park headquarters and their new West Campus, which is currently under construction. Designed by national architecture firm KTGY Group, Inc., the multifamily compound was envisioned as a cohesive live/work/play environment where practical design meets style and comfort. Dubbed Anton Menlo, the infill redevelopment project represents the Menlo Park City’s first significant new apartment building in over 20 years. “At over 630,000 sq. ft., this project is one of the largest new construction rental residential projects in the state. We’re pleased to bring it to where housing is needed most,” noted Peter Geremia, co-founder of St. Anton Partners, in a written statement. The site recently received its final zoning approval from the City Council and is currently in the design review phase with City staff, according to official statements. “We are thrilled to have new housing options coming to the City of Menlo Park to serve the Silicon Valley and the Marsh Road and Willow Road business areas,” said City of Menlo Park Mayor Peter Ohtaki. “Providing new housing opportunities for employees working in the area will allow people to live where they work and to spend more time enjoying this great city.” To be located on a piece of formerly industrial land, a 10-acre tract near Marsh Road off of Highway 101, the $120 million community will comprise 394 apartment homes primarily designed to meet the needs of today’s sophisticated renters. It will offer a mix of floor plans...

Facebook has introduced a powerful tool for managing online advertising campaigns that is being heralded as a major advancement in targeted marketing. If you are using social media-based ads to reach potential renters for your multifamily property, the Facebook Power Editor could change and enhance the campaigns you create. It allows you to create and manage multiple advertising efforts at once, which means you can parse your ad budget according to the markets you most wish to reach. Placement of the ads within Facebook is a major added feature offered by the Power Editor, which will allow you to select where you want your ads to show up. You might choose to advertise in the Facebook News Feed (where users are accustomed to seeing posts from their Facebook Friends) or continue to advertise in the right side bar of the site, where advertising has traditionally appeared. However, many Facebook users say that they no longer see the right hand column, considering it a “blind spot” where ads will be ignored. You can also use the Power Editor to ensure your ads only appear on mobile devices, which is increasingly the way most users engage with Facebook – more users now use phones or tablets to reach the site than computers. And that group is getting larger – the number of people accessing the internet via a mobile phone has increased over 60 percent to 818.4 million since 2011. The mobile version of Facebook is a very different interface from the web-based interface, and ads must be formatted differently to reach mobile users. Using the Power Editor, which can only be accessed on the Google Chrome browser, you can decide on how large of an audience you’d like to reach. Targeting specific groups within the...

In an effort to grab a larger piece of the online networking market dominated by Facebook and LinkedIn, Google has added a new feature to Google+ that will help people connect and build virtual relationships. It’s called Google+ Communities, and the marketing spin is that it will add substance and coherence to online interaction, with networks based on users’ shared interests and passions. New data asserts that Google+ is gaining ground on the social networking market, to which it arrived late, but it still lags well behind “the Facebook”. According to the company’s own numbers, more than 500 million people have upgraded to Google+, and 235 million are engaged and using the service (+1’ing apps in Google Play, hanging out in Gmail, connecting with friends in Search). Facebook, meanwhile, has over 1 billion active users a month, according to a late 2012 status update from founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Google+ has won over many users with its privacy settings that actually work and are super easy-to-use, and Facebook hasn’t done itself any favors with recent newsfeed advertising changes and targeted ads based on users’ profile information.  Google+ Communities attempts to offer even more freedom to users; you can engage in specific conversations with people who share your hobbies, from photography to traveling to poker nights; plan events; start hangouts, and share with your communities from across the web. You can do it all from your Google+ home screen, you don’t have to visit the community in order to post. You choose whether you want to be notified by e-mail on each new post by other community members, filter posts by topics or sub-categories, share pics, videos or links and add events. Photos are a bit bigger than you’d see on Facebook and the...

The saying that if it bleeds it leads has been around for ages, but with TV stations and various news channels competing with the internet for attention it now seems that there’s less emphasis on fact and more emphasis on first to run. Rushed stories are reported as news without taking the necessary time to check sources and ensure that, in the best interest of the audience, the information is factual. One such example occurred last night when news outlets everywhere reported that Facebook had released a new membership price grid and that to avoid paying for membership you simply needed to share a message with your friends, otherwise you would be forced to pay the next time you logged in. This was a hoax and you can read all about it on Mashable. This was very easy to decipher as false and further brings into question the credibility of news outlets to report accurate information. If this hoax was reported as actual news what else slips through?  Is every news channel going to go the way of Huffington Post: report it now and ask for forgiveness and editorial changes later? One final item to consider is that with the rush to get all these stories out as quickly as possible, it does become increasingly challenging to decipher between fact and fiction.  Something mentioned every other day in the news is Facebook privacy settings. With Facebook currently at 1 billion plus users, the quantity of information at the fingertips of Mark Zuckerburg and his board is astounding, so here are a few facts you should know. Here’s four Facebook “did you know’s”: 1. There was a report a few weeks ago claiming if you choose to make a post only visible to “friends” but one...