About 1.93 billion people use Facebook every day, making it the top social media network in the world. Facebook, which renamed itself Meta last year, is also the No. 1 social media site for apartment communities to connect with prospects, so Multifamily operators can’t afford to ignore it.
With such an enormous pool of active users, the opportunities to reach new apartment community prospects through Facebook marketing has never been greater.
However, an increase in audience means there is an increase in competition to reach them. So, it’s important to stay up-to-date on the most effective trends in Facebook marketing for apartments. In this post, we’ll share three of the most promising marketing strategies for attracting renters to your apartment community on Facebook.
Creating Short-Form Apartment Videos for Facebook Reels
Borrowing the idea from Instagram, Facebook introduced Reels in September 2021. Facebook Reels are videos of up to 30 seconds and can include audio and creative effects. Just like Facebook Stories, Reels appear in a panel at the top of users’ feeds and integrated into news feeds.
Reels lack the linking capabilities of Stories, but they’re effective in driving discovery as well as growing audiences. Their reach goes beyond just your existing followers—people can discover Reels based on their interests and what’s currently trending.
The algorithm that helps users find new Reels content appears to be influenced by the accounts they follow, the content they interact with, and their geographic location. This means Reels of your apartment community are more likely to be displayed to people who are using Facebook for apartment hunting in your city.
There’s also another good reason to start using Facebook Reels: The company has been aligning its algorithms to favor its own video content. This means a Reel uploaded directly to Facebook carries more weight in a newsfeed than a link shared through YouTube. Not only that, anyone with a cell phone can easily create a Reel—no special skills or equipment are required.
Rules to keep in mind when using Facebook Reels for apartment marketing:
- Focus less on informing your audience and more on capturing their attention. These apartment videos need to be compelling and quickly digested. Try adding 30 seconds worth of photography for a quick tour of your community, then sending viewers to your YouTube channel for the full-length version.
- Don’t overlook titles. Adding a compelling title to your Facebook Reel will help to increase the views, as will an interesting caption and relevant hashtags. Facebook video titles should also be descriptive and convey value. For example, “Historic building with the best views in Philadelphia. Watch our 60-second tour of Ben Franklin Lofts.”
Listing Your Apartment Community on Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace launched in 2016 as a place for people to buy and sell items within their communities. A few years ago, Facebook Marketplace began allowing real estate listings, including apartments.
It’s a free resource, and listings can be created without much effort, so adding your available units could help you reach a large number of prospects and get a great return on investment.
Benefits of listing apartments on Facebook Marketplace:
- Greater listing visibility. Facebook Marketplace gets a tremendous amount of traffic, so the more people that view your apartment listing, the more qualified leads it will generate.
- In-app messaging with prospects. Using Facebook Messenger, you can keep your communication with prospects streamlined and organized.
Using Facebook to Track an Apartment Prospect’s Journey
Knowing the content that a prospect last clicked on before taking a certain action, such as scheduling a tour or completing an online rental application, is called customer journey tracking. It helps marketers understand their customers more, and it also gives insights into the success of your apartment marketing efforts.
Facebook’s Attribution tool shows the touchpoints, such as posts, reviews, ads and landing pages, that lead to a certain action. This allows you to analyze the impact of your apartment marketing across the entire family of Facebook services and effectively measure ROI.
Benefits of listing apartments on Facebook Marketplace:
- Outlines the full conversion path. Overall, the main benefit of Facebook Attribution is that it can help you understand the full conversion path and pinpoint the content that brings prospects to you.
- Saves you time and money. The tool is free to use and fairly user-friendly, and crunching the data could actually save you money in the long run by showing you which apartment marketing efforts are working and which aren’t.
Facebook Marketing Conclusion
Facebook can be a powerful marketing tool to connect your apartment community with prospects who are ready to sign a lease. To cut through the noise and find renters who are most interested in your community, it’s smart to take full advantage of all of the tools Facebook has to offer. Respage can help you boost your apartment marketing on Facebook, so contact us.
