Organic reach on social media isn’t what it used to be.
With constant algorithm changes and more pressure to pay for visibility, it’s harder than ever to connect with residents through unpaid posts. Even if your apartment community has an active Facebook Page, only a fraction of your audience is likely to see your updates without boosting them.
But your messages still matter from rent reminders to resident events. And if you’re relying only on your Facebook Page, most of those updates may never be seen.
That’s where Facebook Groups come in.
The Rise of Facebook Groups for Apartments
Groups have become a powerful tool for apartment marketers looking to build stronger resident connections. They offer better visibility, encourage interaction, and foster a sense of community that’s hard to replicate through standard Page posts.
Residents can comment, share, and engage with each other, helping you create a digital neighborhood that adds value to the real one.
Before jumping in, though, it’s worth reviewing the pros and cons of managing a Facebook Group for your apartment community. It can be a smart strategy if it’s done right.
Facebook Page vs. Group
Your Facebook Page is Your Digital Welcome Sign
Think of your Facebook Page as your apartment community’s public-facing billboard.
It’s a place to showcase your brand, highlight your team, and share updates or photos that reflect the community’s personality. Anyone can view your Page, and it’s often one of the first places prospective renters visit to learn more about your property. You can also collect and display reviews that build credibility with new leads.
While visitors can like, comment on, and share your posts, only a small portion of your followers will see that content unless it’s boosted. Comments from residents aren’t very visible, and your Page follower count appears as just a number—there’s little visibility into who those people are.
A Facebook Group Builds Resident Connection
Unlike a Page, a Facebook Group is designed to encourage conversation and community among members. It’s a private space where current residents can connect with each other and your team in a more personal way.
Posts in a Group appear in members’ feeds and invite interaction. Residents can comment on each other’s posts, share their own updates, and even form relationships. Everyone can see who else is in the Group, which fosters familiarity and trust.
You also control the privacy settings. A private Group ensures that only current residents can see or participate in discussions, making it ideal for community-building while protecting privacy.
Should Your Apartment Community Have a Facebook Page, or a Group?
The short answer: You probably need both.
A Facebook Page is a must-have. It gives potential residents a glimpse into what it’s like to live in your community. Without one, you risk losing visibility—and leases—to competing properties that are active on social media.
But a Facebook Group offers a unique opportunity to build loyalty among current residents. It creates a more intimate space for communication, event promotion, and community bonding that a Page can’t replicate.
So instead of choosing between the two, think of them as complementary tools:
Use your Page to attract new leads.
Use your Group to keep current residents engaged and satisfied.
Before starting a Group, though, it’s important to know what you’re signing up for. Keep reading to explore the benefits and the challenges of Facebook Groups for apartments.
Benefits of Creating a Facebook Group for Apartments
Facebook groups are great because they have a ton of organic reach right now. That means that they are an easy and efficient way to connect with the members of your apartment community.
1) You can organize community events, remind people about upcoming specials, send out reminders when rent is due soon, and share fun things about staff members and residents.
2) You can also set important posts as announcements and group members will be notified if they haven’t turned the feature off.
3) You can also set your Facebook group up so that it is private. That means that no one will be able to view what is shared there unless they are also a member. If you want to use the group to build a sense of community within your apartment complex, the residents will appreciate knowing that anything shared is only shared with other residents.
Having a Facebook group for your apartments is a great way to create a sense of community. Because any member can post in the group, your tenants can get to know each other better and form neighborly bonds.
This adds appeal to prospective tenants who are considering your apartments and gains loyalty from the people who already live there.
As you can see, there are a lot of benefits that a Facebook group can provide, not just for you, but for your apartment community as a whole. But before you hop on Facebook and get started, it’s important to consider the potential downsides as well.
Limitations of Facebook Groups
Now that you’re all excited about the potential benefits of a Facebook group for your apartment community, let’s pop that balloon and bring you back down to reality. While there are a lot of benefits, there are also limits.
For one, a Facebook group is a huge time commitment. Especially if you are managing a large apartment community.
You will need to moderate posts to make sure they are appropriate and fall within the group rules. People will be people.
If you do not set the group up as a secret group, you need to monitor member requests to make sure they are actually from people who live in the community. If you do make it a secret group, you will need to make sure to invite new residents. This can be done using their email address if it is attached to their Facebook account. If it is not, you will have to track them down individually to get their Facebook information so you can invite them.
Limiting membership to people currently living in the community is a good idea, but then you need to monitor when people move out so you can remove them from the group.
Marketing To Apartment Residents
Convincing them to join, and then creating posts and events that are interesting enough that members stay involved isn’t a one-time thing.
And don’t forget that you are going to need someone to monitor the group during off-hours. Facebook groups don’t run on a 9-5, they are a 24/7 commitment where a disaster could happen at any time. When drunk Sally decides to get in a fight with her downstairs neighbor for being too rowdy at 2 am on a Saturday, it’s going to get real ugly, real fast.
You can have multiple admins and moderators to help with this, but you definitely need to have backup plans in place.
Is your head spinning yet?
There is also the risk of neighborly disputes becoming community-wide disasters. If you’ve been around Facebook for any period of time, you are aware that people are often less kind on social media than they are in real life. The last thing you want is to be dealing with a troll who is disrupting the lovely sense of community camaraderie you’ve worked so hard to create.
This can be managed by thinking carefully about the rules you establish for the group and taking care to enforce them.
How Can You Control Your Apartment’s Facebook Group?
The answer to this question will ultimately depend on a lot of factors, such as the size of your community and the atmosphere you want to cultivate in your group. But there are a few things that community managers implement across the board, probably for a good reason.
- A no politics rule is generally a good one to have. This is going to be the number one thing that causes conflict in the group if you don’t ban it.
- You should also create a policy where neighbors are not allowed to bring up things like noise complaints on the group. Make sure you clearly tell them who to go to with complaints and have a clear policy for following up to reduce the temptation to turn to Facebook.
- Having a “no bullying or hate speech” rule is also essential if you want the group to thrive.
- Also think about banning the use of certain words. Facebook groups give you the ability to automatically decline posts based on certain criteria, one of which is if the post contains any words.
A Vibrant Community Facebook Group Can Make Residents Want To Stay
The decision for whether or not you should create a Facebook group for your apartment community is nuanced, as is everything with social media marketing.
Ultimately, you need to evaluate whether or not you have the time to devote to it if the community of people living in your complex will be interested in it, and whether or not there is a risk of it causing more harm than good.
But done well, a well-run Facebook group for your apartment community can be one of the most effective methods to utilize Facebook.
Want to learn more about marketing your apartments on Social Media? We are here to help.
