MHN Executive Council: How to Source Ideas for Engaging Social Media Posts
Best practices for sustaining engagement with your residents.
Using social media is a great way to drive engagement with your residents. It can also be a useful way to reach prospective renters to have them learn more about your property. But sometimes it can be hard to know what to post and where to get additional content. The MHN Executive Council shares their top suggestions for lively—and effective—social media posts.
Industry Insights
Our followers on social want to hear about company news, but also our industry insights as an expert authority on commercial real estate.
Our companies’ social media content is focused on a few key areas: our existing portfolio and development pipeline, “behind the scenes” looks at our operations, recruitment efforts and company culture, plus updates on our organization, investment opportunities and media coverage. We also work to position our executives as thought leaders across a variety of topics in the industry.
Ideas for our social media posts are sourced from our target audience, which includes our project partners, residents and dedicated employees. We gather these ideas through direct feedback, surveys and social media interactions, ensuring that our content is relevant and engaging to our audience. By leveraging insights from our community, we can create posts that resonate and drive engagement across our social media platforms. —Jim Cunningham, COO, Marquette Management
Resident Feedback
Sourcing ideas for engaging social media posts involves a blend of creativity and input from your residents. Regularly monitor popular trends and topics on social media platforms to see what resonates with similar audiences.
Resident feedback is a goldmine; suggestions from your community about events or activities they enjoy can often inspire posts. We also suggest encouraging residents to share their own photos and stories, which can then be featured, creating a sense of ownership and involvement. Furthermore, collaborating with local businesses for special promotions or spotlighting nearby attractions helps keep your content fresh and relevant. Lastly, we suggest using analytics to understand which posts perform best, allowing you to fine-tune your strategy and continually improve engagement. —Cyrus Claffey, Founder, ButterflyMX
Rely on Your Team
When a new project has completed and grand opened, we are onsite asap with professional photographers and designers to capture and document the project with compelling story telling visuals! We look for opportunities to showcase problem solving, latest trends, beautiful spaces, and innovative products. With a library of stunning photography and a calendar of current topics at hand, our business operations coordinator can run with it.
Rachel, our business operations coordinator, is an energetic self-starter with a strong communication and writing background. We’ve tapped her creativity and understanding of our business, people and culture to take our social media to the next level.
She’s in a unique position to develop and post content that’s aligned with who we are and where we’re headed because she touches all of our audiences—clients, prospects, vendors, potential new employees and everyone in-house. Using a right-sized social media platform she plans our posts in advance and collaborates with other members of the marketing team to feature engaging visuals.
A perfect mix of subject matter in the voice we want highlights our people, projects, news coverage, thought leadership, events and quirky happenings to ensure there’s something interesting and fun for each segment of our stakeholder base. Ongoing monitoring of metrics informs adjustments as needed. —Mary Cook, President, Mary Cook Associates
User-Generated Content
To source engaging social media post ideas, start by understanding your audience through demographic analysis and direct engagement. Encourage user-generated content and feature follower contributions to build community. Ensure your posts are visually appealing with high-quality images and videos and maintain a consistent aesthetic. Utilize interactive content such as polls, quizzes and videos for real-time engagement. Regularly monitor performance analytics to refine your strategy and ensure it resonates with your audience. The most valuable content is authentic—real people living real lifestyles within the community. —Jim Love, Vice President of Marketing & Brand, Draper and Kramer
Get Personal
How do we break through all of the noise on social media to engage our audience?
- Social listening to better understand what people are saying about us
- Analyzing previous content to see what resonated with our audience
- Market research on whats happening in our industry to provide insights that are important
The 5:3:2 rule for content is our foundation—it’s about striking the right balance while engaging our audience and promoting our company and products via social media.
- Curation: Sharing content from other sources relevant to our audience. Examples include sharing market trends and government affairs relevant to rental housing from organizations like NAA, NMHC, SHRM and IREM.
- Creation: Content we create that’s relevant to our audience. This spans from thought leadership pieces to trends involving Barbie, Taco Bell and Taylor Swift. We take important topics like training employees, writing policies and enhancing property operations and make them informative with new information to educate our audience.
- Humanization: Making content that is personal, fun and humanizes our brand. Authentic photos, videos and quotes help share the personal side of our business through human connection. CSR initiatives are part of this strategy.
Posts that work best for our audience:
- Less formal, branded content
- Pictures of real people at the community
- Celebrating industry professionals
- Acknowledging national holidays
- Intentional focus on industry impact —Stephanie Anderson, Senior Director, Grace Hill
Interested in joining the MHN Executive Council and sharing your insights? Email Jessica Fiur.
