Tuesday, August 18, 2009

How's Your Posture?

My mother had a thing for posture. She deemed it her mission that her girls would never be slouchers, physically or emotionally. “Sit up straight. Head up, shoulders back,” she would chide after catching one of us slouching at the dinner table. “Strong posture dictates confidence and elegance.” We would sigh, roll our eyes and frustrate her further. One of us would usually make a stupid teenage comment like, “What do I need good posture for? Nobody cares.” Funny, as I write this commentary years later, I sit, head up, shoulders back, projecting the confidence through my words she deemed so important.

Physically, good posture exudes confidence, authority and a sense of being. I know this as I grew up in a short family – we were always trying to look taller. It is the same emotionally. Think of the last time an individual criticized or hurt your feelings. Your emotional posture probably matched your physical - defeated, exhausted and diminished. The natural tendency as you type at a keyboard is to slouch your shoulders and lean forward in a relaxed position. Great posture defies gravity and must be worked at to maintain.

The next time you are meeting a client or prospective resident, entering a conference or networking event, or even strolling down the concourse at an airport, stop first, make sure you are standing up straight, head up and shoulders back. Then say to yourself, “My emotional posture is strong and confident.” Watch what happens. Individuals will comment on your confidence. They will look to you for your opinion. They may even expect you to lead.

Mom was right. Posture is everything.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Why I Heart This Blog


After reading my business partner Brent Steiner’s post this week on maintaining some perspective as it pertains to monitoring your online reputation, posted as a result of the Twitter hysteria over the Horizon debacle, I must say, I feel relieved. The myriad of “conversation” playing out on this subject is astounding – as though this is the only thing residents and property management peeps are doing all day long. I can picture it now, man walks into a leasing office, and waits patiently while leasing professional finishes her morning round of monitoring her online presence. “Just a minute,” she says, “I just have to make sure nobody is ticked off at us this morning. I’ll get to you in a minute.”

Some of the advice I have seen of late as it regards to online reputation management (let’s call it ORM, as monikers seem to be all the rage in the social media world – nobody but you is supposed to know what you’re talking about, as this makes you look smarter than those people that have not yet “embraced the conversation”) – is not contexted to speak to the world of real life property management professionals. Having recently spent some time on site, in the “real world” it is way more difficult to monitor your ORM when the in-person resident is coming and going all day long. Let’s not forget that people do quite often appear physically to view and lease apartments, renew leases, make complaints, (believe it or not, some of our residents don’t even know what “Yelp” is), ask when the mail will arrive and jaw with the leasing professional because they have nothing else to do, and crave some human conversation. I suppose we could just tell them to go join the conversation because we need to wrap it up and go join it ourselves, but that’s not being nice. Let’s not forget about phone calls. Remember that handy little device? Guess what? People use it. They use email too. In the world I see, property management professionals have difficulty just conducting following up and keeping their gosh-darned Craigslist ads up to date. Insisting they now constantly manage everything people are saying about them on line is likely to send them over the edge.

In closing, if I may serve as the voice of reason to property management professionals worldwide, (because make no mistake, in most cases this will become the responsibility of front line professionals), first, take a deep breath. Then, take care of your residents. Really well. Make sure you are attempting numerous points of contact throughout residency to gauge satisfaction. Social media may help you do this. It is a valuable tool when used as part of a strategy – one of the many tools you have to deliver and determine satisfaction levels and flush out concerns. Be aware of it, learn about it and utilize it, but don’t become consumed by it.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Social Media Perspective, If You Please

There's a torrent of social media mania coursing through multifamily marketing circles because of the Horizon Realty story last week. The hyperbole has been ratcheted up to Defcon 2 by many social media proponents in and out of the apartment industry.

To be clear, this post is not intended as a general swipe at social media or at those obsessed with it, but rather to point out the illogical connections some people are making because of a single incident. Just because someone yelled "Fire!" doesn't mean there was really smoke. The relevance of social media in multifamily is a complex issue that we can debate in other posts. This post is more of a plea for reason.

Complaints (oops, sorry, "conversations") from residents are nothing new; what is new is the resulting hysteria from any topic handcuffed to the word Twitter. If a resident frowns on your management team in a public forum, chances are said team had fair warning and could have taken steps to tighten the blast radius. Multifamily managers and marketers should not ignore the myriad new venues available for people to publicly opine, but they should maintain a rational perspective. They need to be aware of all PR threats, all the time, hardly a new concept. Social networking broadcast channels merely allow the message to spread faster (in some cases) and broader (sometimes) than before. But to people who care? That depends, but unlikely.

In the recent Horizon blip, the newsworthy story was not about the moldy tweet or the fact that the, um, <20 followers ignored it. In fact, traditional media outlets (yes--I said it, traditional) were turned on by the story because of Horizon's train wreck of a PR response, giving the story wind to take flight. And the subsequent social-media-fueled fire that ensued was too sticky to let go of. Social media NEEDED this story. But make no mistake, mainstream media sources made this story big.

Advice about monitoring ALL social media channels ALL the time is irrational and ridiculous. Monitoring resident satisfaction at all times, and having a solid PR reaction strategy ready to roll is a more reasonable course of action. Social media is but one ingredient in that mix. Had Horizon tweeted a reply, would it have made a difference? Would their Facebook Fans (if they have any) have cared about the their side of the story? Does it really matter? PR gaffes are hardly new and any positive outreach moves on Horizon's part would not have germinated the same Twitter-fest as the original story.

So, Mr. Social Media Consultant ... are you saying that the old adage "there's no such thing as bad press" has been overshadowed by the rise of the all powerful conversation? #Really? Another day, another trending topic.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Why Do We Feel We Need To Be Young?

I am most definitely a fan of Craig Ferguson, and after watching this rant on the evolution of advertising, you will be too. Dead on. Not to mention, funny.