Martin: All right. Welcome back to the Multifamily Podcast with your hosts Martin and Ronn. I’m Martin. Ronn. Hey, what’s going on? Ronn, what’s been what’s been going on with you anything new?

Ronn: Not much, just getting through the year. I can’t believe we’re already in May.

Martin: Now we’re Happy, you’re happy belated birthday as well. You just celebrated a birthday.

Ronn: Thank you. Yes. 21.

Martin: Nice. Yeah. We just got back from AIM apartment, internet marketing as well. So, lots going on there. Right.

Ronn: Lots going on. Yeah.

Martin: So, but today, yeah, today we’re discussing actually Multifamily Social Media. You know, that happened a little bit ago. That’s located in Napa at the Maritimes. So, you know, for those that don’t know, about the multifamily social media Summit, and how long that’s been going on, maybe we should give them a little a little information on that. So why did the multifamily professionals love the multifamily social media Summit so much in Napa?

Ronn: Well, I would say because it’s in Napa, first and foremost. It’s not a hard draw to get people out to wine country, internationally known wine country that is, but actually, I think if you’re asking me, I think it’s really the content. This year, we celebrated the 10th anniversary can’t believe that, we’ve been attending for I believe, about 10 years. Yeah, because I even joined before we started apartment SEO. So, it’s a great draw, I think people from all over the country come out. Again, as I mentioned, it’s in Napa. So that’s not a bad thing. But what I like about that, personally, is the fact that they have a, it’s almost like a single track. So, you’re in sessions with like-minded professionals. They have like an early track the day before. And so, as you’re in and around the conference, you could have, you know, very educated conversations with everyone. And it really just inspires, you know, a lot of thought. They also have a great and actually, really, we were boasting at the scene, if you remember, in the trade show, remember, so there were so many people there, it was the highest attendance. I understand, I don’t remember the exact number, but I think it was 400 plus people. So, the trade shows were booming. So, anybody who’s never attended, I think you would love it for the content itself. They stay pretty dedicated to their social media and neighboring space. But also, if you’re a industry partner, and you want to get your name out there, you want to meet and greet new people. That’s definitely the place to be. And the cool thing is that they actually raise funds for Ukraine, I thought that was really special for a conference to acknowledge what’s going on in the world. There’re so many causes out there, but that definitely is one that’s front row center. And I think it was What did you say, Martin? How much did they raise?

Martin: It was over five figures. I know it’s well over $10,000.

Ronn: Yeah, that’s amazing.

Martin: Well, above that with everyone pitching in, you know, the founders and the founders of multifamily social media Summit, I think at least one of them. Adam. Yeah. Co-Founder and CEO of Esteem Media. Also, they had a pretty nice advisory board. You know, you Carrie Polonsky and Robert Gasteiger. So, there’s tons of tons of great talent and people in the industry that hopefully we could probably have a lot of these heavy hitters on the podcast one day, right?

Ronn: Of course. Those are all our friends.

Martin: Definitely part of the plan to get them on here. And you know, start talking about you know, what they got going on some of their origin stories and where they’re at today and where they see the multifamily industry, you know, going overall, you want to talk about maybe the venue.

Ronn: Yeah, so the venue is actually at the Maritimes as you mentioned, in Napa, it’s probably one of the I think it is actually the biggest conference center in Napa. So, we’re kind of bursting at the scenes there. I understand. It’s been when, we’ve looked at other venues from like Sonoma, I know that it’s hard to find something that could accommodate our group size. And so, it’s pretty amazing they have a bowling alley, they even have like condos next door that they are it’s part of the group or you could have that, so not to plug it for vacation purposes. But hey, if you want to get there for a conference and or turn it into a vacation, sometimes, I stay into the weekend. We have a really fun wine bash at the end so it’s just fun.

Martin: Parties, yeah, the little after parties and the bowling with all the industry that’s always just a good time and you always have somebody have just so much good camaraderie and just good times with, we just hanging out with you know, good people and good drinks.

Ronn: For sure. Yeah, the synergy is always amazing there like I said, I think it’s really because you have, you’re talking with like-minded professionals, obviously but again, that single track I think really helps, at least that’s one of my favorite parts. It feels intimate but very powerful. Yeah, and if you for those that don’t know about it, you want to check it out. It’s multifamily social media.com You might have to, Multifamily-Social-Media.com

Martin: And actually, that’s the one when you say that Ronn because we actually help them get multifamily social media. Yeah, I remember

Ronn: we do have it now or they have it?

Martin: and whenever they put in the, you can put in the clean URL multifamily social media.com Or they have their actual one which goes is a multifamily dash social dash media.com, but multifamily social media.com will take you straight to the actual website 100%.

Ronn: Yeah, and typically it’s in first quarter, it’s around, typically it’s the end of January this year was in March, we’ve, obviously, all conferences have had to move around because of catching up from the pandemic. So, I believe they’re going to continue to keep it in first quarter next year. So, sign up.

Martin: it’s gonna be March 2023. And I did read that just before. So, what we can do is just make sure when it is up and coming, and we’ll put it out there, we’ll even give you like our, our code for, you know, buying tickets and all that good stuff on, so if you do hear about it from the multifamily podcast, we’d love for you to check it out and let us know how you like it.

Ronn: For sure. So, with that being said, what were your favorite sessions, Martin, that you were able to have a chance to attend?

Martin: Yeah, I actually got a good chance to attend a handful of them. I was able to attend the keynote with Andrew Davis, and his topic was around embracing constraints and spark creativity. And he had a couple of really good examples. I know, as apartment SEO, when we first started up, you know, we had to embrace the constraints and really spark creativity, you know, because we weren’t, you know, crazy funded with capital is all Bootstrap, you know, self-funded, and stuff, right. So, they had some good case studies. One was a, she was a flower producer, she sold flowers, she produced them in Ecuador. And when COVID hit, everything shut down. And so, what they did was to embrace constraints and spark creativity was they created a COVID center for producing flowers, instead of doing larger bouquets, they actually did smaller bouquets, so less volume and a higher markup. And that actually worked out really well for them. And so actually, I do a little flower farming on the sides. So that, you know, hearing their story and hearing about Ecuador and all the flowers they produce, they’re even showing some Proteas and different flowers there, which I thought was really interesting. But that was a really good story that really hit personally for me that I got a lot of good insights from. And then they also had another story in there. So, there was a resort, a farm resort, where you could Airbnb, and, you know, enjoy the great outdoors and enjoy and enjoy the farm life. But when COVID hit, all the reservations went dead. So, they had to think outside the box, they got the team together into like a little roundtable. And one person had the great idea of you know, Go To Meeting, you know, the zooms, everyone’s starting to do them. And it got a little boring at times where everyone’s just on a Zoom meeting, and they want to live with it up. So, they had the idea of making the Goat to Meeting service where you could literally hire a goat to come in on your zoom meetings and make them a little bit more funnier. And they earned over a million dollars in doing this initiative for big companies all around the nation and probably around the world.

Ronn: That’s awesome.

Martin: So, I thought that was very funny being in some of the farm stuff. An actual internet marketing, there was a topic on video, a new world of opportunity that was presented by Dave Hoffman, and he was speaking on YouTube, YouTube ads. So, I wanted to really touch on some of those things that I think is really important for you know, everyone, part of the multifamily podcast community really needs to hear. I think YouTube overall is highly underutilized in the multifamily industry. And even though searched, so Google Ads random search campaign, the cost per click on those is still probably a couple bucks, three bucks, $5, $6. If you’re talking like really high in some competitive metros, like maybe New York, maybe Seattle. But in the scheme of things, the cost per clicks are still pretty low. When you go into other industries, like attorneys, plumbers, the cost per clicks for them are usually anywhere from 30, 60, 90 plus dollars per click. So overall, the multifamily industry still hasn’t really good with cheap search traffic from Google ads. But if even with the prices, they’re still going to rise over time. So, YouTube ads is a great way to diversify your traffic and bring down your overall average cost per click for paid advertising. And it tends to be very powerful with driving more organic searches for your actual brand itself. So, somebody sees your YouTube ad for your community, they’re more likely to actually type it in organically and find you on Google Business Profile after that. So really pushing that with our clients. Also, Google ads is even launching a beta for video builder for YouTube ads. So, a lot of times why our clients don’t want to even do YouTube ads because they don’t have any kind of cinematic video or any video at all to create the content. So that can be a real challenge to getting them to through the door for even doing YouTube ads. So, the YouTube builder will actually help with that process and help create a video for them, so they can upload it straight to YouTube ads and start generating that traffic.

Next is actually YouTube organic. So having a community YouTube channel where you could upload videos, little video and have each video focused around a specific keyword. There’s a lot of opportunities there. Because the Google’s universal search engine, they’re not only indexing blogs, websites, they’re also indexing videos, PDFs, and even PowerPoint presentations. So, making sure you have a good mix of content where your competitors might not have content is going to give you a little bit of an edge. Of course, tic tock is all the rage even at aim, the apartment in that marketing conference, it seems like everyone was talking about tic tock and trying to decipher the code of tic toc and how do agencies do it? Or how do we even offer it right? How do we figure that out? And I think whoever figured that out, Ron is really going to make a big splash in this industry. I know, you know, we have our Frankie, who’s our tick tock superstar. And we’re hoping to get him on the podcast as well to really reveal everything and how the multifamily industry can really use it. But YouTube shorts is just like tick tock short videos. And over time, those little videos will be indexable by Google, just like Tic tock videos, just like Instagram videos, all the hashtags that are being used on these are being indexed by Google for specific pages. So, if you have local hashtags like DTLA, apartments hashtag for any of these platforms, there’s a good chance over time, they’re gonna start ranking and start showing a visual carousel of some of these types of searches. So being a part of this is really going to be where you’re going to want to be. And if you’re not there, you’re missing out on a big opportunity. And you just don’t want to miss the boat on this one. So, what’s your take on video? Ron, where do you see this going from the multifamily industry over the years?

Ronn: Yeah, it’s funny because I’m chuckling internally as you’re talking because I remember when I was at the site level and in marketing, for property management companies having a very pixelated video that we thought was phenomenal. Then I went to for rent. And I remember we were trying to; we had a video guy who would go into videos of your property for you as one of the value ads or even an upsell opportunity at for rent. And so, where we started with video, and where we’re headed, I think is truly unique. You mentioned about tick tock, and about the shorts, I think where video is going into the question is short, digestible videos that the consumer could look at and really picture themselves there, I think that we talked about in the first episode, and that because of the pandemic, we really, you know, had to like, advance ourselves in how we’re going to, not only market but also like, engage with the prospect of resident. So, video can really help with that. I mean, we went into live videos, you know, like zoom type meeting, that’s kind of a video format, right? For engaging their prospects into why they want to live at your community. So not only on the marketing ads side of things, but just as a consumer experience side of things, I think people really need to relook at video, we did hear about tick tock, as you mentioned. And I think the other thing about that is that, especially with the TikTok presentation, which was great many people are yet to and it’s I think this is a global thing. Many people are yet to find the power of video and see where the ROI comes from.

So, I think that with that, I think our industry really needs to step up in any market are really out there. And understand the power again, just with a tick tock, for example, it doesn’t have to be long, it doesn’t have to, it can be short and sweet. But what we’re still trying to find out is because it seems like the cost could still be there. So, you really need to get over that, find some money, you know, move some monies around to make sure that you have those digital assets that are so needed. And then really use them. I think you’ve mentioned before mark, even in the video, you could use much like podcast, you could use a video, you could use the audio, you can use it for ads, you can use it for your website, your marketing opportunities. Transfer Exactly. There’re so many app blogs, there’s so many things that you could use with video. And as we know, being Google premier partners, Google is constantly telling us YouTube, YouTube. Right. And to your point, it doesn’t have to be expensive. So, I think that’s where videos going. I think we need to give some more love to it. It I think it behooves you. And I know for us even as a company, we’re looking at doing upgrading our videos as well. So, I’m excited. I know there was a changing gear a little bit, there was a session driving better outcomes with Facebook, using custom audiences. I know there’s so many things about fair housing laws and stuff. Can you speak on any of that?

Martin: Yeah, so definitely Facebook had some good stuff. I know Facebook and Google ads, they’ve done some major upgrades to their platform to make it pretty hard to violate Fair Housing now, because they will essentially just shut it down. If there’s anything that violates or based on their AI and their programs on the back end. So, the person speaking on Facebook, he used to work at Facebook, but now he works at a like an agency level or something like some kind of technology. But he was talking about different items you could do around custom audiences and even similar audiences. And so, I wanted to highlight some things on the Google ad side that I personally know you can do without violating fair housing. So, on the Google ad side, for targeting, you are still allowed to target household income, home ownership status, education, and similar audiences as well. So, by keeping within those parameters, you’re still keeping good within fair housing. So being able to test out some of those different variables will definitely be good to trial out, because then you can get more targeted marketing, and essentially just get better traffic overall. So, if you’re not using any of these types of targeting is something that you’re going to want to utilize. And if you can’t, obviously, working with an agency can help you or a Google rep if you guys have that too.

Ronn: Yeah, for sure. You got to stay out of trouble. That’s the bottom line. And there’s, it’s a curse, but it’s also a good thing that they are. We’re governed by so many rules, right? We want to make sure that we’re staying out of trouble. So, I know Martin, you gave a presentation, which I was so excited about where I was proud to have you be selected as a guest speaker at these national conferences. Yours was on GBP, the former GMB. Do you want to share some takeaways on those?

Martin: Yeah, totally down on GBP. It’s so much harder to say that and you know, in the GMB Google business or GMB always had a nicer flow GBP, not so much. But that’s what we’re having to get used to. So yes, the presentation was great. I have really three key takeaways, even though there’s a lot of slides there. You know, to make sure everyone listening to this podcast, you know, I know you weren’t there. But this is probably definitely the top three that I would definitely want to speak on. New Google Business Profile verification process. So, for new verifications, new constructions and new lease ups, you might be finding a little bit of a different process or new loopholes you’re having to jump through. So, Google is now because they want to fight spam in different industries outside of multifamily, like locksmiths, maybe plumbers, maybe even attorneys, what these industries will do is set up a lot of fictitious business locations and set up Google business profiles all around the map to get a lot of organic traffic. And so, Google is trying to fight spam by doing this right here. So, for the multifamily industry, we don’t really do any kind of crazy spam stuff, really, I would say, because we’re all based on a physical location, we have an address, we’re gonna have our own phone number. So, we’ll be able to verify things like videoing the office, showing promotional materials, and also proving ownership with the business license. So those are some of the three items you’re going to need to probably use need to have to verify a lot of new listings. If you’re able to verify it. Without this, that’s great. But it is something you’re going to want to be on the lookout for. Because any new listings or new construction, Google business profiles, you’re probably going to have to go through the new verification process. But it shouldn’t be that hard, because you should have everything that you need, unless you’re in a new construction mode where that can be a lot more difficult. So that will be the challenge, though, for new construction and figuring out some of the processes there.

Next Google business profile, and Google Ads having the connection for the call extension. So, in Google ads, you have different ad extensions, you can add, like sitelink extensions to link to different pages on the website, you also have the call extension. And that’s and also the location extension. So, what we’re doing here is we’re making sure that Google business profile is connected to your Google ads with the location extension. And then also, the Google call forwarding number that they give you in Google ads is also placed on the back end of Google business profile. So, when you log into Google business profile, in the back end, you could put your Google ads 40 number from that extension, this way, you can get full attribution for that conversion. And you can see what traffic’s coming from the Google ads and going to Google business profile and converting. So that’s another important one. Last one is a big one, the certain category that you pick for the Google business profile, a lot of before we were focusing on apartment building, that was the number one category you would select. But in the recent past, Google made an update to apartment building category, treating it more like a hotel resort, meaning that they want to see that open 24/7,24 hours a day. So, you weren’t able to edit or if you did edit your hours, they would revert it back. So, if you’re having this problem, just get rid of the apartment building category and switch it to apartment complex. That is the new main category that we’re using. Even though complex is not the ideal word that we want to talk about. We don’t like that word. But Google apparently does not know that yet. But that is the main category that you’re gonna want to use to have controller control over your hours. And that is huge. Right. So, I know a lot of the industry has been really hurting on that part. So that will fix that problem. All right there. So that’s pretty cool.

Ronn: You got a lot of, I know you got a lot of aha moments at that when you said that, and even comments about the complex word. It doesn’t have to be complex. How’s that?

Martin: Yeah, no, it was, it was a great experience overall, I love speaking at the conference, I love meeting new people. And you know, it’s a good mix of people, the most attendees ever, you do have a lot of people that come there year after year, but then you always have a new group of just first timers. And then they continue on, and we build like this nice little social media and multifamily community. So, the community is strong, and it’s 10 years old. And so, I’m looking forward to see where it goes over the next decade.

Ronn: Absolutely know for sure. We’re very proud to be part of it.

Martin: So, any closing thoughts from on your end?

Ronn: Well, I just want to say thank you to everybody listening today, we definitely want to have, like I mentioned, some digestible bites for you guys, today was built in and around this social media conference and things going on here. Any feedback you guys have for us, we’re very much open. Hopefully, most of our audience knows how to reach us. If you don’t, we have information on afterwards. But I just think that we’re really focused on bringing information to the forefront, sharing some insight and coming from Martin and some other guest speakers that we’re going to have. Speaking of guest speakers, if there’s anybody in the audience that has a topic they’d like to discuss, or be a guest speaker themselves, or know someone who is a really good speaker and has things to share. Our world is moving fast. We know that, that’s why we rebooted the podcast, we want to get some good, digestible information out there. There’s a lot of noise also in and around marketing multifamily, all of the above. So, we want to kind of be an authoritative figure to help bring the right news to you. So, I just want to say thank you on behalf of myself and Martin.

Martin: Yeah, well, so there you have it. So, if you need to reach out to us, you can go to multifamily podcast.com. And you can send us your contact info and any ideas you have for the podcast or any questions. Also, please don’t hesitate to leave us a transparent review on iTunes or any other podcasting platform, you know, Spotify, and some of the other ones, you know, feel free to be transparent. We’re always trying to improve the experience. You know, I just updated my mic here, we’re doing things, little things here, every show, we’re going to try to make little enhancements to make the experience a little bit better. So, you know, feel free to also get your free marketing analysis. If you have any kind of community website, you want to get a benchmark and see where you guys and how you’re performing now go to apartment seo.com And feel free to submit a free marketing analysis and you know, we can personally review it together. So yeah, that’s all I have. So, until next time, I guess we’ll catch you later.

Ronn: Sounds good. Bye, guys.

Martin: Bye, Ron.

Ronn: Bye.